65. Beautiful
EMINEM
I wake up, my swollen eyelids two heavy, painful slits. My temples throb as I stare up at a popcorn ceiling, dry-eyed, and for a second, I don’t know where I am.
My face feels stretched tight, raw, and wrung-out. ‘Cause I think I’ve been used up—tears, vomit, pride, hope… all empty, all gone.
I hear the hum of the ice machine outside my door.
Oh, right. A motel. You’re at a motel.
One where the ceiling looks diseased, stained brown and peeling at the edges, like old scabs.
I don’t even remember how I got here.
I don’t remember falling asleep, either.
The reality of what I did sits heavy on my chest all over again. The aftertaste of those words still haunts my mouth—
I love you is a special kind of hell.
So is the silence that followed.
In that second, I could’ve lied.
It’s what I usually would’ve done.
Say I didn’t mean it, that it slipped out.
Say, Jesus Christ, Andrew, relax,
I was getting fucked against a wall on New Year’s.
People say dumb shit when the ball drops all the time.
Save us both the embarrassment.
But that was the first time those words ever came out of my mouth. The first time I’ve felt this way about anyone.
And fuck—he was inside me.
I told him that, while he was inside me.
And no matter how bad it hurt to stand there, how stupid it felt with vomit on my chin, my dress half-fixed,
my panties in his pocket,
my heart dying between us,
twitching on the ground,
vultures circling around,
I wasn’t taking it back.
I told him I love him.
First time I felt it for a man,
first time I was brave enough to say it.
I wasn’t taking that away from myself.
But after eight years of grief and fear, three hundred songs in my writing studio,
three months,
two cities,
and one boy,
all that I've learned on the other side of it is this: to be the one loved by me is to be the weapon. To love him is to be the wound.
I roll over and search for my phone. My body feels heavy, stiff, and a hundred years old. I need weed.
Or, like, painkillers.
My screen glows in the dark,
but everything blurs together,
timestamps stacking
on top of each other.
Texts. Missed calls. Voicemails.
They pile up on my screen like a multi-car collision on the turnpike.
Yesterday 12:48 AM
Andrew
Where did you go
Allison. Answer me
Yesterday 1:36 AM
Please don’t do this
There’s drunks out tonight
You have me so fucking scared
At least tell me you’re safe
Yesterday 2:56 AM
Allison please
I’m losing my mind here
This is scaring the shit out of me
Please text me one word
Text me a middle finger
A dot
Yesterday 4:28 AM
I'm gonna be at my house so you can go to the penthouse in case you don't wanna see me.
But if you want to come here, I'll leave the basement door unlocked for you just in case.
You can come in and go straight to sleep.
We don't gotta talk. We don't gotta say one fucking word.
Let me hold you if you want. I just need to know you're somewhere safe, Allison.
I can't stomach this. I'm begging you to come back. Please
The texts keep going.
So I turn off my phone.
And my screen goes black.
// JAN 04 //
I haven’t eaten.
I haven’t showered.
I haven’t gotten out of this bed.
I've never felt so feelingless,
with nothing for thoughts.
Still, my lungs keep expanding, my heart keeps beating despite being in this slump. They're both psyched into believing I'm somewhat alive.
But without food, without water,
only two to five weeks more
before that stops happening too.
It's not that I want to die,
I just don't fucking care to move.
This dump has become my only safe place, like maybe I can live here.
Outside, daylight comes and goes.
The sun climbs the wall,
then slides off it,
leaving me in the dark.
People pass my window, their shadows stretching across the curtains, reminding me the world’s still moving outside of me.
At some point, I sit up so I don't die.
My legs feel stiff and achy and not mine, and they forget how to move as I walk to the bathroom.
When I reach the sink, the floor tilts, the room spins, and darkness stalks the edges of my vision. A dizzy takes me, and I stumble forward, clutching the sink's edge to study myself.
I splash ice-cold water onto my face to shock myself awake, peel off the clothes I've been sweating in for days, pull on my jacket, then leave the motel room.
There’s a 24 hour diner down the street,
so I don’t have to drive,
which is safe for everyone.
It’s a cold, pitch-black night covered in mounds of dirty snow.
My boots crunch over salt, every exhale leaving me in clouds of white smoke, like the exhaust of the semis coming off the highway, brakes screeching as they pull into the lit-up truck stop across the road.
Stepping into the diner feels like stepping into 1997—cracked booths and faded menus, “Sex and Candy” playing low through a ceiling speaker.
A lonely stranger is hunched over a table here and there, nursing a mug of coffee, bags under their eyes.
I slide into a corner booth, table sticky.
But it’s good. This is good.
