I hate myself sometimes. Why am I like this? I'm convinced that love should be instantaneous. Attraction, at least. I know that's foolish, but I can't stop myself. I wasn’t supposed to be looking at him! Why am I thinking about him?

Last week I was at our friend Charlie’s house with Danielle so we could scope Connor out that night. Connor is her new crush. I looked like hell. I had on these old brown and orange track pants I normally saved for the house. And a grey shirt that had seen better days. My hair was in a messy bun and I had no makeup on. Like I said, I wasn’t there to impress anyone. The guys were sitting in the living room drinking beer and watching TV. Beer made me gag and I didn’t like to drink before 5 o’clock so I declined our friend Blane’s offer of a cold one. Danielle declined too since she had to drive. Danielle never spoke to Connor while we were there. She talked loudly to our guy friends, which I knew was for Connor’s benefit. I don't know why she didn’t just talk to him. She said they had texted a few times, so why not talk in person? Okay, yes, who am I to talk? I am as shy as they come without a stiff drink in me. So I stayed mostly quiet. I looked Connor over. Listened to his voice. I knew Danielle would want to dissect every inch of him as soon as we got in the car. When we left, she pointed out his own car. A beautiful black muscle car. Our guy friends talked incessantly about cars, so I understood the connection then, why he was friends with our friends. I didn’t think about Connor after I left, except when Danielle brought him up, which wasn’t often. Her crushes often come and go. When I saw him again, I reminded myself that she saw him first. I’m not an only child, but I know I’m spoiled. When I want something, I take it. Why couldn't I just leave this one alone?

“Omg Gwen, I need to show you a picture of Connor. He is so hot. We have been talking a little and I just need to see him.” That was the sentence that was bouncing around in my tipsy brain the first time Connor Stratford smiled at me. The first time he smiled and made me blush. I was pulled in, but I promise I fought a little. Or maybe I just tell myself that.

 

I was at Carmichael Jazz with all of my guy friends that brisk spring night, a burgundy and purple place that pulsed, a place I liked to lose memories in. Danielle, my friend with a crush on Connor, couldn’t come because she was only twenty at the time.

The group that night consisted of me, Charlie, Connor, Blane, and Blane. Yes, I had two guy friends with a horrible 80’s bad boy name. But I was only sleeping with one of them.

Connor was the designated driver and this was the second time I had seen him. The first being the time Danielle dragged me to a party at our friend's house so I could give my blessing on his attractiveness.

Apparently, this was a thing some girls did. I personally didn’t give a shit if my friends thought the guy I liked was hot, but whatever, to each their own.

I thought he was cute, told Danielle so, and didn’t put much thought into it past that until I saw him again. He wasn’t blonde and reed thin like I liked. But if Danielle thought he was the cat’s meow, she could go for it.

I had never heard of him and suddenly he was just there, in our group, like he had always been, infiltrating my vision.

Apparently he knew the guys from high school and was back in town, hanging out with his old friends who were my new friends, and also texting my closest female friend.

A few people in our gang were playing pool at Carmichael’s that night so we met at Blane’s house – the Blane I had been sort of sleeping with – and piled into Connor’s car.

Blues nights were my favorite. They were downtown, and I hated my part of St. Louis. The trashy part, seedy and soiled.

Our bi-monthly blues nights meant singing, dancing, and good-natured chaos. I liked that kind of chaos. I needed that kind of chaos. It kept me from my own thoughts, my own drowning. My memory lane moments. I needed voices surrounding me, voices that sounded different than the ones in my head.

My friends were stolen friends. Friends I wasn’t meant to have.

They were all people I met while with my ex-boyfriend, Avery. Avery who had dumped me last summer, stolen the light I once wore.

I wasn’t supposed to get custody of these hooligans, but somehow I did. Now Avery was on the outside, and I had the buddies he grew up with. I didn’t feel guilty about it but some said I should have made new friends. Friends that were my own. Which I thought was a pretty raw deal. I did not leave Avery. I did not cheat on Avery. I was not having a child with some new replacement. That was all him.

