A/N: Sorry for those of you who are reading this, but I am busy. I will still be updating though, so don't worry. And I won't lie, I feel more motivated to update when I get reviews. Reactions, suggestions, requests… anything. The more detailed, the better.
Chapter 8
Applause broke out on all sides, and I forced a smile as Louis jumped off the stage and rushed toward me. 4 times my ex, and he'd put me on the spot like that? Make a scene for everyone to watch? Wasn't it our private business? He didn't really know me at all. But then, Louis never made much of an effort to get to know people without regard to himself. I'm not trying to make him sound like a bad person or anything, but he has always been unbelievably self-centered. It takes a lot for him to do something for someone else if it doesn't in some way benefit him. He has his moments though, like the time he bought Ren's old stuffed monkey-thing with his garage sale money instead of the drums he wanted, and though I want to give him the benefit of the doubt—he's a smart guy, he can think ahead, he probably knew his parent's would reward him for his shining good deed.
But then, I'd learned a lot about Ren in the time I spent alone with her, things I never assumed. The movies and music she liked, for one, came as a bit of a shock. Ren's always had a certain air of superficiality, and I can say in all honesty I always assumed her to be a Britney Spears fan, or Avril Lavigne… maybe Good Charlotte. It turns out Jeff Buckley, Radiohead, Counting Crows, and Death Cab for Cutie were her current favorites. As for movies, her taste was especially interesting at times, and often very intense—sure, she constantly brought over Romeo + Juliet and that was her favorite, but she'd come with strange rentals sometimes: lots of foreign films. The Sea Inside, Der Untergang. Or movies like 21 Grams, House of Sand and Fog, The Believer, or the last time it wasn't Romeo + Juliet, it was Mystic River—Not a date movie, let me tell you. She said her family, at least her dad and brothers didn't appreciate these films, they wanted action or stupid comedy. She liked watching them with me, with an intelligent audience she said. She liked to discuss them afterwards. When I initially asked her to pick up a movie before coming over the first time, I'd asked simply so we'd have something to do, you know, before easing into other things. I hadn't expected to have serious intellectual discussions and debates after half the films, we were supposed to make out or something, you know? That's what movies are for on dates! Not that I didn't enjoy our debates, it helped me learn a lot about Ren—her opinions, her beliefs, it gave her a depth I hadn't seen before and made her all the more attractive to me. It was like there were two sides to Ren—the 'perfect' side that everyone else saw (even her family only got this side) and the side she brought out with me. I learned about what she did for fun (and, shock of all shock, organizing things and planning them out wasn't it!). I learned how much she preferred silver to gold (I bought her a silver ring for her birthday, she always wore it—the one public display of affection I got). I learned, of course, all her political stances ( we didn't always see eye to eye there, me being a tad more liberal, but for the most part we were in agreement). I learned that, like me, she wrote in her spare time (not poetry, stories though she wouldn't let me read them… yet, she'd say).
I was drawn to Ren because she was smart and beautiful and mature, but there's plenty of people with those qualities. I fell in love with her for all her oddities: reading Shakespeare for fun, for hating mushrooms and pickles, for loving marzipan, for trying to study a page of Talmud every day and her inability to explain the point of that to me (I'm quite against religion, one of our differences), for remembering my love of white roses, for her addiction to Gilmore Girls (yeah, you can see that one, can't you?), for letting me try and teach her to snowboard, for everything that made her Ren for me, even if it wasn't Ren for anyone else.
Louis grabbed me, pulling me in for a quick kiss, the applause still encircling us. When he pulled away, and bowed to the crowd, I glanced around looking for Ren. But she was already gone, and a heavy feeling within told me I'd screwed things up this time.
After the dance, Louis and I headed to a party Twitty was throwing—his parents were out of town, and I was surprised to see Ren there as well. Ruby was arguing with her over something, quietly in the corner before Ren rushed away from her, angry.
Why go to a party after a dance? It's just extending the misery… I suppose some people like it though. Masochists.
I spent a good portion of the time debating how to break up with Louis (I was spared more PDA with him courtesy of the abundance of alcohol available). He was drunk in no time and I managed to persuade Tom to drive him home. The thought of Tom taking advantage of drunken Louis briefly flickered through my mind and I found myself laughing, rather hysterically. I had avoided the known alcohol, but apparently I'd managed to down some anyway. I stopped when I caught sight of Ren, in a corner making out with Amy. I suppose the heavy sinking feeling in my gut I experienced right then was a small taste of how she'd felt a couple hours before…
At that moment, the prospect of losing myself in a drunken oblivion was particularly attractive that evening, and so, I figured why stop now that someone got me started? It took several minutes to force my eyes off the two of them, and I made my way to the kitchen to get in on some of the booze.
In public! She was making out with Amy Johnson in public! She wouldn't even hold hands with me in public! It didn't occur to me then that Ren was likely heavily under the influence, and weighted down by the image of me and her brother.
This is where my memory starts to blur.
I started drinking, watching Ren with increasing envy. And the next thing I know I'm in a bedroom with someone. We're both drunk, I think. Laughing, undressing each other. Kissing, touching, all over. We're in bed, doing things I'd assumed would take years to get Ren to do, though the thought flashed through my mind—and this I remember clearly—she was probably with Amy in the next room doing the same thing! I took out all my aggression on the girl in bed with me then (nothing too violent, don't get the wrong idea). I think we both enjoyed it, but I'm not too sure. All the images from that night are hazy.
The next clear memory I have is the following morning. I'm lying in the bed next to someone; I can feel the body pressed against my back. It's definitely a woman's. I wonder if that's better or worse, as slight recollection of the previous night trickles into my head. Her slender arms are wrapped around me, our fingers are interlocked near the mattress edge.
As my vision focuses, I recognize a very familiar silver ring on the right hand…