It’s exactly what I need, to become another lonely stranger in a diner—a numbing purgatory between love and hate to shut down in, where I don’t have to think about anything except what I’m going to eat and drink.
Coffee or tea.
Eggs or toast.
Booth or counter.
A waitress appears, looking like a future me, should I stay in this exact state for the rest of my life.
“Coffee first,
“or you need a minute, hon?”
“Coffee’s good.”
Buzz.
She nods and walks off,
and I reach into my jacket pocket.
A notification from Callista pops on the screen, trailing a string of other texts I’ve ignored.
Today 9:51 AM
Allie where the hell are you?
Why aren’t you responding to me?
Are you avoiding me?
11:58 PM
I've been trying to get ahold of you all day. Why couldn't you tell me straight up you were reassigning the song to Lirrah? You said it was mine and I had to find out through an email this morning.
I fell in love with that song Allie. I spent all week building the new album around it. Why would you give it to Lirrah of all people? And why couldn't you just tell me?
I'm trying really hard not to lose my mind but I am so fucking upset right now. Call me!
Somewhere inside me, there’s a version of Allison Taylor who would be crushed about this. That girl would call Raymond, feed his ear with curses and threats, bring in A&R, legal, check the chain of command.
Unfortunately,
that girl is not currently available.
Current me is numb in a diner booth.
Numb is smarter, safer.
Numb means I can look down at the text, and think to reply—Well, that sucks.
Should’ve known better
than to fall in love with a song.
But if I let the numb melt off my bones, I’m going under, and I don’t know how deep this pain will go.
Then—
the phone vibrates in my hand.
I freeze.
Andrew (Incoming Call)
My pulse picks up, and my hand shakes,
like I’m holding a grenade.
A part of me wants to answer just to hear his voice. The temptation is so strong I almost give in.
But instead,
I silence it
and set it face down on the table.
The waitress returns with my coffee.
I drink it slow ‘cause it’s something I can have in a world where everything is slipping away too fast. Even if it tastes nothing like Andrew's coffee.
I stare out the window,
watching cars pass by,
wondering if I’ll ever be able to move forward the way they do—
fast, easy, without looking back.
I don’t know.
// JAN 07, 10:16 PM //
The liquor store bell jingles when I walk in.
I don’t waste time browsing or checking labels. I grab a bottle of whiskey off a specials table at the front and drop it down on the counter.
The man behind the check-out screen looks up.
He’s late thirties, early forties.
Messy sandy brown hair.
Thick dark stubble across his jaw.
He’s staring at me, gaze on my mouth,
my collarbone,
my breasts,
not leaving as his stubby fingers tap the keyboard,
slide the bottle closer,
and scan the barcode.
I tap on the cigarette case.
“And a pack of Newports.”
His throat bobs with a nod.
“You drinkin’ this straight, hon?”
His tongue flicks across his bottom lip, and my brain turns it into Looney Tune porn, where I snatch that tongue, unspool it across the counter, and rub it raw on my clit.
…I could use his mouth.
I could relapse.
No such thing as a high without the crash. So at some point, it'll happen. Might as well be now.
And really,
the only person I'd be hurting is myself,
disappointing myself,
fucking over myself.
Andrew and Allison is dead.
Limerence kills.
Love too, but this isn't love.
Love is mutual. Love is acceptance.
Love has a second person involved—
two people choosing each other.
Limerence, however, is me lying in a motel bed at 8:43 AM, Googling why do I feel like I got shot ‘cause a man didn’t say words back and learning there’s a French-sounding term for being so fucking weak.
And then I’m standing there,
pulse not racing,
staring at stubby fingers,
fantasizing how it’d happen.
“Where’s your stockroom?” I’d ask.
Confusion would splash across his face… “Back there.” He'd lift his chin toward the narrow hallway.
I'd grab the bottle, slide it off the counter, start walking that way, looking over my shoulder with a smirk, making sure he’s following. The storage room is cramped, filled with shelves, crates, cardboard. I turn and lean back against the shelf as he comes through the swinging door behind me.
I twist off the whiskey cap
and take a long pull.
The alcohol doesn’t even burn.
I know what a real burn feels like.
I hold the bottle out to him.
“You nervous?”
“No.” He takes it, drinking from it next.
I grab his wrist and guide his stubby-fingered hand between my thighs, pressing his palm against my warm panties. He lets out a strangled noise. “Still nervous?”
He’s tongue-tied, fingers twitching.
I drag his rough hand inside my panties,
feeling his fat, calloused fingers glide through my pussy.
“Oh, sweetheart…”
I grip his face, forcing him down.
His eyes go wide as he sinks,
knees hitting the floor.
I slide my panties off one leg,
lift my foot high on a shelf,
spread myself open,
wait for his tongue.