Chapter 30 Cry Baby
JANIS JOPLIN
I don’t cry in public.
I don’t.
I didn't when they kissed.
Or when the drink hit my face.
Or when I was forced to listen to the Moaning War Documentaries, picturing his mouth between their thighs, his fingers knuckle-deep, his name in their throats.
I held it all in,
swallowed it down like a good girl,
packed it behind my heart
like a handful of grenades.
I didn’t fucking cry once;
made it past the splash,
then halfway through the last goddamn song,
pretending I didn’t want to throw up.
Let me see anyone else stand there while the only guy they’ve ever fucking cared about gets his thigh stroked, mouth kissed, sex stories shared, hair fucked with, staring straight at them while it happens.
Let me see anyone else not cry.
So now I’m hiding in the stall of this horny, piss-reeking bar. Because I ran out of skin to keep the hurt under.
But a tearful-fist is pushing up my throat,
a betrayal of burn behind my eyes.
I don’t think I'll make it home to fall apart.
I'm afraid to leave this bathroom,
and have it pour out everywhere.
Next thing I know, my hand’s up my dress.
Whatever. I need the orgasm. Desperately.
A release to numb the mayhem of the mind,
shutting everything off.
My body’s trained for this.
My fingers know the drill.
Touch. Rub. Come. Forget.
Only I don’t forget. I feel everything.
I close my eyes, circle my throbbing clit
like if I caress nicely, it’ll shut up.
But the ache doesn’t fade. It pulses harder—
louder—
mocking me.
My body’s screaming for some Jersey boy to sing in my ear.
For Jersey boy hands.
Jersey boy breath.
Jersey boy lies.
The only way I reach climax is by pretending it’s him.
And when the orgasm hits,
it comes soft and leaves fast—
my body buzzing, releasing,
and leaving nothing behind.
Even my nerves faked it just to be done with it.
That high I’m chasing? Nowhere.
No escape.
No disappearing into the haze I crave.
I’m still fucking here, trapped in this skin.
My hand shakes as it slips away.
My knees buckle. I crash onto the toilet.
The bass from the stage vibrates the porcelain seat.
Every inhale digs its heels into my throat,
breath not wanting to fill me.
Every exhale floods and chokes,
breath not wanting to stay in me either.
I don’t cry in public. I don’t.
But the tears are climbing the barbed wire wrapped around my windpipe.
Then they pool in my eyes,
my vision swimming, lungs shot.
I have bullet holes where breath used to live.
And I think I’m running out of time.
Then—bang.
A knock on the bathroom stall, rude as fuck.
“Someone’s in here,” I manage,
throat tight, voice fake-normal.
I breathe in slow,
convinced I can fake calm if I ration it.
They knock again.
“I SAID I’M FUCKING IN HERE.”
It shakes out of me with more tears flooding the beds of my eyes.
My whole body hardens to hold it back,
freezing like a kid trying not to cry in public.
But then a tear slips out after hiding between my bones all night,
just waiting to die, splashing against my thigh.
I fold into myself and finally fucking break.
My face presses into my hands. And I cry.
I cry quiet but I don’t cry pretty.
I cry like someone ripped my lungs out through my throat and said,
breathe, bitch. I fuckin’ dare you.
But my heart’s quiet now.
Not because it’s strong.
Because it’s given up,
said it’s done.
It’s tired of being strangled every time it wants to feel something.
// 12:13 AM //
Andrew’s standing outside the bathroom—
shirt on,
hands in his pockets,
shoulder to brick.
He’s not leaning on the wall.
The wall’s leaning on him.
The whole damn hallway wants to get back in his jeans, too.
Then the Jersey swagger slips right off him the second he sees me.
One look at my face, and he knows.
His face drops.
His hands come out of his pockets.
As if he’s ready to catch any hurt in case it spills out of me.
“Shit.” His eyes scatter fast across my face. “You cried.”
He says it as if it cuts him,
confirming every worst-case scenario.
As if my tears are something he should’ve protected with his life.
“I wasn’t crying,” I mutter.
He steps forward,
then back,
then forward again,
worked up and wrecked.
“I fuckin’ knew it. I knew this was gonna happen.”
He grips his hair and turns,
wanting out of this night.
“I fucked this up. I did that to you, didn’t I?
“Jesus. You were in there cryin',
“and I was out here—”
I slide into my jacket. “Said I wasn’t crying.
“You’re not that powerful.”
His mouth slams shut.
Then he grips his hipbone, eyes fixed on me.
“But you’re not okay.”
His voice cracks as he gestures between us—
“We’re not okay. Are we?” Every inch of him is wound tight as he waits for a response, seconds from driving his fist into brick. “Please—tell me we’re okay, Sonny. I’ll do fuckin’ anything.”
I inhale the sound of my name on his lips,
then exhale steady.
There's no cracks in it, no quiver.
It almost makes me believe I’m okay.
And I ask him—
“How many girls?”
He stops moving,
his unblinking gaze at a standstill.
