Rose
January...
It's kind of funny. This wild night started with my hankering for a cigarette and now it was going to end the same way. Well, actually I'm not really craving one at the moment but it was the only ice breaking excuse I could think of to get away. I ran from home last night looking to escape from my problems and the mess going on in my head and now I was running from my escape in order to go home.
Everything is just a mess. Man, I wish I had a cigarette.
The thing about escaping life and all its problems for even just a few hours is that when it ends, when I can no longer run and hide in a temporary safe haven, when I have to face reality again, it's like coming down from the ultimate high, crashing ungracefully back into the everyday world. That's how I feel right now anyway; like I'm crashing and there isn't anyone to catch me, to patch me up and make me feel better even in the simplest way. There isn't anyone here to lie and tell me that it'll all be okay.
Well, Mia's here, thankfully. I had lied about my ride being from Lyft because it seemed lame to say that I have my roommate coming to pick me up and piece me back together from a one night stand turn awkward. It sounds like a stupid thing to lie about now that I think about it but whatever.
"Happy New Year, Sunshine. What kind of wild night did you have last night and why wasn't I apart of it?" Mia asked as I climbed into the car. From the looks of her, Mia looks like she's only just barely starting to recover from whatever debauchery she got into last night. You and me both sister.
She leaned around me, looking out the window and then at her front windshield taking in the secluded area. I leaned my head back against the headrest and closed my eyes, smiling softly at her comment.
"You were having a little private party of your own with those two guys last night when I left so I figured you wouldn't be interested."
"You said you were just going out for a smoke and then you disappear the entire night, you send Liss some vague text about hanging with Mase and Eddie which was clearly a lie because there's no way Mase and Eddie would ever score a place like this on a dope dealers salary- they're not even good dope dealers. And what the hell happened to your face?" She asks leaning forward to see the scrape against my cheek from Celeste last night. I shrug, leaning my head back against the headrest. "You ask me to pick you up from some ritzy beach house the following day and you look well worn out which means you didn't sleep a wink last night so yeah, I'd say I'm totally interested. I want details, pronto!"
Details. How do I explain? Last night I had told her I just needed some air and maybe a smoke but here we are the morning after and she's picking me up at some random house on the other side of town. Mia's always been as outgoing and party loving as me but I just don't think she'll understand. I don't even completely understand why I felt so restless last night. I just knew I had to leave, I had to disappear even if it was just for a while. I can be vague, tell her I just needed to get away for a bit but the reasons I had to get away are a whole other mess of issues entirely. Was it too late to go back inside to Dimitri's place and hide out for a bit longer? Considering the way we left things, I'd say so.
"It's a long story," I breathe out, not ready to go into all the nitty gritty details just yet. If ever.
"Uh uh, chica. That isn't gonna fly," she opposed, raising one dark blonde brow into a stubborn arch, daring me to refuse offering any form of explanation. "Not with me and definitely not with Liss. She nearly had a coronary when she realized you didn't come home last night."
Damn. There was no way out of this without explaining myself. They wouldn't understand. They've never understood but that's mostly my fault for not talking to them, for being unable to explain why I'm a mess. I'm not even sure why I'm a mess. I mean I have a general idea why but nothing concrete.
Given my track record over the years, they had good cause to worry, judge, and hold my past against me. And it wasn't like I made the best decision by going home with a guy from a bar I didn't know. Still, I'm perfectly capable of berating my own stupid decisions. I don't need the two mother hens doing it too.
Mia shoved her bangs out of her face and sighed as she stubbornly grabbed both sides of the steering wheel as though refusing to budge until I said something.
"Oh my gosh can you just drive and I'll explain later," I hastily urged. I didn't dare look to see if maybe there was a possibility Dimitri was looking out his window, wondering why my ride was idling in front of his house. The last thing I needed was for him to come outside to see what was wrong.
