"Tell me now that you'll never leave. Always stay here with me."
—Stay Awhile, Ryan Star
Kristen's seventeen, and college is a dream, not a reality.
She works at a bar day and night, loaning herself out whenever she needs to. Sometimes, when she's half-listening to the breathing of the person beside her, she knows she's gone from you have to make good grades to you have to pretend you like it when he's inside you. It's disgusting and unfair, and all she wants is college, but she knows life isn't fair.
Kemp's eighteen, and he tends to get in the wrong crowd.
This is how he finds himself sitting at a polished table, splattering the gleaming surface with white powder. A girl—the girl, he'll learn later—swipes a rag over the alcohol he's spilled, a mess of shards dotting the floor. His companion, a nameless guy he can't even remember befriending, laughs and fishes a few dollar bills out of his wallet. "You want her?" the guy asks. "I'll pay."
He never remembers saying yes in the haze of smoke and whiskey.
Somehow, they end up in a bed in the back of the bar together, and he's telling himself he can't help it if he enjoys touching her. She plasters on a porcelain smile that manages to fool him, and he thinks that her breasts have to be the most beautiful thing in the world. He shoves a drink into her hand, thinking she's already wasted, but she's not. She pushes his hand away.
"Why not?"
"It's wrong," she says. She's in this job for the money, but drinking for no reason except enjoying it doesn't make her any better than the person beside her, running his hand through her hair and flicking his tongue around her mouth.
Later, when he's had enough drinks he can't even see her and has convinced himself she looks like some sort of supermodel, she traces the veins showing on his pale arm. She explains her dreams, how she has to go to college and her parents will probably disown her if she doesn't. She wants to learn, she wants to be beautiful and rich and better.
She tells this to every man who has climbed into this bed, as long as they're so drunk and high they can't tell what she's saying. She would never give a piece of herself away like that under normal circumstances.
"I think you deserve that," and his words are slurred but he's definitely listening and she screams because she doesn't want this man to know her. Her hands fly to her ears, pressing hard so maybe, maybe she can crush her skull. Maybe she can damage her brain enough to believe this never happened.
"Hey—hey, it's okay," he says, pulling her back down and wow, she really is pretty. "I don't want to own you or anything—" He tries to grab her flailing arm when she knocks over a tray of empty glasses, and then she's crying because surely someone will hear the crash of glass and she'll get fired. "Kristen. I promise it's okay."
Later, she'll look back with a cringe and realize he's the first person of all those men that knows her name. But right now, she's sobbing and she needs comfort, but it will not be from this man. I'm not you, I'm not yours—she squeezes her eyes shut and tries to get out of bed, but he grips her wrist. It's not strong, just loose enough for her to tear herself away if she wants to, but she hesitates.
"Stay," he pleads. "Stay a while."
"Why?" she snaps, her blood turning to ice. "You just want to bang a chick. It's not like you care about me."
I do. I do. I love your dreaming and your determination and your sacrifice and it's something I'll never have. Please, please stay.
She slams the door on her way out.
He wakes up three hours later in his own apartment, a note from his "friend" on the coffee table. Cigarette ash specks the floor. He has a monster of a hangover, but nothing has changed from before.