44. Bash
Bash
I usually don’t mind a party every now and then, especially when there’s an event happening on campus, or I know other friends will be there who won’t be drinking either, makes it a little less pathetic, you know, being the only one there sober.
I don’t live at parties anymore like I used to, spending every free night I had at one. When you take the drinking, drugs, and sex out, there’s not much left that’s appealing.
Yet, here I am now, at one. To be honest, I didn’t think it was a good idea for me to come tonight.
There’s just too much going on in my head right now, and the temptation of an easy and quick fix that I know alcohol or cocaine—that I’m sure is hidden somewhere here in this party—or girls would give me is hard to be around.
When Mason begged me to come out with him and be the DD, I wrestled with how I was going to tell him no, but something told me to just go. That, yeah, it might be hard, and temptation would be everywhere, but I would be able to handle it, and there was a reason I needed to be there.
Apparently, God didn’t feel like giving me any exact information on why, though, so I’m kinda just stuck here, guessing while having to babysit grown adults and play chauffeur for the drunk college kids.
I’m so bored out of my mind that I’ve already made up several scenarios in my head for what the purpose of me being here could be.
I’m just trying to get my mind off the constant desire to leave this party, so I don’t do anything stupid.
It’s not like I became boring or anything when I stopped partying and became a Christian.
It just looks different now. But sometimes when I get around this scene again, I start to miss the intoxicating feeling and excitement that came with that life.
I have to keep reminding myself what comes with it, though—the comedowns, the hangovers, the lack of motivation, the selfish desires, the harmful behaviors, and the destructive behaviors that only mask the problems in the moment, just to make them louder later, making you want to repeat the cycle of shutting it off until you start to feel like it’ll never end, like you might go crazy if you have to keep living like this.
There’s this isolation that ironically comes with being in a crowd of people who are all trying to dissociate in their own way.
I’m deep in that thought, not paying attention to anything going on around me as I sip on a Red Bull when the couch dips beside me.
I look over to see a girl, probably an upperclassman if I had to guess, blonde hair with little jewels in it, sparkly eye shadow, heels that, just by looking at them, I know have to be painful, and a cup of something strong I can smell in her hand that’s now spilled on my pants.
She quickly goes to pat it away. “Crap! I’m so sorry!”
She slurs every word, and her touching my thigh isn’t overtly sexual, but the look she gives me tells me it isn’t innocent either.
“It’s alright,” I mutter, grabbing the hem of my shirt and dabbing at it myself.
I don’t want her touching me, but she keeps trying to anyway, fingers grazing my thigh, and starting to laugh loudly as she plays the apologetic, embarrassed girl part for attention.
Her breath smells like alcohol and a strong cherry lip gloss.
She gives me a playful pout face. “You’ve got such a serious face, mister.” She leans in close enough that I can see the dilation in her pupils. “I think…you need to relax a little.”
“I am relaxed,” I say flatly, but still trying to be polite.
“Hmm. Well, you’re hot,” she murmurs, still slurring as she rests her hand on my chest.
I gently remove it and give her a polite smile. “I should probably go find a bathroom to clean up.”
“You want some company?” she asks, obvious with her intentions now.
Something non-sober me would have easily taken her up on. But let me tell you, there’s nothing more unattractive than a drunken advance from a woman when you’re completely sober.
I force a small smile. “I think you should probably stay here…and maybe drink some water.”
Her face falls, and she looks confused for a moment.
I don’t stick around for any response. I just get up and head out of the room, needing to get away for a second, needing a quiet room so I can be alone and breathe.
I walk down a hallway in the house, and the first door I try is locked.
When I walk a little further, I see what looks like another bedroom door and try it.
It’s unlocked. I step inside, already halfway closing the door behind me, when I freeze at what I see.
There’s a guy hovering over a girl on the bed, and her dress is shoved up to her stomach as his hands grip both of her wrists above her head. I almost turn around and walk out, thinking it’s just two people hooking up and not a show I want to stick around for—when I hear quiet crying.
“Stop,” she whimpers.
It’s not a moan, not a playful protest. It’s a straight-up stop. Clear as day.
“Get out, man!” the guy barks, whipping his head around to glare at me.
But I can’t move. I just stand there, frozen.
I don’t know who the girl is. I can’t see her face.
All I see is my sister. I hear Isabel begging him not to do it, begging him to stop.
I hear the fear and the pain in her voice.
I see my childhood best friend on top of her, smiling like he’s proud of what he’s taking.
I hear the brokenness in her voice, the desperation she must have felt.
I think about all the ways I failed her back then.
How I didn’t even know that the guy I called my best friend and my brother would end up doing something so evil and disgusting to the only other person I loved.
I think about how much access I unknowingly gave him.
How often he would be in our home, spending the night, and even sometimes alone, waiting for me to get home.
I still don’t know when exactly he did it and how many times it happened to her. I just know I wasn’t there to stop it. I wasn’t there to save her. I didn’t notice what was going on. I let him kill her.
I snap back to the moment, and all I see is red. All I see is what I wish I could go back in time and do for Isabel.
The guy stands, zips his pants back up, and walks toward me like I’m the problem here. “What the hell is wrong with you, man—”
My fist connects with his face, and the crack of cartilage beneath skin feels therapeutic.
