Page 114 of Damnation
That is the guy I fell in love with. The boy whose arms became my favorite place in the world, and didn’t he promise that I could stay there as long as I wanted? The boy who, after making love, drew his face close to mine and whispered that he’d never be able to be without me again. Who got me a bracelet just because he saw how much I liked it. Who took me to his home, to the places where he grew up, and showed me the most important parts of his life: his mother, his brother. I wasn’t building castles in the air. I refuse to believe that. I fell in love with him because he was lovable.
But his words, so full of contempt, keep running through my head. And I swear I’d rip my brain out of my skull rather than continue tohear them. Just like I’d rip my heart from my chest rather than feel all this pain.
I spend the night sobbing in my bed, occasionally falling asleep and startling awake several times. I feel like I’ve been tossed into some nightmare, and for a few moments in the thick darkness of my room, I can even fool myself into believing that is what’s happening.
The first rays of dawn come slowly. When you’re suffering, time seems to stop. But the pain remains. It’s all there, inside of you. And it kills you; it sucks out your life force. It tears at your soul. I’m about to slip into another muzzy half sleep, but then I feel my phone vibrate with a new text. I gasp slightly when I see his name come up on the display.
That’s not possible. He couldn’t possibly have the guts to text me now. I stay there with my phone clutched in my hands for a few seconds while I consider whether to read the text or just delete it.
I decide to read it.
I need you to come here. I’m begging you.
I stare at the message in consternation for a long time, trying to make some sense of it. He has completely lost his mind. Where does he get the audacity to ask me for something like that? After the way he treated me, I shouldn’t even be thinking about it, but damn it, the wound is too fresh, and thinking is all that I can do. Love makes us stupid. Exploitable. Dependent. Screwed up and weak. And I’m all of that. Right now, I’m every one of those things. Which is why, for a second, I actually consider going over there. Even if it’s just to shout in his face how cowardly and disgusting he was toward me and claw back a modicum of the dignity that he shredded.
Then, another text:It’s urgent.
Panic takes the wheel. With one hand pressed against my chest, I leap out of bed. What if something actually happened to him? The worry is enough to get me rushing over there.
I walk to the frat house with my stomach in knots and a nauseous feeling that intensifies with each step I take. I’m even momentarily afraid that I’m going to have to stop and vomit. The front door isn’t locked, and the interior is full of sleeping guys and girls, even thoughit’s already almost noon. There are empty bottles scattered everywhere. The smell of weed and sweat permeates everything. On the floor, I spot three Spanish lit books, carelessly abandoned. I pick them up, because the thought of leaving them in the midst of all the chaos hurts my heart.
I climb the stairs, trying to soothe the agitation that’s turned my knees to water. I grab the door handle, and a terrible kind of premonition comes over me. It’s like an alarm bell going off in my head, a voice whispering that I should run away. But I don’t pay it any heed; instead I turn the handle and go in.
My blood runs cold. I see clothes scattered across the floor. An empty whiskey bottle on the desk. Thomas’s belt at the foot of the bed. His shirt dangling half off the mattress. White powder on the bedside table. And him on his stomach, wrapped in a sheet,asleep.
But none of that is what steals my breath. What freezes my heart are the glacier-colored eyes that stare mockingly at me. The barely there grin that slowly appears on a mouth smeared with lipstick. The shock of tousled red hair falling over bare breasts, the rest of her covered by the same sheet that surrounds my boyfriend’s naked body.
No.
Not my boyfriend.
Not anymore.
I feel the ground shaking beneath my feet. My ears are ringing. That retching feeling is crawling back up my throat again.
“Oops,” Shana says maliciously, sitting up straight. “Surprise.”
The books I’m holding fall to the floor with a dull clatter that wakes Thomas up. Instinctively, he throws his arm out toward the part of the mattress that, until recently, I occupied. His hand lands on Shana’s belly, and I feel a stabbing sensation in my chest.
This is not possible.
This is not really happening.
But then Thomas raises his head and turns to look at her. “What the fuck are you doing in my bed?” he growls, leaping to his feet. My eyes land on his boxers—he’s still wearing them—but that doesn’t meananything.
It’s only then that Thomas notices I’m in the room. And the expression on his face shifts dramatically. He’s no longer surprised; instead he seems terrified. He pales, and I’m sure that he knows it too; he knows that this is our point of no return.
“Fuck, no,” he says, moving to me and taking me by the shoulders. “It’s not what it looks like, I promise you.”
My eyes fill with tears.
“Do you hear me, Ness?” He shakes me slightly, trying to get me to say something, but I can’t.
I’m paralyzed. All I can do is look at him with disgust.
“I have no idea what she’s doing here or how she wound up in my bed!”
“You’re the one who wanted it; don’t you remember?” Shana interrupts in a honeyed voice. She rises from the bed, utterly unashamed in her nakedness. She plucks her bra and panties off the floor and puts them on.