She pressed her thin lips into a firm line and hmph-ed but thankfully she shifted gears and pulled out and away from the beach house paradise. Thankfully, she doesn't say much of anything once we start driving. As grateful as I am for her silence it also has me on edge. A quiet Mia is unusual because Mia always has something to say about everything whether we want to hear it or not. Maybe this time is different because she wants me to do some explaining, something I just don't think I can do. How do I describe feeling so desperately alone that I went out basically looking for trouble? I knew the odds of running into Celeste at that bar. I knew the likelihood that we'd argue and fight. I voluntarily went home with a stranger. Someone smart and sane just doesn't do those things no matter how restless I might have felt. I had told Dimitri to take care of himself - the constant look in his eyes throughout our time together, the shouldered weight he seemed to carry with him, I was familiar with both of those burdens - but do I do any better in caring for myself? How do I explain that I make stupid decisions because I'm such a mess?
Just like your mother.
Celeste's words flit around in my head. It was a low blow. She wasn't wrong. I'm not deluded enough anymore to try to say any different than the truth of her words. Knowing the truth hurts though. What's worse is that I'm not just like my mother, I'm becoming like her. Who's to say I might turn out even worse.
I slouch down in my seat, letting the low hum of Mia's Infinity calm me down, pulling me away from that line of thought. Her silence is a blessing at the moment.
"Liss is going to tear you a new one," she says suddenly.
Seems I spoke too soon.
"Probably," I agree.
"I just hope you have a good story to tell her."
"So do I." I could feel her gaze linger on me longer than it should have for someone who was driving but she didn't press me for any details. "I'm surprised she hadn't been calling."
"Oh she has been," Mia says nonchalantly as she runs a hand through her matted and tangled hair. She must have jumped right of bed to come pick me up because she's only wearing a sleep shirt, slippers, and sporting a serious case of bedhead. "I put my phone on silent after texting her that you were safe. I figure anything she has to say to you will be best said in person."
Fair enough. I wonder if I should just call her over the phone and lessen her anger a bit before seeing her at home but I decided against it, wanting to just face any anger she has head on.
"Exit here," I instructed as we approached an off-ramp.
"Why?" she asked, reasonably confused since we lived at least another ten exits away.
"My car is still parked at the bar I went to."
I feel her stare again but she doesn't say anything until we pulled up to the bar parking lot where a few early morning stragglers were either leaving from the night before or just starting their day.
"You leave without telling anyone and this is where you came to?"
I just sigh as I reach to grab my purse and start to open the door. She wouldn't understand.
"I didn't realize I have to report every time I leave the house."
"Come on, Ro," she calls before I can climb out. "No you don't have to give a report whenever you wanna do something like disappear for an entire night but think of it as a courtesy to me and Liss. You'd be freaking out too if one of us did one of your disappearing acts."
No, I wouldn't be freaking out because Mia and Liss never do stuff like this. They're smart, they don't make spontaneous spur of the moment decisions that could get them into trouble or leave them feeling like crap the next morning.
"I'll meet you back at the house," I say as I climb out of the car. I've never felt so cheap in my life, doing the walk of shame the first morning of a new year.
It's during the drive home that my nerves start to get the better of me. Making up excuses to Mia is one thing. Making up excuses for Liss is a whole other can of worms. She's that one friend with the motherly tendencies that nearly every friend group has. It doesn't help that she's not only my overprotective best friend, but she's also my cousin, the last family member I have. Avoiding her calls last night was insult enough but the fact that I'll have to lie to her, that I don't have a plausible excuse for my disappearance last night without going into all the other issues I've been dealing with in my head, is like a slap to the face. If the barrage of texts, voicemails, and missed calls that flooded my phone earlier are any indication she isn't just going to be mad or annoyed or upset. She's going to be pissed.
I sighed as I pulled onto our street in one of the modest parts of town, mostly for middle class families where modern colonial homes that were all painted some slightly variant shade of the same dull beige color. The house used to be Lissa's family home filled to the brim with kids, animals, and all the noise a happy home full of people could make. Now it was just a two story shell of horrible memories that neither Liss or I could untie ourselves from. It was just the two of us living there now. Well, the two of us plus Mia.
There's no avoiding this. Especially since Lissa's Camry was sitting in the driveway. And pacing in front of that Camry, looking like she was getting ready to hop in and come looking for me and Mia herself, was my cousin. She froze mid pace, her steely green gaze ablaze with emotion: irritation, exasperation, rage...She folded her arms across her pajama top in the mother of all motherly poses.
Crap.