Back then I would have traded these friends for a moment with him again, gladly. I would have traded the laughter we were sharing to unsee the image of Avery and his fiancée. I would have traded the jokes we were passing back and forth to be the one with Avery’s child. I would have traded anything to go back, to do things right. I was a moron back then to want those things. I know that now, but I was desperate, low, and living with a sea of doubt.

The world didn’t work the way I wanted it to, and he wasn’t the first man to break me for another woman but was the first man to leave me pathetically hanging on for seven months after a breakup. Hanging on despite the new life he was creating.

We were together for two years. Moved in together after six weeks of dating. Bought a house together after three months of dating. We talked about marriage. Kids. Our future. But I never got a ring.

She had a ring. And his child in her belly. I knew that was the only reason she had that 10k gaudy rock on her finger, but I still threw up in the street the day I found out.

We had only been broken up for two and a half months. The baby and the engagement had been announced together.

It wasn’t the way I wanted our story to turn out, but back then I would have taken theirs as our own if I had one wish. I was a pathetic masochist, but at least I was honest.

So yeah, I needed the chaos of those nights with the guys. Everything quieted then. Everything stilled. I needed shots and skin. Someone to numb me.

I didn’t know who it would be that night, but Connor’s smile caught me off guard. We had only talked casually throughout the night. He would join in a conversation I was having, or I would join in on one of his. We never talked one-on-one.

I was standing against a wall in warm lighting when his eyes caught me. I had a shitty malt drink in my hand and he raised his beer to me, smiled intimately. I felt it to my toes and I smiled back, hid my mouth with the neck of the drink, and looked away.

Danielle was right. So I pulled out my phone to tell her. To encourage her to go for it. Maybe I didn’t need a cheering squad behind me when I liked a guy, but whatever.

Once my text was sent, I rounded the corner to where the restrooms were. To the right was the women’s and to the left was the men's. I shoved my phone in the back pocket of my jeans just as Blane came out of the restroom.

He winked as he passed me so I grabbed his arm and pulled him back. He had thin lips and a thin frame. He knew how to use his tongue and I appreciated the way it warmed my mouth.

I didn’t like Blane but he was a good time. My initial pursuit of him was just an act of revenge on Avery, but past that, it was fun.

Blane didn’t expect a relationship with me and I enjoyed his company. The first time we had sex, he couldn’t stay hard and ended up confessing that he felt like a shitty friend for wanting to fuck me. I appreciated the fact that he didn’t want to be a bad friend, but in the end, I convinced him to be. Besides, Avery gave me up. I belonged to no one.

When I made it into the restroom, I felt my phone vibrating in my back pocket. I found a stall and pulled up a message from Danielle as I sat down to piss. And she was pissed. Furious.

There were a few words misspelled in her text and that was unlike her. She was trashed at a party and my text surely had been met with blurry eyes and blurry comprehension.

Maybe I should have explained myself better. But short texts while drunk were the best way to go.

I looked over our conversation again.

Do what? What was I doing?

I sat on the toilet for a few minutes and stared at my phone. No little text bubbles popped up on my screen. No answer.

Someone banged on the door to my stall and I jumped. I pulled my pants up and banged on the metal door. “Calm the fuck down,” I said.

I didn’t look Connor in the eye the rest of the night, but I could sense his on me. It burned and I couldn’t take the fire, so I took shots instead. The kind of fire I could tame, could control.

Later on in the night, between the band’s sessions, I made-out with Blane in the alley outside, let him put his hands down my pants, pretending we weren’t surrounded by people walking by. As fun as that was, it didn't work to calm the buzzing just under the surface of my skin. He wasn't the vice I needed. He wouldn't work, so I sought someone else out.

Eventually, I found what I needed in my phone and ditched all of my friends for a guy I had been using for comfort since last summer, two weeks after Avery told me to pack my things.

Connor was playing pool when I walked out into the dark. He was leaning over the table, stick in hand, one eye closed. I let myself steal that look, pretend it was mine, then snapped my eyes ahead.

He didn’t hit the ball he had been aiming for, instead, stood straight, and watched me go past.

I wondered how red my cheeks were under his gaze.

I wondered if Danielle could win his affections after the way he had looked at me.