Odessa
I wake up with a headache from hell.
Groaning, I roll over and reach for the water bottle I keep beside the bed. My hand hits the floor and I fumble around for a little while, but it’s not there. Did I seriously move it? Why would I do that? Usually, I’m great about making sure I have an easy way to stay hydrated when I’m up late reading books. Slowly, I manage to open one eye and then the other, and I peek over the edge of the bed.
Nope.
No water bottle.
Also, since when did I have hardwood floors?
I reach down and touch the floor. Where there used to be pale beige carpet is now a deep mahogany hardwood.
Fuck.
I’m not at home.
A million scenarios run through my head and none of them are good. I’m not sure where I am or how I ended up here, but I need to leave. I need to get home. It’s the day after Christmas and I’m supposed to meet with my dad and my little brothers for lunch. It’s this weird family tradition we have where we meet for pizza on Boxing Day. My mom started it when she was still alive. We’d spend Christmas Eve with Dad’s family and Christmas Day with Mom’s family and on the 26th of December, we’d all hang out together.
Now, even though she’s gone, we still carry on the tradition of meeting for lunch.
Only I’m not at home, I’m not dressed, I don’t have keys, and I don’t know where my phone is.
“Fuck,” I say out loud.
“Oh, hey,” I hear a feminine voice in the hallway. The bedroom door opens and my friend Piper peeks in. “You’re awake,” she says, coming into the room. Then I realize I’m in her guest bedroom. I’ve never actually been in this room, I don’t think. That’s why it’s so unfamiliar, despite having been to Piper’s home.
“Uh, yeah,” I say, still not quite remembering how I ended up here.
“I hope you slept okay,” Piper says.
She doesn’t even blink at seeing me sprawled out naked on her guest room bed. Piper and I play at the same sex club: we’ve seen it all before.
“Here,” Piper hands me a couple of pills and a glass of water. “Thought you might need these.”
Gratefully, I accept the medicine and the water. I swallow the pills and then proceed to finish the entire glass of water. I don’t feel too nauseous, so I don’t think I’m going to throw up. I’m definitely hung over, but it seems to all be centered on my head.
“What am I doing at your house, Piper?” I ask, looking up at her.
She raises an eyebrow.
“I mean, thank you for the water and everything, but why am I here?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I do not.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Crying in the parking lot at Anchored.” I shake my head and instantly regret it. Pain blooms.
“Woah,” Piper says. “You need to lie down. Close your eyes, and I’ll tell you everything.”
I lie back on the bed and close my eyes. Instantly, the pain lessons. It’s not gone, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was just a few minutes ago.
“You said you had some sort of altercation with someone at the club,” Piper says. “You didn’t tell me exactly what happened. You just said you were upset. ‘Super pissed,’ is the terminology you used, actually. I called June, who is now engaged by the way, but she said nothing happened, as far as she could tell. I got the feeling she was sort of distracted, though, so I called Christina, and she said she saw you talking with Jasper, and then you got upset and left. She called you a few times, by the way,” Piper hands me my phone.
“Did you charge this?” I ask. It should have been dead by now, but it’s at full bars.
Again, she raises that perfectly manicured eyebrow.
“Thank you,” I squeak out.
“What happened, Odessa? You showed up here, completely inconsolable, and then you drank two bottles of wine while you cried on my couch.”
Suddenly, small snippets of the night come back to me.
“Oh, fuck,” I say. “I sang, didn’t I?”
“You did,” she says. “And I have to admit, I’ve never heard anyone sing Under the Sea quite like you.”
That’s because I made it into a striptease.
Fuck.
I came to Piper’s house, got super fucked up, danced to music from The Little Mermaid soundtrack, took off all of my clothes, and then crawled upstairs to her guest bedroom.
“Where’s Maddox?” I manage to squeak out. Did he see me in my moment of glory?
“Don’t worry. He went to bed before you hit the second bottle of wine.”
Somehow, that’s a little bit of a relief.
“Thanks for taking care of me,” I whisper.
“Hey,” Piper says gently. I hear her sitting down beside the bed, and then she takes my hand. She squeezes it. “I’m here for you, Odessa.”
“I saw Jasper last night.”
“I gathered that. Christina didn’t hear what you guys were talking about, but I assume it wasn’t good.”
Piper knows how hurt I was when he ghosted. She knows how much pain I was in, how sad I felt, and how I questioned so many different things. I don’t know if he vanished because the sex was bad or if it’s because he didn’t want to be in an interracial relationship. I don’t know if it had something to do with anything I said. Maybe he just figured it was a one-time deal. Maybe not, but it hurt.
“I thought I’d managed to work through all of my feelings.”
“But when you saw him, everything came rushing back,” Piper says kindly. “I get it, honey.”
“He didn’t seem to know I was even hurt, Piper.”
“Guys are dumb sometimes.”
“He’s a Dom, though. He’s supposed to be extra sensitive to a submissive’s feelings.”
“Even good Doms make poor choices sometimes.”
“Maybe.”
“Look, Odessa,” Piper says carefully. “Everyone makes mistakes. Maybe you should just talk to him. Not at the club,” she adds. “But you could go out for lunch or meet up for coffee or something. Maybe he could tell you what happened that night or maybe it’ll just give you some closure. I’m not sure. I do know that you’re a good person, sweetie, and you don’t deserve to hurt like this.”
“I feel really dumb,” I whisper.
“You aren’t dumb, Odessa.”
The tears start falling, and I hate that. I hate feeling this regret, this anxiety. I hate knowing that Jasper and I were together exactly one time, and somehow, I managed to make things really weird and uncomfortable and awkward between us.
Piper sighs. “Maybe there’s a reasonable explanation,” she says.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” she shrugs. “Maybe his mom got sick and he had to go take care of her.”
“He still could have called.”
“I know.”
“You know what, though?”
“What’s that, hon?”
“I’ve got you, and I’ve got June, and I’ve got some amazing friends, and I don’t need to be sad about this anymore. In a couple of weeks, I’m starting graduate school. I’m pulling myself up by my boot strings and I’m doing something incredible for myself. I think that’s something to be proud of. Don’t you?”
“You know it, Odessa. You know it.”
I have a feeling that this wound is going to hurt for a very long time, but somehow, I think it’s going to be okay. I’ve had plenty of one-night experiences and it’s almost always been with people from Anchored, but usually there’s some follow-up. Usually, there’s aftercare. Maybe we’ll have breakfast or meet up for lunch a week later. We always text and we’re always polite to each other at the club. There’s a certain code of conduct that comes with sleeping with someone at Anchored, and I think I had expectations that simply weren’t met.
And that’s the problem with not communicating.
He might not even know that I wanted a text.
He might honestly just not have expected any of that, so can I really be mad at Jasper for that? Do I really want to spend the rest of my life being upset over some random guy?
No.
I don’t.
“Okay,” I say to Piper. “I’m ready to get up and face the world.”
“That’s my brave girl,” she says, and somehow, when it’s Piper who says it, it doesn’t seem like she’s being condescending or mean or rude. She’s just being herself. She’s just being the sweetest damn girl in the world, and I am lucky to call her my friend.
I stand up and Piper smiles.
“Breakfast?” She asks.
“Shower first,” I say.
“You know where it is.”
I nod and head out of the bedroom and down the hall to Piper’s guest bathroom. I close the door behind me, start the shower, and climb in. The water hits me, but I don’t cry. Not anymore. Not today.
I’m done crying over Jasper.
It’s a new day, and I’m ready for a fresh start.
Everything is going to be okay.