I hesitated for only a second, weighing whether it'd be too late to turn this puppy around and make a break for it, before deciding that she was close enough to her own car to follow me and hunt me down. Plus I was sure Mia would aid her in my capture. I hopped out of my jeep, heels in hand and folded myself against the chilly cold and snow that blanketed the ground beneath my bare feet.
Lissa and I both opened our mouths to speak but Mia, who had pulled her car in right behind mine hurried over in her slippers and interrupted first, placing her self right between us like a referee. The angry look on Lissa's face versus the attitude I'd been sporting earlier, yeah we'd need a referee.
"Before either of you says anything, I want to point out that it's a new year, we're all tired, maybe hungry, in desperate need of coffee, and little hungover."
Liss and I both glanced over at our pixie haired friend. Between the three of us she was clearly the only one hungover. I may have killed a bottle of Vodka last night but I had a better tolerance for that sort of thing. I didn't feel worse for wear. No worse than I usually did anyway. And Liss rarely drank but when she did it was moderately. Even on New Year's Eve.
"Okay, maybe the hungover only applies to me but whatever. We should all go inside, get some rest, get cleaned up and talk about this later."
That sounded like a good plan. Except for one thing.
"There's nothing to talk about," I stubbornly said, brushing past both of them and into the toasty, warm house, listening to Lissa sputter angrily to Mia about my attitude and nonchalance behind me.
"How can she say that!?"
I climbed the stairs up to my room and collapsed on the bed, counting how long it would take for one or both of them to appear. I laid there for exactly a minute and sixteen seconds before the bedroom door opened.
"I just wanna take a nap," I pleaded, forcing all of the exhaustion into my voice, hoping to elicit some sympathy considering my night of fun hadn't gone exactly as I had planned.
"So do I," Lissa started, "because I'm a little tired myself. You know why?"
"Christian kept you up all night?"
She ignored that. "I'm tired because my cousin, who has a history of disappearing for long periods of time and getting into trouble, disappeared last night and didn't think to call or text to tell either of us where she was?!" she exclaimed walking around to the side of the bed so that I could see just how upset her face was. Her pale, porcelain skin was flushed red, from both anger and the cold I guessed.
"I texted you," I pointed out. "I told you I was with Masen and Eddie."
"Yeah you did but it wasn't very reassuring to get a text saying that you were hanging out with those two potheads."
They were more than potheads but I didn't think now was the time to try and defend people I somewhat considered friends.
"I was fine. I was alive. I went to a friends' house and crashed there."
"Well it would have been nice to know that last night instead of that vague message you sent," she countered.
I sat up and rolled over, scooting to the head of my bed. It was hard arguing while I was face-planted on my mattress.
"You know what would be even nicer? If the two of you took the time to remember I can take care of myself."
"Barely," she grumbled. I ignored that.
"I don't need to be talked down to like a child. Mia already did that for you on the way here. I'm an adult too, Liss."
"Really? Because you sure don't act like it."
I could see the regret in her eyes the moment the words left her mouth. I can't blame her for how she feels but it doesn't mean her words don't gut me. I know they worry. I've given them plenty reason to over the years; disappearing sometimes for days, late night calls from a hospital or the police, the drinking, the drugs...yeah I'd say they have great reason to nag and be overbearing. Doesn't mean I have to like it. I've been getting better. I've been trying. Not very hard but I've at least been trying. Her emerald gaze softened a fraction of an inch and her shoulders slumped. The bed dipped where she sat beside me. I looked at my platinum haired, green-eyed beauty of a cousin. She looked tired which didn't surprise me because the girl worked like crazy in school while still trying to make time for her long time boyfriend Christian and her part-time job while interning for a law firm. Exhaustion was becoming a permanent feature on her pretty face. So was disappointment. Or maybe that was only when she looked at me.
"What's your deal Liss? I'm having a little bit of fun," I said with a bit of a laugh, instilling a lighthearted tone into the air but it was hard to given her deadpan expression. "You know, you're face is going to get stuck like that if you don't learn to smile once in awhile."
She ignored me, her scowl deepening. "Where were you?"
Right then, I could have just stuck to my original plan and lied to her. The way her dark brows furrowed together and her eyes glistened with genuine concern, I couldn't bring myself to do it.
"I just needed some air and...I don't know. I ended up at this bar-"
"A bar?" she asked incredulously. Her eyes suddenly narrowed in suspicion. "Please tell me you didn't go to that rat hole that Celeste hangs around?"
