Page 8 of If He Hadn't Cheated
I want to scream. I want to quit. I want to set fire to this apartment and disappear into the smoke.
Instead, I send a thumbs-up emoji. Then I get up, stumble to the bathroom, and swallow two Tylenol with tap water that tastes like rust.
In the mirror, I look like a ghost of someone who used to be alive. Someone who used to wear promises like perfume.
Now I just smell like regret and sweat. There’s a bruise on my collarbone. Faint. Oval-shaped. I touch it and flinch. I don’t remember him biting me.
But it’s there.
Proof that it wasn’t a dream but a waking nightmare.
The day passes in fragments. I doze on the couch, wake up sweating. I eat half a granola bar. I scroll through my phone until my thumb goes numb.
Still no messages.
Still no calls.
I could disappear and no one would notice until the rent went unpaid and my phone got cut off.
By five, I’m in the shower again. Hot water. Scrubbing hard enough to make my skin red. I stand there until the hot turns cold.
I don’t get dressed right away. I sit on the edge of the tub, dripping.
Naked. Tired. Empty.
Then I reach for the little plastic bag I keep in my top drawer.
Just a bump. Just enough to feel something.
The powder hits fast.
The high comes like it always does. Rushed, shallow, but just enough. I dress in black again. It’s the only color that doesn’t scream when I look at it.
Back at The Velvet Room, the night picks up fast. A line wraps around the block. People clawing for entry like what’s inside will save them.
It won’t.
Inside, it’s the same parade of perfume, cologne, bad decisions, and lies.
The lights feel harsher tonight. The music bites at my eardrums. I wince, but I keep pouring. Keep shaking. Keep pretending.
A man asks for a drink I’ve made a thousand times, but for a second, I forget how. I stare at the bottles like they’re written in another language.
My hands shake.
Jazz notices.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” I lie.
She doesn’t push.
The man at the bar taps impatiently. I make his drink. He doesn’t tip.
Around midnight, I sneak outside for air. The alley smells like piss and cigarettes.
I sit on a milk crate and light a smoke, the end glowing in the dark. My hands are still trembling. Someone walks past me and doesn’t say a word. I wonder if I still exist.
