In Pieces, page 13
Steven grips my shoulder and starts rubbing like he’s soothing away my idiocy for suggesting that Hot Box—whatever the hell that is—might be lame. “Don’t worry, kid. You’re still new. It’s not your fault,” he teases, barely pausing to chuckle when David’s right hand flies from the steering wheel to slap Steven’s from my shoulder. “Don’t worry, we’re almost there. Then we’ll see how lame you think the hottest club outside Manhattan is.”
My gaze swings to David’s, but he keeps his eyes trained carefully on the road ahead. His smirk is gone, in favor of his rare earnest smile.
He’s taking me dancing.
* * *
According to my phone—or, more accurately, Google—Hot Box is the only popular nightclub in town. Which would explain the long line of trendy clothes and pushed-up cleavage snaking its way from the parking lot.
David leads us right up to the velvet rope, ignoring the line altogether, like he knows his place and a line isn’t it.
And it appears he’s right. The bouncer greets him like an old friend with that handshake-half-hug thing men do, and Steven starts questioning the guy about the girls that have already showed up tonight and the ones he’s still expecting, as if they’re on the drink menu or something.
I linger just behind them, zoning right out of their conversation. My brain is already inside the club, losing myself to the music, and I practically bounce on my heels with impatience as they continue to stand around and chat like a bunch of old yentas.
I pick at my nail polish to distract from my own impatience, focusing on the music instead. Even from the sidewalk, I can make out the hook from the new Rihanna song blaring on a loop as the DJ beat-matches a classic hip-hop record I’ve no doubt David could tell me the name, artist, and release year of.
I’m already so lost to the beat that I don’t immediately realize our group has finally stopped yapping about the something Delta something party that apparently got cancelled, and is actually moving past the coveted velvet ropes, until the crowd’s envious shouts break through my trance.
“Your girl?” the bouncer asks David as I pass, his eyes sliding purposefully down my body.
“N—” I start to answer, but David shifts his stance to block me from the bouncer’s view, and suddenly I’m staring at the strained, broad muscles of David’s back through his fitted T-shirt. “Sorry, brother,” he murmurs nonchalantly, his tone completely at odds with the tension in his back. “She’s a nun. Married to God, you know.”
David sets his hand on the small of my back, and I try not to be so affected by his touch as he guides me around him and urges me inside.
The bass-line punches the floorboards beneath my feet the moment we’re through the heavy aluminum doors, and David’s comment and the bouncer are hastily forgotten as it reverberates in my bones.
The music fills the room like a tangible force, grabbing every single body to move to its will, and even those who don’t dance are under its control. They bob their heads or tap their feet as they wait for their drink orders, or stare down at their phones, waiting for a text. Always waiting. But those people—they’re missing out. They’re missing the entire point.
But not the people on the dance floor. The ones who don’t fight the music at all—who know how to surrender to it. No, they’re not missing anything…they are free.
My hips start swaying on their own as we walk the length of the long bar that runs along the south wall of the venue. The place is completely packed with chic, attractive people who don’t look all that much like college students to me, but then I probably look at least a few years older tonight, too.
David and the guys stop to talk to no fewer than three groups of girls, all of whom seem to know them well enough. Reeve, as usual, has very little to say, and communicates mostly with nods and grunts, more concerned with sipping his Guinness, which magically appeared in his hand moments after we got inside.
I could ask David how he knows so many people, but I already know the answer. A guy like him, especially surrounded with friends who look like his, is going to get attention no matter where he goes. How we got in so easily without waiting on line is another question, but I’m not going to look that gift horse in the mouth right now.
We finally arrive at the far end of the bar, and Reeve takes a seat on one of the only empty bar stools, making himself comfortable—well, as comfortable as he ever seems, anyway—like he plans to park there for a while. I’m practically jumping out of my skin, eager to get on the dance floor, and when the DJ mixes in the refrain from Jay-Z’s “99 Problems,” I burst into a grin.
David catches my gaze instantly—he’s the one who turned me on to hip-hop, after all—and his laughter at my excitement echoes right in my chest. I don’t even mind the smug, told ya so look on his face right now.
Steven orders a round of shots, and I down mine before David can say anything. But he just raises his eyebrows, and, without a word, tosses back his own. Of course, I don’t know why I expected anything else. His recent overprotective behavior must be throwing me off, because my brother is the one who would give me shit about drinking, not David.
Steven hands out another round, and I drink mine quickly, if only to get closer to the part when we actually get to dance.
By the time he orders a third round, I’m all out of patience.
I tap David on the bicep. “I want to dance,” I tell him, but it’s too loud, and I don’t want to shout over the music.
The way David’s mouth twitches makes me think he heard me anyway, either by reading my lips, or just by virtue of knowing me so freaking well. But he points to his ear like he didn’t hear at all, and then he’s moving closer—close enough to lean down to me—and it takes me a second to realize that he just means to hear me better. His chest comes precariously close to mine, and when his rough jaw grazes my cheek, I have to physically refrain from turning into his warmth.
God. David has always affected me in all the wrong ways. Or the right ones.