My silence was answer enough.
"Rose! Why would you-"
I shrugged. "I don't know. I just ended up there and then we got into an argument and-"
"She did that to your face I'm guessing?" She asked, gesturing to the mark on my cheek.
I didn't bother nodding. Liss knew from experience that Celeste was the aunt from hell. What my cousin didn't need to know was that the scratch to the face came after I threw my drink at Celeste. "After Rob kicked Celeste out for wacking me across the face, I met this guy and we hit off and I wenthomewithhim," I rushed to finish but I shouldn't have bothered. From the way her eyes widened impossibly larger, she heard every word I'd said.
"You went home with a stranger you met at some dive bar?"
"Isn't that better than hanging with Eddie and Mase?" I countered, hoping to lessen her anger even the slightest bit. I didn't like it when Liss or Mia were mad at me. They were the only two people in my life that I have.
"Not really," she snapped. "At least I know Eddie and Masen. I'd be able to tell the police the most likely places to find your body if you ever went missing with them. But some stranger..."
"He was a nice guy and he was cute and funny and we were a little tipsy..." I trailed off leaving the rest to her imagination. My cousin was nothing if not a prude when it came to talking about sex. "I was fine and I only lied because I didn't want you to worry nor did I feel like explaining and I shouldn't have done that so I'm sorry for lying and not checking in but I need you to trust me, Liss. I'm not that unstable teenager I used to be anymore. I'm not exactly perfect but I'm better now. I'm an adult and I can handle myself." Lissa softened enough that she uncrossed her arms and breathed out slowly through her nose. An apology goes a long way with her. "I still make spur of the moment stupid decisions that end up being a mistake but they're my mistakes to make. You can't protect me forever."
"I should have protected you the first time," she murmured. "When we were kids," she added as though I could ever forget our less than stellar childhood. I didn't have anything to say to that. When we were kids, barely teenagers, we'd already been through so much, both together and alone. I was in trouble and needed help but Lissa was suffering too, trying to survive on her own. She couldn't have saved me any more than I could have saved her if the roles had been reversed. Now wasn't the time to rehash the past. I certainly didn't want to talk about it. Not now. Not ever if I could manage it. "Then maybe you wouldn't be like this...maybe you'd be different."
I shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not." The Maybe Game was a favorite pastime of mine. It sent my thoughts into a never ending cycle of headaches thinking of all the what ifs and maybes. Maybe I would be different, maybe even better. There wasn't anything I could do about it now though. The past was the past. There was no changing that. "But I'm not so bad now."
"No, not bad. I just want you to be safe and to take better care of yourself." I opened my mouth to argue but she cut me off. "And don't tell me you already do because going out all night with some stranger is not taking care of yourself."
She had a point.
"I just don't want you to get hurt."
"The guy from last night, he was a pretty big guy but he was basically a teddy bear." She looked at me like I was crazy. "I can't explain it but I just...I knew he wouldn't hurt me. It was just sex."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"No. It's supposed to remind you that I like to go out sometimes and have fun with people who aren't my roommates."
Her scowl was completely gone now. She might have even been ready to smile.
"And this is your idea of fun?"
"Sex? Hell yeah," I answered confidently and her lips actually stretched into a bit of a smile. "If sex isn't on your list of fun things to do then I think I need to sit down and have a talk with you and the boyfriend because you may not be doing it right."
She gasped out a laugh and leaned back beside me against the headboard of my bed.
"We do it fine, thank you very much."
"Just fine?"
"Rose," she sighed, embarrassed but still laughing.
"If you say so."
We sat quietly for a moment, tapping our feet together side by side like we used to.
"Soooo...this guy from last night, what was he like?"
If she needed more details to feel better about my disappearing act last night then I was willing to give them. Besides, it felt good to talk about it.
"He was...something," I said vaguely. She sat beside me, waiting for me to elaborate but I didn't. There wasn't anyway I could think to describe last night and everything I was feeling.
"Are you going to see him again?" she pressed on for more info. "Will I be able to meet him?"
