Chapter Twenty-Five
Anna
I’m dead inside. My emotions have locked down so tight, I hardly feel a thing, just the dense weight of my body as it moves me along. Like I’m pushing through thick, cold sludge. I don’t even know how I end up at the local coffee shop. I must have walked. Must have ordered; there’s an untouched latte sitting by my laptop. I’m writing...something. My midterm on Queen Elizabeth and the use of virginity as a means of political power.
Perfect. I don’t even want to look at what I’ve written. If it’s any reflection of my thoughts, I’ve said something along the lines of: Remain a virgin. Do not engage. Run away while you can.
Not that refraining from sex would have protected me from Drew. He’d burrowed beneath my skin before he’d laid a finger on me.
People come and go, and a few glance at me, as if they know me. I don’t get it, but I also don’t really care.
I’m about to leave when Iris finds me. Her smile is the overly bright one she uses when she wants to cheer me up.
“I guess you had a rough day,” she says, as she sits in the chair opposite me.
“What are you talking about?” We both know. But I don’t know how she knows.
“It’s all over social media that Battle Baylor had a ‘lover’s tiff with some foxy redhead’ on campus today.”
Foxy? Wait, what?
“People fucking talk about that?” is all I can blurt out. Holy shit. It’s on social media? Who the hell are these people? Don’t they have a life?
Iris looks at me as if I’m ignorant. “Of course they talk about it! He’s Drew Baylor, girl.”
“And how the hell did you even see this?”
Iris shrugs. “There’s several hashtags. #BattleBaylor, #BaylorsBootieCalls, #BattleBaylorWorksOut, #BestOfBaylor. I follow them.”
“You follow them? Are you kidding me?”
“Me and thousands other people. I started to follow them when you hooked up with him.”
I groan and press the cold heels of my hands against my aching eyes.
“Don’t worry, sweetie.” Iris gives me a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. “At least there’s no video. Not yet anyway. Though I haven’t checked Instagram or TikTok in a while. We’ll do that later.”
“Oh, God.” I hadn’t even considered videos. I want to die. Just die. I think I might if there is photographic evidence of Drew shouting at me. My chances are nil. I officially hate fucking social media. I’m banning myself from it. For life.
“So.” Iris picks up my coffee, finds it cold and sets it back down with a frown. “What happened? You get tired of all that endless sex?”
The question punches into me like a fist. She’s grinning as if my heart hasn’t just been ripped out of my chest. Apparently, I’ve been too effective in my protest that Drew and I were nothing serious. Either that, or misery loves company. Whatever it is, I want her gone.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did you ask for exclusivity, and he gave you the brush-off?” There’s a hard glint in her eyes. “Because I’ll kick his ass if he hurt my Anna Banana.”
“I don’t know what’s worse,” I say dully. “The fact that you think I was part of some harem or that you think I would be begging.”
I don’t address the laughable idea of Iris kicking Drew’s ass. That part is kind of sweet. Even if the twerp just called me desperate.
“I know.” Iris snaps her fingers. “You fell in love with him and blurted it out. And now he’s running scared.”
That is it. I’m done. I collect my laptop and shove it into my bag.
“No,” I say in a falsely bright voice. “It was because he wanted to kiss me in public, and I treated him like he had the fucking plague. And when he said he wanted me to be his, I was too worried about what other people thought of me to say yes.”
I stand and shoulder my bag as she gapes up at me. “Don’t you know? I’m incapable of falling in love and all that emotional shit.”
Night finds me alone, listening to Trent Reznor sing “Closer,” the volume so loud that poor Siouxsie’s picture vibrates against my wall, in danger of falling to her doom.
At least I’m not wallowing on the floor, hugging a pillow like the poster child for broken hearts everywhere. No, I’m beating the shit out of the punching bag George set up for me on my twenty-first birthday. Because, as he said, I ought to be able to beat the shit out of something now and then.
But the only person I want to beat up now is myself. My knuckles hurt as I pummel the hard bag. It isn’t enough. I hit it again and again. Sweat pours down my face, burns my eyes. I don’t hear the door open or his footsteps as he crosses the room.
I don’t even notice him until he stands next to me. My breath saws in and out as I halt, resting my gloved hands on my hips.
George’s dark eyes take everything in. Sadness and sympathy dwell in those eyes of his, but he does his best. “Nine Inch Nails?” he asks. “Really, Banana?”
Poor Trent, so misunderstood in this song. It’s not about fucking. It’s about need, desperation for salvation. My eyes burn and I fight for a breath.
“Seemed appropriate,” I say. And then burst out crying.
George pulls me in and hugs me tight. A few seconds later, Iris comes into the room. The three of us huddle together, but they’re the ones holding me up.
My feet hit the pavement with a loud thump, thump, thump that pounds right into my head. I don’t know where I am or where I’m going. I just run. My shins burn and my throat is raw, but that’s nothing compared to the yawning chasm spreading over my chest. Pain. It pushes out from my heart and through my bones, my veins, my skin like a thick, ugly sludge. Holy fuck, it hurts.