His breath caresses the sensitive skin of my neck in small, heated gusts, a sharp exhale stroking me so surely I’d swear it was his hand.
What did I want to say again?
“I…” Holy freaking shit, my brain is short-circuiting…or maybe it’s my subconscious trying to draw this moment out as long as possible.
“You…” David breathes against me and I almost sigh. Out loud.
I…what?
Christ, I need to pull it together. Logic…This is David—Sammy’s best friend, practically my family…My roommate. My fucking bed-mate.
My truncated internal pep-talk does its thing—miraculously—and my brain suddenly reboots.
“I want to dance,” I force out.
David pulls back enough to look down at me, his lips pulling into a smirk. “Thought you might.” He arches a sarcastic brow and I respond with a playful-but-impatient scowl.
David half-turns back to the bar to grab his third shot, and tosses it down. He gestures with the empty glass toward the busy dance floor, which is separated from the bar by a row of art-deco style columns. “Go for it, kid.”
Kid.
Steven slams his glass down on the bar, which is somehow loud—or sudden—enough to make me jump. He announces he’s going “hunting,” before unceremoniously making his way into the crowd.
I roll my eyes and grab the glass from David’s fingers to set it down for him. “Come with me,” I ask. I want to dance, but I’m not sure I’m brave enough to just march out there on my own.
“I don’t think so, Bea,” he says simply, and I hate the way my heart sinks into my stomach at his rejection, even as David’s lips twitch in amusement.
“But they might be up for it.” David nods behind me, and I spin around to find Lani, Elise, and Toni—a girl from David’s building we’ve all become friendly with—grinning with mischief.
I jump and squeal and hug them, positively thrilled by the surprise. I’ve seen Lani during class and lunch, and I’ve gotten to know Elise—who Lani is still staying with—pretty well, too. But none of us have gone out much since the weekend Liz was attacked, and I think we all need to blow off some steam.
“Come on!” Lani shouts to be heard over the music. I smirk as I catch Reeve’s eyes rake her from head to toe as she grabs my hand to take me exactly where I want to go. I toss a small, grateful smile over my shoulder at David, whose self-satisfaction is written all over his face.
“I can’t believe he got us in here!” Lani gushes. I don’t ask who she means. I don’t have to ask to know that David did this. He got my friends here. He gave me a night out doing my favorite thing with my girls.
“I didn’t know you were into dancing,” Toni says excitedly. “You should come to my contemporary dance class at the rec center. The instructor dances backup for Lady Gaga!”
Really? But I automatically dismiss the thought. It’s been years since I took any kind of dance class. Still, even as I tell Toni I’m not interested, I wonder if it’s true.
The dance floor is packed tight with strangers, who in any other circumstance would make my head spin and my stomach turn. But they’re not real. They’re just bodies, moving to the same beat that’s had me in its clutches since I walked through the doors.
So after a few minutes of trying to scream a conversation over the music, Lani, Elise, Toni, and I surrender to its power instead. My eyes close, my hips sway, and my feet move in rhythm with each song.
A half-naked girl with enormous, fake breasts and more collagen than human flesh in her Kylie-Jenner-lips comes around with candy-flavored shots every now and again, and we take turns buying rounds.
Freedom. It rushes through my veins and fills my chest. It’s utterly palpable, and even if I still wish David would come out here and experience it with me—share it with me—I’m still more grateful to him than he knows.
I turn to search through the blinking lights and tangle of undulating bodies to try and find David by the bar, but I don’t see him.
I consider asking the girls if any of them saw where he went, but they’re all dancing with guys, and I don’t want to interrupt. I scan the length of the bar, and even though it’s basically a mob scene, I know there’s no way I would miss that dark head of hair towering over the crowd. I scour the adjacent areas next, and I spot him just a minute later, off to the side where the booths are—the mostly empty booths—with a girl in a barely-there black dress. She’s practically on top of him, writhing her body in what can only very loosely be referred to as dancing, while David sways halfheartedly behind her.
So he does dance, after all.
He just doesn’t dance with me.
The way the girl barely catches the floor with each step leaves no mystery as to just how drunk she is, and though I’m far from sober myself, even I can tell she’s in no condition to consent to any kind of hookup. There aren’t many reasons a guy like David would suddenly start dancing, and I fiercely hope he isn’t planning to pick her up in that state. I don’t doubt the girl would jump at the chance to be with him if she was stone sober, too, but that’s not the point.
My stomach rolls. I want to believe I know David better than that. That he wouldn’t do something like that. But his vague irritation coupled with the bored look on his face makes it clear he isn’t in it for the dancing. In fact, he seems downright resentful at having to suffer through it at all. But it would explain his refusal to dance with me, since he only dances with girls he wants to fuck, apparently, and that certainly doesn’t include Cap’s little sister.
I glance back at Lani to see if she’s seeing what I am, but she’s still too caught up with her cute dancing partner to be aware of anything else.