I laughed this time. "So that you can lecture him picking up girls like me in crappy bars? No way. Besides it was just one night." It hit me than that I probably wouldn't ever see him again. He was a doctor that traveled the world helping people, I was a temp for some agency that found me jobs that no one else wanted to do; he lives near the coast while I stay in the suburbs. We were two people from completely different circles that just happened to cross paths one night. The thought made me a little sad.
"From the look on your face and that dreamy tone in your voice it almost sounds like you really liked him. Are you sure it was just one night?"
"Of course. Don't you know the rules of one night stands?"
"No but you do apparently," she muttered. If her comment hadn't been so dead on, I might have been offended.
"True," I acknowledged.
"Well then enlighten me, oh slutty one, what are the rules?"
I laughed at Lissa's dry humor that mirrors my own. It runs in the family actually, one of the few traits we have in common. Liss was one of only two people—the other being the third member of our trio, Mia—that could jokingly label me for my sex-capades and getaway with it.
"It's pretty self explanatory: no strings attached, no hurt feelings, no one gets hurt."
"Are you allowed to like the person - or should I say stranger - you're sleeping with?" she asked with a disbelieving laugh, as though the whole concept was ridiculous to her. She's had the same boyfriend her entire life. It's not hard to see why this is so difficult for her to grasp.
"Yeah, you can like them."
"And did you like him?" I realized I didn't acknowledge her comment about liking Dimitri before. I guess it wouldn't hurt to admit that much.
"He was different and..." I shook my head trying to get my thought into order. Dimitri was what? Kind? Gentle? Fun? Charming? All of those things and then some? Definitely the last one. "Yeah I think I liked him a little," I admitted, muttering the last part of my admission so low I figured Liss wouldn't have heard. Her eyes widened like an owl's again and her jaw dropped open. She heard me loud and clear.
I couldn't blame her for being surprised. Admitting I liked someone was about as rare as finding a four-leaf clover; it never happened.
"You haven't liked anyone since Ralph in kindergarten," Lissa pointed out with a little nervous laugh.
"I told you, I never liked Ralph," I said indignant. "His mom just always packed him mini-doughnuts for lunch."
Lissa's light bubbly titter filled the room. "Ralph is a third year at Harvard right now with an internship at one of the most prestigious firms in the state but okay, you didn't have any real feelings for him," Lissa sobered after a minute of laughing. "But I don't think you have real feelings for this guy, this stranger, either," she added, more serious now.
"You're not going to let me live down the fact that he was a stranger are you?"
"Going to bring it up every chance I get," she replied. "It just doesn't make sense me that you can give yourself to someone you just met and end up liking that person when you don't even really know them. Not in one night."
"A night and a day," I stubbornly corrected. "It's not like I'm confessing my love for him or anything like that. I'm not even going to see him again. Maybe like wasn't the right word. It's crazy to feel anything for him but attraction, I know, but-"
"No. No buts. It is probably just attraction or something. You can't possibly have feelings for a guy that you met once and had sex with once!"
It was more than once but she didn't need to know that right now.
"Liss, you make it sound so cheap," I joked. "I told you I know it's crazy."
There were never any secrets between us, ever but I don't know how to explain what I felt toward Dimitri. It wasn't something that was easily describable and too personal. Even to Liss. Either way, I know I sound crazy. And pathetic. Definitely pathetic. Admitting to having feelings for a guy I met once was insane.
"It was just sex. I know that. I think it's that...I get him in a sense. I mean, I know I don't know him but I understand a little bit why he was drinking in the bar by himself last night and why he was willing to leave with a girl he didn't know. Other than the fact that he's a guy," I added. "It's easier." Easier to run away and hide out in a bar and bury yourself in some stranger than facing whatever problems you have in the real world. I didn't elaborate on that for Liss. That bit I kept to myself.
"Easier doesn't always mean better."
"Maybe it does for some people. It's just weird finding someone I can kind of relate to."
From the look on her face I could see she still didn't get and she probably never would. She wasn't there, she didn't talk to him, she didn't know what I was feeling and what a sort of relief it was to have fun with someone that didn't know every horrible detail of my life. She would never really understand what it felt like feeling so hollow and trying to escape from it. It wasn't that she didn't have her own painful memories to deal with. It just always felt like she dealt with the bad memories in much healthier way than I ever could.
Lissa raised her dark brows incredulously. "All the guys you've been with over the years and this is the first one that you think is just like you?"
