Requited Ch. 02

I need to grow the fuck up. That's what I need to do.

*

I decide to grow up, by going out and getting shitfaced. It's not a strategy that's commonly associated with growing up, but it's the approach I've decided to take. I go out, night after night. I drink. I drink too much. I wake up, disorientated and sick. Every morning, I wake up and look around, unsure if I'm disappointed or relieved, when I open my eyes and see that I'm in our room. I'm in my bed. I'm on my own. I turn over onto my side, so I can face Andy. He's sleeping. He sleeps half on his side, half on his belly. He shoves his face into the pillow. Still, he manages to look good while he does it. His eyes are closed. He looks relaxed. Serene. Ordinarily, I lie like this for a while, facing him. I let myself imagine, we're lying in the same bed, facing each other. Ordinarily, I let myself imagine the space between our beds doesn't exist. I let myself imagine, the space between us doesn't exist.

It does though.

That's a fact, too.

I get out of bed and go for a run. I run hard and fast. I'm running from many things. My hangover is merely one of those things.

*

I go out again, tonight. Andy is despairing of me. He's worried about my scholarship. He always worries about that. I'm not worried about that in the slightest. I don't mean to sound big headed, but I don't need to worry about that. So, I don't.

"Please West," he says, "please just stay home and get some work done. Please."

"I don't need to work. I need to go out and have fun. It's part of getting a well-rounded education."

"Jesus, West." He sighs.

I go to a place not too far from our dorm. A bar called The Pardon. The last time I was here, was the night I met Ashleigh. I don't think that's why I decide to come here. I'm not a hundred percent sure it is. I'm also not a hundred percent sure that it isn't. As it turns out, she's here again, tonight. She's on top form. She's wearing skin-tight jeans and a white tank top with no bra. Her eyes are made up with a heavy, black cat's eye. She looks unreal. Astonishing. She makes everyone else around her look pale and uninteresting. I don't know if that's her intention, but that's definitely the result of her being in the room.

By the time I get there, things have already started to unravel. As soon as I walk in, I instantly feel more sober than I should be. The music is blaring and the whole place is heaving. People are dancing. Ashleigh is dancing. She's dancing on a table. She's moving as though her body doesn't understand gravity. She has a bottle of tequila in her hand. She's splashing it around. Pouring it into the mouths of anyone who leans back and opens their mouths.

I don't make a conscious decision to go over to her. I don't think I do. My body just moves there on its own. I find myself standing there, looking up at her. She sees me and smiles. She looks down, through her heavily made-up eyes.

"On your knees, Baxter."

I kneel down on the bench next to the table she's standing on. I kneel without thinking or questioning it. The lights are bouncing off her. She's glowing and changing colour in time with the music. I look up and let my head fall back. I open my mouth and receive what she's offering.

Communion.

Even though I should know better, I really should, right then, I swear she looks like a saviour.

Deliver me from Andy, I pray.

*

"I take it you're over your ex." She says, a little later. I have her up against a wall. We're outside, in an alleyway. It's dark. I've had a lot of tequila. My hand is under her top, on her side. Her body feels soft and warm. My hand is inching up. Inching and inching.

It's so close. It's nearly there.

It takes me a second to piece her words together. I feel confused for a second.

Ah, I think, that's right.

When I started telling girls I was hung up on someone, it was my ex-girlfriend, Janine. I don't correct her. I'm definitely, definitely over Janine. Soon, I'm going to be over Andy, too. I'm going to be over him, very soon.

"Yeah." I say, "I'm over her."

We can't go back to her room. Her roommates' younger sister is visiting for the week-end. I don't want to take her back to our place. I really don't. I don't have another option. Ashleigh doesn't strike me as the type who hands out a lot of chances. It's late. Very late. He should be asleep. I'm sure, he'll be asleep. I'm almost certain, he'll be asleep. He always says, he's a really, really deep sleeper.

*

Sex with Ashleigh is different. I don't ask her what she wants.

I don't need to.

She tells me before I come close to asking. She tells me and tells me. The words she uses shock me. They shock me and stun me. I've never heard anyone talking like this. I've never seen anyone move the way she moves. I don't know what she does with her hips, I only know, I've never felt anything like it.

Usually, my main goal during sex is to get my partner to lose control. That's always my main aim. This time, I'm the one losing control. I'm not just losing control. I'm losing my fucking mind. She has me right where she wants me. She has me out on a ledge. She keeps me there until I'm close to insane. When she finally pushes me over, my whole body arches. I buck my hips up off the mattress, lifting her up with me as I come. My toes curl and my fingers dig into the sheets. My body keeps arching until I'm spent. It's intense. It's more than intense. It's so intense, it almost hurts. It feels like I nearly died.

She didn't come to harm me, I tell myself. She came to save me.

*

I spend most of the summer working at our neighbour's pool supply store. Ash comes to visit for just over a week, so I take some time off to spend with her. We have fun together. You can't really be around Ash for very long, without having fun. She spends most of her time wearing very, very short denim shorts. If she isn't wearing those, she's wearing strappy white sundresses. They are short, too. If we aren't in my room, in my bed, we spend our days at the beach. It's a very hot summer. Not just the weather. A lot of the time, when I'm around Ash, I feel that I shouldn't be allowed to operate heavy machinery. I feel compromised. Mentally and physically compromised. I probably shouldn't even be driving. She should come with a warning. Like Andy, she should come with a warning. Hers shouldn't be a specific warning though, not a warning about incoming facial hair, or anything like that. Hers should be a general warning. Hers should say something like, "Just look the fuck out."

My mom really likes Ash, they get along well. She told me she likes her, but when Ash leaves to go home, we stand in the driveway watching her get into the taxi. My mom waves and as the car pulls away, she says, "Are you sure you can handle her, West?"

"No," I say, "I'm almost entirely sure that I can't."

My mom laughs and says, "Well, at least you know what you're up against."

*