David grabs the girl’s hips, like he’s trying to turn her to face him, but she ignores him, and seductively wiggles her ass against him instead. I still don’t see her face, and when her hand slips behind her to grope his thigh, a feeling too awful to name rushes violently through me, blurring my vision and clogging my throat. I can’t even describe what happens inside my chest. The effect isn’t unfamiliar when it comes to David, but it is sharper than I can ever remember, and I have no doubt that our current living arrangements—and sleeping arrangements—are the culprits. They seem to be convincing my subconscious that I have some kind of claim on him. And that’s a dangerous thing.
Because I don’t, no matter how much it might sometimes feel like I do—or, at least, like I should. But the reality is David owes me nothing—he never has. Unfortunately, reality has never made any of this any easier, or made witnessing him with girls cut any less.
And that’s the worst part. That I don’t actually have a right to these feelings. Not the brutal jealousy or the inexplicable sense of betrayal. Or of inadequacy—that one less inexplicable. They all start shouting inside me at once, an emotional mutiny staged by my own defective mind.
The vast room is suddenly too small, the dance floor so cramped it’s hard to breathe. I close my eyes as the impulse to flee fires from each synapse in my brain to every nerve in my body.
But I don’t.
Instead, I suck in a choppy gulp of air, and silently count the beats to the music the way Dr. Schall taught me when he first started treating me. It’s a coping method that had me skeptical at first—doubtful that something as elementary as counting could help—but as I subtly nod my head to keep time, letting the bass-line guide and soothe me, I manage to get my heart rate back in check. It isn’t always enough, but counting musical beats is only one in an arsenal of mental health tools and strategies I’ve spent the better part of three years of therapy cultivating, and coping has become almost second nature to me. And so has managing my demons.
Anxiety and depression aren’t like cancer. You don’t get to fight the good fight, and, if you’re lucky, beat the disease that tried to destroy you back into submission—or remission. My disease is ingrained not just into my body, but into me. Into the person I am, and everything I feel—everything I’ve ever felt, in some respect or another. And, for that matter, everything I will ever feel, until the day I die.
So how do you defeat demons that are a part of your very soul?
The simple answer—you don’t.
So, instead, I manage them. And it took a long time for me to learn how to do even that. My meds help, too, of course, but considering the time and work I’ve put into my recovery since the night I almost let those demons defeat me for good, I’d say I’ve earned enough of the damned credit for myself. Because the truth is it’s still a constant battle. They still whisper to me. They lurk in the shadows of my mind, lying in wait to exploit my weakest moments.
Moments like seeing the boy I’ve crushed on for years doing his own cocky-yet-detached version of some mating dance with some drunk stranger, who may very well end up sleeping in my bed tonight.
David’s bed, I silently correct myself.
But even the thought of having to ask Elise if I can crash at her dorm tonight doesn’t rock my resolve. I don’t freak out, or run away. And I don’t go borderline catatonic like I did after Brian approached me at the bar a few weeks ago. No; instead, I keep my composure tight and my head level. Because it may not always come easily, but I’m stronger than I was, and that’s not nothing.
I suck in one last settling breath and gingerly open my eyes, desperately trying to retain one modicum of self-respect and not to look in David’s direction.
I fail, immediately and epically, because my eyes go straight to the booths, now completely empty, and if the sight of him alone with that girl gutted me before, the sight of their abandoned foreplay-site—and that it means they’ve likely found someplace more private to play—threatens to send those last two sugary shots of liquor back up my throat.
So I take another deep, calming breath.
And then something happens.
A lifetime of longing and unrequited love evolves into something else entirely. Something new…
Anger.
My hands curl into fists at my sides and my eyes narrow at no one in particular. Because this isn’t even unrequited love. I don’t love David. I’ve never loved him. I loved Brian…I think—or used to think. And I survived losing him. I survived the devastating aftermath, even if only barely. But I did—I survived. All of it. The rejection and despair, the secrets and the fear…and the truth I alone couldn’t hide from. And this—this pathetic fucking jealousy, induced by the remnants of a childhood crush I should have outgrown years ago? This is fucking nothing.
A massive pair of fake boobs passes lazily by, and just below them, another tray of shots. I catch the pair of eyes attached to their owner, and gesture for two, handing her the cash I’d had tucked under my bra strap. I down the shots in quick succession, ignoring her judging eyes as I set the empty glasses back on her tray.
I turn my back on her and spot Elise making out with some guy, who, as it happens, is not the one she was grinding all over just minutes ago. Lani is dancing and scream-talking with a group of girls she appears to have befriended.
Normally this is when I would take a bathroom break, whether or not I actually had to use the bathroom. I’d make my escape, take my refuge, and then use it to decide whether to try and stick it out or flee.
But I’m here to dance. So that’s what I do.
I let the music soothe and lift me, giving my body over to it, leaving room for nothing else—no demons, no whispers. I see Steven approach through the figures on the dance floor, and I catch his gaze just as the judgey shot-girl reaches him. He raises his eyebrows to ask if I want one and judgey follows his line of sight. I grin sweetly, defiantly, and nod. Steven’s googly-eyed amusement reflects each of the many drinks he’s consumed tonight, and I doubt he has any idea what he even finds amusing right now.
Steven brings me my shot, we take them in unison, and I’m lost in the music again. I wonder if David sent him over to babysit me while he gets himself some action in a dark corner somewhere.
