The music and the lights don’t swallow me up like they usually do.
They just make me think about Zach.
I wanted to run my hands up his chest. I wanted him to hold onto my hips while we moved to the music—while we moved with each other.
I wanted a lot of things.
Grabbing my flower crown back from some drunk mec who can’t figure out how to fit it on his head, I push my way through the crowd and head to the back to grab my jacket. It’s time to go home.
I feel dumb calling an Uber to only go a few blocks, but I do it anyway.
Maybe if Clém had just taken an Uber...
I’m being stupid. Uber wasn’t even a thing back then, and even if it was, bad things can still happen in cars. I play with my grandmother’s ring the whole way over to X’s place, eyes on the driver in the rear-view mirror. My breath comes out in a big whoosh when I’m finally on the sidewalk, and I speed-walk over to the apartment building’s door.
I only remember to be mad when I start climbing the stairs. It’s two in the morning, and he still hasn’t sent a fucking text.
Is that music?
There’s some kind of rock song blasting behind the door.
That fucker better not be sitting at home.
I have a lot of angry French words on my tongue, ready to spill out as I pull the door open and face the crashing sound waves pumping full volume out of the stereo.
It takes me a minute to realize I’m also facing crashing people too.
As in, X’s dick is crashing into some girl’s mouth as she kneels in front of him while he sits on the couch.
He’s got his head thrown back and his hands wrapped in her hair. She has a long, pastel-coloured ponytail just a few shades off from my bright pink dye job. X moans something as she starts bobbing her head faster, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.
He can’t hear me either. He doesn’t hear when I move inside. He doesn’t hear when I pull the door closed behind me. He doesn’t hear when I take two steps forward into the living room and stop just a few feet away from the couch.
I’ve had guys cheat on me before, but I’ve never seen it happen. Part of me is worried I’m going to puke, but the rest of me is weirdly curious, like if I stare long enough, the picture is going to turn into something that makes sense.
I’m still watching them with my head tipped to the side when X opens his eyes and screams—actually screams before pushing the girl off and grabbing the stereo remote. The room goes quiet except for the babbling beginnings of his excuses. He stands up before looking down at his semi-hard dick and tucking it into his pants. Then he starts making excuses again.
“DeeDee, I, uh, you weren’t—We—This...” He goes on and on in French, but I just keep staring. It’s like I’ve gone numb. The girl on the couch is staring too, sitting in X’s spot and bouncing her foot in the air like she’s bored.
Everything about this feels so strange, like a movie in a language I don’t speak.
“I’m sorry.”
X’s voice has faded to a dull throbbing in my head, but I catch those words. They make me feel something, like the prick of a needle or the jab of someone poking me in the arm. Those are not words he gets to say.
“Sorry?” I repeat. I can feel myself coming back to life. Anger buzzes in my chest. “You’re sorry? Who the fuck even is that?”
“That’s, uh, Celine,” he stupidly answers the rhetorical question. “You know, uh, my ex.”
Somewhere in the back of my head, I realize how funny ‘X’s ex’ sounds, but I push the thought aside. I’m not going to start laughing like a crazy person.
“And why the fuck was Celine sucking your dick?”
“Look, DeeDee, can we just talk—”
“Non.” I take a step closer, and he’s smart enough to back up. “We don’t talk with her here—if we even talk at all. Tell her to leave.”
That’s when I see it. He glances over at her and then back at me, the spark of fear I managed to put in him shifting into something else I finally recognize: pity.
He pities me.
“DeeDee, she’s not leaving.”
You are.
He doesn’t have to say it. The words hang in the air even though he doesn’t speak them. The picture in front of me has tilted now. It all makes sense. I look at her pink hair again, longer than mine and mussed from X’s fingers, and I know I was just the placeholder. I was the rebound.
“Look, things just moved so fast with you and me. I didn’t even know we were dating, and then suddenly you’re living here and, like, showing up with boxes of your stuff. I didn’t know what to say—”
“You could have said, ‘Hey, I’m still fucking my ex-girlfriend.’ I would have appreciated that.”
I thank all my years behind the bar for the gift of always having a comeback. My legs feel like they can barely keep me standing, but I have enough pride to not let him see it.
“I wanted to say something, but you just...It’s like you live in this little fantasy world where it’s perfectly normal for you to be shacking up with a guy you just met, but it’s not. It’s not normal, and I didn’t want to have to be the one to burst your bubble or whatever, but I can’t keep doing this. You need...You need, DeeDee. You need too much.”
It’s not the first time someone’s told me that. It’s not even the second time, or the third. I should be ready for it, but the words still sound like a howling noise in my ear.
I reach into my pocket, wrapping my hand around my phone like it’s a weapon—or a shield. It’s my lifeline. I can walk out of here. I have people I can call.
You’re not alone. You’re not alone. You’re not alone.
I point a finger at X. “I lied when I said you were huge. You have one of the smallest dicks I’ve ever seen.” I move my finger to point at Celine. “Your roots are showing, chérie. You should think about a touch up.”
I feel like I’m on a high as I slam the apartment door closed behind me and sprint down the stairs, but it’s not the good kind of high. It’s one of those bad trips where your whole skeleton feels like it’s shaking and there are ten thousand voices whispering in your head while the floor tilts around you.
Trippy stuff.
I could have handled the whole thing better if I hadn’t already been so worked up about X not showing at Taverne Toulouse. Now it feels like my brain is spiking my body with too much adrenaline for my system to handle. I lean against the wall in the building’s entryway and pull Monroe’s number up on my phone before I realize what I’m doing. My foot taps against the tile floor as the phone rings, and rings, and rings.
She must be sleeping.
You’re not alone. You’re not alone.
I scroll through my contacts to find Roxanne, but that won’t work either. She couldn’t come to April Showers because her fiancé’s band is playing a big show in another city tonight.
It’s not a big deal. It really should not be a big deal, but my breathing is getting faster and faster, and the names on my screen are starting to blur as I scroll through them over and over again. I’m so bad with names. I don’t even know who half these people are. I meet so many people. I’m always surrounded by people, but they’re just there. Just like X. Just like every other fucking boyfriend.