No amount of talking could ever give me this kind of release.
I need this release. I hit him again, and again, and again, and again.
Even when the amount of blood starts to make his face unrecognizable, I can’t stop. I don’t want to stop.
I grab him by the collar, pulling him close to my face. “You get off on raping girls at parties?” I yell.
“She—she wanted it, man.”
I slam him back down onto the ground, hard enough that I hope I crack his skull. “What part told you she wanted it?” I ask. “Huh? Was it her tears she was crying, or her screaming at you to stop?”
I hit him again, and he moans in pain, but I keep swinging. For Isabel. For this girl. For every girl like them. For the guilt that lives inside of me.
I raise my fist again—
But someone stops me, grabbing me from behind and yelling something I can’t hear.
I instinctively try to fight them off, telling them to get off me, but when I turn around, I see Mason, and the cloud of rage starts to fade.
I let him pull me up, and then I look back down to where the guy is lying—no longer moving.
I don’t know if I killed him or not…and for a moment, I don’t even care if I did.
I finally look over to the girl. She’s pushed herself farther back onto the bed, frozen and scared from everything that just happened—then I recognize her. It’s her. From the sidewalk, from the library, from my thoughts every time I close my eyes lately.
I watch her stare at my hands, then up at my blood-soaked shirt, slowly making her way to my face and locking her eyes on mine.
I’m still trying to catch my breath and calm down from the adrenaline, but I can’t look away from her.
Obviously, I would have felt sorry for any girl I saw on that bed.
But knowing it was her? That part makes me feel sick to my stomach, makes me feel even more angry.
I actually hope the guy is dead, knowing it was her.
I still don’t know this girl’s name, or anything about her…but I know her. In some weird way, I know her. There’s some strange pull that keeps putting her in my path, and it feels stronger each time I see her.
Her brows furrow in confusion, like she’s still trying to place where she knows me from. And we just stay like that, staring at each other until some guy and two girls rush into the room.
There’s a decent-sized crowd forming outside the door, but these three seemed to push their way through, obviously knowing the girl.
I recognize the girl with pink hair, because…
pink hair, duh. And the other girl looks like she’s probably the same one who was also walking with them that day, too…
I mean, my attention was really only on one of the girls then, though, so I can’t be completely sure.
“What the fuck?” The guy says, looking around the room, taking it all in.
I see Mason grab one of the girls and look at her like he’s worried about her. I’ve known Mason for a while now, and I never see him concerned with a girl unless it was to get in their pants. I’ll have questions for that later.
She pulls her arm from his hold, and both girls rush over to her on the bed, and one of them scoops her into their arms. I have this odd feeling of wanting to comfort her like that.
It’s confusing, the intensity of it. I don’t like feeling this protectiveness over someone else, this need to keep them safe from the world.
It only sets you up to be crushed when you can’t stop the world from inevitably hurting them.
The girl holding her looks back over at Mason with this desperation in her face. “What happened?” she asks him.
I can see the genuine concern in her expression, this need to protect the girl she’s holding, like she’s been doing it for a long time.
The thought pains me, making me circle back to the last interaction I had with her.
The way I felt her pain without even knowing what caused it.
Mason shakes his head, not really having an answer for her.
He’s just as confused as they are. I stand there, still wrapping my head around everything myself while they try to figure it out.
“I don’t know…“ Mason tells her. “I was headed to the bathroom when I heard a commotion like someone was fighting. When I walked in here, Bash was beating the shit out of this kid, and I pulled him off.”
The guy who came in with the girls looks over at the guy lying on the floor. “Is he…dead?”
Mason bends down and checks his pulse. “Nah, just knocked out.” He stares at him for a moment. “Probably needs some kind of medical attention if you want my professional opinion. Definitely gonna need some stitches.”
He stares, looking disgusted by what he sees, and then stands back up.
“Someone get him the hell out of here,” the guy shouts, and now that I look at him…he looks like he could be related to the pink-haired girl, probably her brother or cousin, maybe? I don’t know.
Mason grabs a guy from the hallway to help him, and they carry his unconscious body out of the room.
The pink-haired girl looks over to her friend. “Lydia, what happened?”
Lydia.
The guy turns to me and gives me this questioning look, waiting for me to explain all of this.
I feel the anger rising again just thinking about what I saw, what almost happened to her, what would have happened if I hadn’t walked in.
I look over at her, silently asking if she wants me to tell them.
This happened to her. It’s her decision if she wants them to know or not.
She nods, telling me that it’s okay, and I give her an apologetic look, telling her I’m sorry.
As soon as I tell them what happened, I can hear both girls gasp quietly, like it hurt them to hear it be confirmed.
The girl holding her leans down, whispering something to her I can’t hear, and she shakes her head no, but the expression on her face looks like she’s in even more pain now, and I hate it.
Once she looks back at me, I hold her gaze, needing to talk to her, needing to make sure she’s okay…
even though I’m not sure how she could be right now.
“Your name is Lydia?” I ask her.
She nods.
“Are you okay, Lydia?”
For a moment, she just stares at me, not saying anything. It feels like the whole room disappears, and it’s just us here. Whatever I’ve been feeling around her…it looks like she suddenly feels it, too.
She eventually snaps out of the trance, slowly shaking her head no…and that one simple movement completely crushes me.