“Sonny—”
“No.” I shake my head.
“Give me the number. The real number, Drew.”
I’m not asking for his number to fix this
or because I want to stay.
I’m asking because I told him everything—
my addiction, fears—
stripped every ugly inch of me
and gave it to him,
and he still thinks he gets to stand there,
clothed in mystery.
No. I want him naked and bleeding too when I walk.
“Not some vague bullshit.
“Not ‘some’.
“Give me a number.”
He runs both hands down his face,
pausing at his mouth, holding back a scream.
Or the fucking number.
Then he’s shaking his head.
“The number doesn’t fuckin’ matter.
“None of ‘em fuckin’ matter.”
His eyes hit mine, full of desperation.
“You wanna know a number, Sonny?” he snaps, chest rising.
“One.
“You’re the only one I’m real with.
“The only one I fuckin’ care about.
“The only one I've ever wanted.
“The only one.
“One.
“You.
“That’s it.
“That’s the only number that matters to me.”
I let the silence devour him.
“You killed it up there,” I tell him.
It’s almost a whisper
because I’m forcing it out.
“You on stage? Worth staying for.”
I rip my gaze off him.
Then I’m walking.
Fast.
My heart’s shaking her head,
waving her arms, screaming no, no, no.
So I shove the replay in her face.
His mouth. The stories. Their thighs.
The touching. The kiss. The drink.
She can gag on it all. She can fucking drown.
And she sinks back into herself,
closing her eyes.
I’m halfway to the exit when—
“Sonny—please, wait.”
His voice hits the back of my neck.
“Please. Stop, stop, stop—okay, okay—”
Then he’s in front of me again,
his eyes begging me.
Wide. At war. On their fucking knees.
“I don’t know, alright?
“I don’t know the fuckin’ number.”
“Ballpark it, Drew. Give me an estimate.
“A range.
“Anything.”
He wets his bottom lip.
Shakes his head.
Stops.
Hesitates.
Already strangled by it.
“Sonny—fuck, if I tell you,
“you’re gone for good. That’s it.
“You’re gonna hate me.
“You’re never gonna look at me the same—
“I know it. I can’t—”
He stops mid-sentence.
And then his shoulders drop,
his chest caves in, giving up.
Whatever was holding him up
is now walking away,
leaving him standing here, alone.
Helpless. Vulnerable. Exposed.
“Triple digits.”
He says it,
and it’s a gunshot in my chest.
And then I’m falling.
Fast.
Through the floor.
It's two words echoing
and echoing.
Two words, in an empty room.
“Triple digits,” I repeat, squinting at him.
“You saying—what? A hundred? One-fifty?
“What’re we even talking?”
He drags a hand across his mouth.
“I don’t fuckin’ know—”
His eyes are everywhere but on me.
He grips his neck to keep himself from falling apart.
“Three. Three-fifty. Maybe.
“I didn’t keep count.
“I just—I just fuckin’ did it.”
Three.
Three-fifty.
My stomach rolls with acid,
my breath bottoms out,
my eyes blurring out of focus.
My whole system was built to keep myself from being disposable. And now I’m standing here anyway, number three-hundred-fifty-one.
I move around him.
He moves faster, cutting me off.
“Please—Sonny, don’t.”
“Not like this. Not again.”
He lifts both hands,
not sure what to do with them, but still tries.
And it stops me.
Because it reminds me
nobody’s ever tried but him.
I’ve stood in too many doorways,
watching backs walk away.
Never thought anyone would block the door to get me to stay.
A short breath falls to pieces as it leaves him.
“I—I swear to God, I’ll chase you, Sonny.”
He steps closer, eyes locked on mine.
“You walk away from me again?
“I’m chasing you.
“And I’ll keep fuckin’ chasing you.”
He points out—somewhere, nowhere, eyes squinting. “Through the city. Through New York. Through all this bullshit. Through our pasts. Through twenty-eight nights. ‘Cause I already did it. Don’t think I won’t do it again.”
His arm falls, voice cracking.
“You walk now? I’m chasin’ you.
“However many nights it takes this time.”
His breath’s on hold. His pulse, too.
All of it waiting on me.
I tilt my head. “You’re gonna chase me?”
I say it as if I don’t believe him,
as if I’m stalling.
But I do. And I am.
I don’t know why.
Walking away is so much harder with this man.
Andrew’s staring at me.
And his next words come out careful, nervous—“Yeah, you walk? I’m right behind you. You disappear? I wait. That’s it now, Sonny. That’s us.”
No.
That could’ve been us,
if I wasn’t me and he wasn’t him.
A timeline where I opened my heart wide enough to let him in.
And he kicked everyone else out of his,
locking only us in his chest like—
This is it, just you and me, Sonny.
But it’s not.
I got the Baby Contract.
And he’s got all of them.
“Andrew. There is no us.”
I say it slow, steady.
I keep my eyes locked on his, keep the events of the night pinned behind my lids, a movie replaying to remind me each time I blink.