"Yes, actually. The other guys were in it just for the sex just like I was, for the easy fun, but this was more...intense. Maybe because he was older..." I surmised.
"How old?" Lissa pressed, concern lacing her voice.
"Not that old. I meant he wasn't just messing around. He was a man than knew what he wanted and, even better, cared about what I wanted. He knew what he was doing."
"So your other one night stands, hookups, whatever, didn't know what they were doing?" Lissa kind of laughed.
"Some of them eventually figured it out after a few awkward and unpleasant tries but it took them awhile."
"So is that what this is about? Finding the perfect stranger that knows how to make you feel good?"
That was part of it, I guess, but not really. I knew Liss wouldn't get it.
"You just don't get it," I sighed solemnly.
"You're right, I don't get it. I don't understand why you go out looking for trouble or take this big risks that could put you in danger. You were in the same class as I was when we had sex-ed. It wasn't explained differently to you than it was to me, you know the physical, emotional, and mental risks of sexual encounters like this! You could get an STD, end up pregnant, become depressed and die," she listed, counting off each of the potential risks on her perfectly manicured fingers. "I just don't understand why you do this to yourself!I don't get how you use your body to try to make whatever's going on inside your head feel better." It wasn't about feeling better. It was about ignoring everything inside of me completely. Could that be what was so different with Dimitri? He didn't just distract me from my problems. He made me feel good, great even. I actually felt kind of...okay for once.
"You're being overdramatic."
"No, I'm being overprotective," Lissa sighed and then she sat ramrod straight as though something just occurred to her. She turned suddenly to sit on her knees so that her entire body was facing me. "Are you like this because...because of what happened...because of...is this because of Janine?"
I felt my body twitch and hoped Liss didn't notice my reaction. I opened my eyes, not realizing I had closed them the moment the words left Liss's mouth. Whatever confusions, annoyance, and outrage that plagued her before completely disappeared from her face as she sat there, gauging my reaction waiting for a response. The silence was suddenly so deafening and long, time standing still. She knew the rules, unspoken though they may be. We didn't talk about this. We don't talk about her. The past was just that, the past, meant to be forgotten and never brought up again.
"No more trying to psychoanalyze. No more therapy or lecturing or chastising or whatever this is," I said in a tone that I hoped could only be interpreted as final. "I'm really tired," I said, hoping she use that as a opportunity to leave and forget she brought up the very thing I struggle damn hard to forget about on a daily basis.
She didn't. She was still kneeling beside me. I wasn't looking at her anymore. I couldn't. If I did she'd be able to see it, the pain in my eyes, the barely there thread of sanity that was hardly keeping me together. I focused on the blank walls of my bedroom, fighting the urge the blink in case any tears decided to squeeze themselves out. Lissa just sat there, quiet probably trying to decided whether she could push the issue without making me shut down any more than I already had by bringing it up in the first place.
I want her to leave. I need her to leave. I need to sleep, to push away all the thoughts and memories her words evoked; push them into the nice tiny space I stored them in the back of my mind where I forgot about them if I tried hard enough. And boy have I been trying.
"Rose..."
I felt her shift and from the corner of my eye I could see her hand reaching out for me. I didn't mean to pull myself away so quickly but before I could even think about how much it would hurt her, I slid off the bed, leaving her sitting there stunned and frowning.
"You know what, this whole thing is being blown way out of proportion and I'm not really in the mood for anymore of these heart-to-hearts." I headed for my small closet, pulling out fresh clothes to change into once I showered. I could see Lissa reflected in the small mirror beside the closet door. She was as stiff as a statue, her mouth open as though an apology was ready to fall from her lips the moment she got the right words together. "Are we done here?"
My tone was curt and blunt. I knew it but I couldn't help it. I need her to leave. Once I have a little time to myself to pull the pieces that her words shattered back together, I'll be well enough to pretend it didn't happen and move on from it. She stood from the bed and headed for the door. She hesitated a second but I was already closing my bathroom door, shutting her out and locking myself in, allowing my unshed tears to fall.
A/N: Sorry dudes, for the late post (and the fact that there's lack of a Dimitri). I thought about having both of their perspectives in each chapter but I settled for alternating POVs. For the most part anyway. Your love and appreciation for this story knows no bounds! You guys rock. Til next time!