“Now I’m stuck living with my cocky, oh-so-serious attending in a penthouse residence at The Ritz. How will I ever survive it?”
My thoughts exactly.
11
“I thought we said this was going to be a lowkey night?” Carter shouts in my ear as we enter the crowded restaurant that could easily double as a club of sorts. The place is packed. There is a DJ spinning a mix of Top 40 and indie rock—no complaints there—and the dance floor is filled to the brim with gyrating bodies.
“This wasn’t my idea.”
“Then why are we here? We start a twenty-four-hour shift tomorrow at seven a.m.”
“Oliver said it was just dinner.”
“Clearly he lied.” Carter points to the table packed with all of our friends, his five brothers, and several women I don’t know who are likely their dates. Adding to that, there are people openly taking pictures of them. “Jesus. Do the press have a tracking device on us or what?” he grouses, placing his hand on the small of my back as we try to maneuver through the room. “I’d rather not be photographed tonight.”
“For once,” I smart.
“Forever. I hate it. I come from a family of money. I date women. Who gives a fuck?”
He has a point in that.
“At least the music is good,” I counter. “This is my favorite Wild Minds song.”
“Which one is this?”
“Time Surrender. So good. Jasper Diamond’s voice gives me chills every time I hear it.”
“You just want to screw him.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. At the pinched scowl on his face as he says it. “You do know he’s married with kids, right? Not to mention a celebrity.” Then I laugh harder. “Sorta like you and your gang of hoodlums minus the married and kids part.”
“Ha, ha.” Carter isn’t amused.
I spin around, walking backward, forcing Carter to take my hand. “Come on, old man. Fall into the role. Sexy. Billionaire. Bachelor playboy with a different woman on his arm every night. Smile for the cameras. Remember what it’s like to be young. When was the last time you had any fun?”
He blinks at me, almost as if he’s been stunned into a state of shock. Like my words hit a nerve and he’s suddenly awakening from a coma, realizing that years of his life have past, and he has no idea what’s happened while he was sleeping.
“You want to have some fun?”
“I think I deserve a night of fun, don’t you?” I counter.
“Eat first and then dance or dance first and then eat?”
Only I never get the chance to answer that question as with my next breath, I’m swarmed like bees on a flower by a group of very determined women. They move me as a unit, prying me without challenge away from Carter and out onto the dance floor.
“We’re so happy you came out to meet us,” Amelia exclaims, a smile lighting her gray eyes to an almost smoky color as she moves and sways to the Wild Minds beat. “I’ve never been here before, but I think now that we’ve brought Layla and Stella, it will be our new place.” She points behind me, and I turn over my shoulder to find the two teenagers cutting loose and dancing with abandon.
I turn back to Amelia. “I wish I could dance like them. I’m like a baby giraffe. All arms and legs and no rhythm.”
Two hands land on my hips. “I can help with that. Painting is all rhythm.” Aria, one of Rina’s BFFs shifts in behind me, dancing with me and getting me in tune with how I should move. “Perfect,” she praises. “You’ve got it. You’re just rusty. All that time in the hospital and not enough time living.”
“No kidding,” I deadpan. “Though I’m not usually a fan of clubs.”
This place isn’t bad, likely because it’s not actually a club, but I’ve been to a few clubs that were all about strobe lights and while I’ve been okay at them if I close my eyes or avoid the light, I always worry about having a seizure from too much visual stimulation. There is a reason games like Space Invaders at the arcade have seizure warnings. It’s not for regular folks, it’s for folks like me, and they’re warnings I heed.
If you’ve ever had a seizure in public, you quickly learn it’s not something you ever want to repeat. I’ve had plenty. In elementary, middle, and high school. In college and med school as well. My last at a party one night after smoking a lot of weed and drinking too many shots.
I’ve been hospitalized. Put on so many drugs my mind was in a permanent fog. I’ve changed my entire diet, cutting out this thing and that. And for a while, as a child and teenager, I will admit, I was pissed off. Angry that my brain wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t react the way I wanted it to.
When you have a seizure, you feel powerless.
You have no control over anything. Not your movements, your breathing, your bowels and bladder—yep, as classy as it gets. You are a slave to your inner brain cell electrical activity and it’s… well… it’s fucking crushing to know that this is your reality. Much like any disease or disorder is. But with epilepsy, you’re fine one second, going about your life, and then in the next, you’re having a seizure.
I won’t deny how lucky I am. How I’ve been able to mostly manage myself with a few crucial life adjustments. But I’ve seen the struggle others go through firsthand and simply put, it’s a disorder that can shatter lives and break your heart.
“Well a fan of clubs or not, I know Oliver is glad you came,” Amelia announces, dragging me from my thoughts. “He’s been worried non-stop about you.”
“Did he tell you how my apartment looked like a whorehouse?”
Amelia gnaws on her lips, glancing over to Rina, Halle, Margot, and Aria in turn. Oliver had texted asking for an update on getting my things and I told him all about it, sparing no detail. That’s how Carter and I got roped into coming here. At least I managed to go candy shopping first.
“I’m going to take that as a yes.”
“Are you okay? I realize that’s such a dumb question, but I have to ask.” Halle grasps my shoulder, slipping in front of me, mirroring the moves that Aria—and me, I guess—are doing. “I’ve had exes cheat and commit crimes and all sorts of wonderfulness, so I get it. When those assholes do that, they rob you of a piece of yourself you never even realized you gave them.”
“Truth,” Margot agrees. “How is it that the human psyche is so conditioned to giving ourselves away to those who are quick to harm us and so slow to believe and trust those who wish to covet us?”
Damn. I don’t think truer words have ever been spoken.
Why is that? We can hear a million words of praise from a million people but then someone does something that rattles our inner core and it’s like all those other things fall helplessly into the void. Tony made me feel unsexy. Undesirable. Too ambitious.
He made me feel like there was something wrong with me because he cheated.
As if it was my fault because I didn’t ‘need’ him the way he wanted me to. I didn’t fit into his preconceived mold of what a woman and wife should be. But he didn’t just cheat. He was having sex with strangers in a way he never would with me.