I pick up my pace, trying to outrun the pain. It only grows.
What have I done? What have I done?
The ugly scene replays itself. I remember my words, the way they flowed from my mouth as if I was outside of myself, unable to control them. But I didn’t stop, and she didn’t contradict me. She didn’t make one protest when I walked away.
Defeat has never sat well with me. But this isn’t a game. Games come and go. You win some, you lose some. There isn’t anyone else like Anna. I can’t simply go out and replace her. And I’ve just lost her.
My gut clenches hard. I’m going to be sick. I’ve pushed it too far. My knees hit the pavement a second before I throw up in the grass. It’s violent, but it doesn’t purge me. No, that sick feeling simply returns, filling me back up.
I sit on my ass, panting, sweat trickling into my eyes. Birds chirp. Someone’s starting a car. In the distance, a woman calls for her kid to come inside. I wipe my mouth and hug my knees to my chest.
I miss my parents. I miss them so badly that the hole Anna left in my chest when she ripped out my heart grows so large that I fear I might fall apart. I want to talk to them. Which is ironic, considering that when they were alive, I never discussed my love life with them. Were they still alive, I probably wouldn’t talk now either. But I would have gone home, had dinner at their house, and let their idle conversation wash over me until I felt some semblance of normalcy. Instead, I feel more alone than I’ve ever been.
It’s enough to make me want to shout. I force my legs to lift me up and keep moving.
Hobbling home, stomach aching, pain spreading, I don’t think of anything other than putting one foot in front of the other.
The house is quiet when I let myself in. It’s always quiet. But now the silence scrapes along my skin. I just might hate silence now.
My hand shakes as I help myself to a bottle of sports drink. It tastes foul to me, bitter and off, but I gulp it down. Rivulets of sticky drink run down my chin.
Then I spy it, sitting on my counter like a fucking mockery. The brand-new shiny chrome espresso machine. My vision goes red as something hot surges up through my body. The bottle in my hand flies through the air, smashing in an explosion of bright orange on my cabinets. And then I’m reaching for the machine, ripping the cord from the socket with enough force to crack the socket cover.
Sharp steel pokes my arms as I kick my door open and hunt down the garbage can.
With a shout, I slam the stupid machine into the bin. I want to stomp on the thing, fucking punch the hell out of something, but I catch sight of my elderly neighbor Mrs. Hutchinson gaping at me. The tiny woman appears ready to keel over. Shit.
Clamping my mouth shut, I turn and slam back into the house. I stand in the empty hall, clutching the back of my neck and struggling for deep breaths as rage runs rampant through me. My chest lifts and falls, my teeth aching where I grind them together. And then the rage simply flees. Only it leaves me with something worse, an insidious pain that nearly brings me to my knees.
I stagger to the shower and stay there a long time. By the time I can stand again, my throat is swollen and my body is weak. I don’t want to think about anything.
When Gray arrives, I’m sitting on the couch, playing Call of Duty in the dark.
As usual, he barges into my house and flicks on the lamp next to the couch. “I’m going to assume you meant to cram that thousand-dollar espresso machine into your garbage.”
I grunt and continue to annihilate targets without mercy.
“I took it,” he adds, as if I’ll care.
“Knock yourself out.” It hurts to speak, so I decide to refrain from doing any more of it.
Gray sighs and comes further into the living room. I catch the scent of some smoked meat product but don’t bother to look. I don’t want anything to eat anyway. But my attention shifts when he sets a six-pack on the coffee table with a plunk. The bright green bottles seem to glow against the dark wood. A lump gathers in my throat. Green River soda pop. I loved that shit as a kid. My dad used to let me have them during summer barbecues.
“Where...” I clear my throat. “Where’d you get that?”
You can only really find them in Chicago.
“Special order. I meant to give it to you on your birthday,” Gray admits, settling on the couch beside me after he puts down the other bag, the one containing food by the smell of it. “But I figured you’d appreciated it more now.”
No need to ask how Gray knows; this fucking campus spews gossip with the power and efficiency of a fire hose.
“They’ve been sitting in my fridge,” he continues. “Because if we’re going to drink what looks like toxic waste, it ought to be cold.”
The lump in my throat grows to epic proportions. The controller hangs heavy in my hand as I blink down at it.
Gray is silent for a moment then hands me a pop and pulls a hot dog from the other bag. “Now, I realize these aren’t as good as a Chicago dog, but we’ll have to make do. Because none of those bitches deliver.”
I hold the ice-cold drink in my hand. “Thanks.” Shit, if I say any more, I’ll be bawling and embarrassing us both.
Thankfully, he doesn’t say any more. We sit together, drinking lime soda, eating subpar hot dogs, and playing video games until it’s dark out.