Breaking Jessi Ch. 05

"You need serious help," the tall blonde guys said, his expression a mixture of revulsion and pity.

"No shit," I shrieked.

The man stared at me several seconds before bolting out the door, leaving me alone in the dirty motel room. Huge, wet sobs wracked my body, and I dropped face down onto the bed. I wanted a shower in the worst way, but I didn't want to take it in the room. I wanted to be home. I wanted to be drunk and at home. Then it hit me. I'd had a single shot of tequila before heading to the club to meet Sheri, but I'd left before my drink arrived there. I'd done all of this sober, or very close to it. The realization deepened my despair but also strengthened my resolve to go home so I could get drunk.

Wiping the tears from my eyes, I got out of bed and found my dress and panties. I pulled them on, then my shoes, but I didn't bother trying to fix my hair or makeup. Instead, I left the room and headed to the office. The clerk assured me my hook-up had paid for the room in advance, her eyes judging me the entire time. But I didn't care. I knew what I was.

When my uber arrived, the driver looked me up and down but said nothing. Like the motel clerk, his judgment was palpable. I didn't let it bother me. I told him where I needed to go. He drove me to my apartment, and I thanked him. In between, I sat in silence, brain bugs ricocheting off each other as they swarmed my mind. A part of me noted that he waited in the parking lot until I got in my door, but most of me just wanted tequila.

* * *

I woke on my bathroom floor. An empty bottle of tequila—my last of the good stuff—lay on the floor beside me. I tried to understand that, since it had been full the night before, and I didn't think I could survive drinking a whole bottle of tequila. Then I saw the stain on the rug and floor near the bottle, and I understood. I must have spilled the bottle. But why did I have it in the bathroom in the first place? And why was I on the floor?

Everything came rushing back to me as I sat up. The club. Jessika. Sheri saying she was hot. Me getting pissed, storming off, and picking up a random dude. Me fucking the dude. The guy getting pissed because I dug my nails into his chest. Coming home. Showering while drinking tequila straight from the bottle.

"Oh shit," I groaned, the dryness of my mouth and throat making it painful to speak.

Concern that I was late for work made its way through the haze, and I rushed out of the bathroom so I could find out the time. The sudden movement brought on both vertigo and nausea, and I sank to my knees right outside my bathroom door. At the same time, I recalled I'd switched my shift to Saturday, which meant I didn't have to be at work. Relief filled me, and after maybe a minute or two, I carefully climbed to my feet and made my way to the kitchen.

I drank a bottle of room-temperature water, then another. I didn't want them, but I knew from long experience I needed them. And when I was pretty sure I could keep them down, I fished my phone out of my purse. A plethora of calls and text messages from Sheri met my eyes, and I saw that she'd left a few messages as well. But I didn't want to speak to her. I didn't even want to think about her. I deleted the texts without reading them and the voicemails without listening to them. While I did that, a call from my former friend came in, so I sent it to voicemail and blocked her number.

All she did was say Jessika was hot, a voice in my head, one I wanted to attribute to my mother but could not, pointed out. And I knew it spoke truth, just as I knew Sheri had been a supportive friend, both with and without benefits, for the past couple of weeks. But I could not face talking to her.

What are you going to do, the voice persisted, and I eyed my last bottle of tequila. It was the cheap stuff I normally bought, but it would do the trick. Because if I let the voice keep pestering me, brain bugs were sure to follow in quick order. And I did not want to deal with any of that.

Find someone... or a few someones... who can give you what you need without emotional entanglements, and without risk of them being assholes or cheating on their girlfriends or fiancées or wives or anything else. 0r at least with fewer of those risks, suggested a particularly fat centipede who'd popped into existence in my mind a moment before.

"How the fuck can I do that?" I asked my tiny kitchen, but no answer came.