Page 31

Sundrop: April 2019

I watch Cole walk away from me and know I have colossally fucked up. How did it get to this? Hidden encounters to just be allowed a moment to speak to him? Graham knows, he knows I have feelings for Cole, so I try to act indifferent. I’m sure it’s the reason Graham keeps pushing Rebecca to fuck him. Like she has everyone else here tonight.

I know he hasn’t dated anyone in a while. He seems to have lost interest in pursuing anything with anyone. Part of me hopes he’s not like them and has not fucked her. I think it’s because I know something is going on between Graham and Rebecca. It would feel like a betrayal if she fucked Cole too. Graham she can have. They both deserve each other. I wish he would just leave me for her.

For every vile thing he has said about me, it’s really a projection of how he feels about himself, confessions of what he has done.

I may not be an angel but I’m not what he accuses me of. I don’t care exactly but part of me wonders if Cole believes it. His opinion of me does matter, a little at least. A lot. It’s a lot.

How did I sink this low, and how the absolute hell do I get out of here?

I am drunk. I must be drunk to put up with the hands roaming me and the leering looks. I hate him so much and I want him dead. I know that if I do kill him, it will be far too obvious that it was me. I will go to jail for it. Mainly because I’d probably beat the bastard to death or stab him repeatedly and call the police myself. Happy with myself for finally doing it.

Round of applause, pat on the back. Maybe some of those confetti cannons to celebrate.

Cake, I’d like there to be cake.

Graham will not be a part of my future, but I want Cole to be. I can see that he’s pulling away from me. He doesn’t like me as much as he used to. Sometimes he looks at me a certain way and I think it’s with love. I’ve wondered for a while now. I wish I was brave enough to ask how he feels about me. As reckless as I am, I worry about losing my friend. I don't want to ruin the fantasy. The one where I run off into the sunset with him and never have to endure the hurt and hands of Graham again.

I want to live.

I want to live.

I want a life.

Graham has well and truly fucked everything up though. What a mess he has made of everything. From fucking with my medication to ruining me financially, the debt he’s accumulated in my name… I don’t think I could even afford to get a place on my own. Once, I would have jumped and never bothered to even look where I landed and now? Something broke inside me a little, I can kill someone, but I can’t risk being on my own with zero money. I’d have to run too.

If I leave Graham, he will hunt me down and I’ll always be looking over my shoulder. Better the devil you know, I’ve reasoned with myself. I’ve learned what and when to expect it. At least I know how and when he will harm me. Out there, he could pop up one day out of the blue, once I have forgotten him and the danger he poses. I feel that sounds worse.

I watch Cole as he re-enters the kitchen and I don't want to follow but I must.

I want to kill Graham, maybe I should. Prison would at least mean I’d be entitled to three square meals a day. And books, I’d have access to books, right? Maybe prison would be a better option. I’d be swapping one set of bars for another.

This is where my whole life has been leading after all.

The very thing I’ve been running from, avoiding all my life may just end up being my salvation.

I feel more resolved and go back to the company, time to perform and do my very best impression of a human being. Maybe just for one more evening. Maybe it’ll all be over tomorrow. Suddenly, with that realisation, I feel lighter than I have in years. I have a plan. I walk back now with purpose, happy to finally have something to look forward to. A plan.

Perhaps my downfall will always be my arrogance. In thinking that I am smarter, stronger, better than every narcissist in my life. I always underestimate the lows they will go to ‘win.’ Whereas psychopathic me doesn’t care about things like winning, because I genuinely just don’t care enough about anything. I do everything I do because I can and because I like the chaos of it. He only acts with the intention to harm; to break me down but I am unbreakable through punishment.

My brain doesn’t work that way.

That’s why prison doesn’t rehabilitant my kind.

I don’t feel regret, but I wonder sometimes, if he does. I hope so.

I feel myself get higher and more of a buzz from the sparkly unicorn gin that he bought me as a gift. Always buying me things. Always showing off like he always showed me off. Not so much now, I’m a little too big around the middle for him to show off as proudly. I wish he’d trade me in for a younger model, leave me for someone else. No such luck.

He keeps telling me I’m fat and ugly, I know it’s because he thinks that of himself. Because that’s how his mother speaks to him. If she talks like that to him as an adult, I’m sure she said worse to him as a child. I don’t feel sorry for him, that would be empathy. I don’t have access to that. But I understand. So, I endure the worst, better me than someone else, right?

Drunk, drunker, drunkest. I can’t take champagne anymore since that time it was spiked by Gods know what and I was raped. I can’t take vodka anymore since that time it was spiked with ecstasy, and I was raped… I keep trying to be an alcoholic like my grandparents because addition is in my family. It is in me, and I’d rather be addicted to this than the many other things I could be.

I’m slurring my words badly; my lisp is ringing in my ears. The sound my S’s make after my front tooth was damaged when I was younger. I am actively flirting with Cole and Graham is silently raging. I can sense the change in the air. Can everyone else?

Cole looks disgusted at me. He’s laughing but he’s, I’m not sure, looks odd to me now. I keep trying to touch him and he’s being taken away from me. I don’t want them to go, I don’t want to be left alone with him.

He’s going to hurt me, and I fucked up. I got too fucked up and I won’t be able to protect myself. I’m so fucking stupid.

I feel myself almost fall off the chair I’ve been sitting in. I didn’t even move and now I’m falling over.

“We should get you guys home, before my girlfriend tries to fuck you in front of everyone, Cole.” and then he follows up with, "I'm trying to save you.”

Fuck him.

I hate him and his stupid fucking voice, and I wish I could leave too but I can’t even stand up from the floor and no one comes back for me.

They leave me there.

Graham must be taking them all home.

The tile on the floor is white. I hear the noise of them all leaving and I try to crawl my way through. My black dress, just a plain, pretty number that I laugh at myself for wearing not for my boyfriend’s benefits but for my friend. It’s getting scuffed no doubt from my crawling about.

I make it to the hall, the floor changing to that piss yellow pine laminate flooring that seems to follow me in houses. I hate it. I prefer the tile in the kitchen, the white. I do like the dishwasher though. All things I’ll miss when I’m either dead or in prison.

I remind myself that either are better options.

I must pass out a little because I wake up suddenly as I feel the brush of thick carpet against my face and somehow, I’ve made it to the stairs. The only part of the house that has carpet. I think I hate carpet more than the flooring. Except for when it’s soaked in blood, then I love the feel, but only against my feet. It’s scratchy against my face. Like right now. I haven’t killed enough people, I think. That is my one regret in life.

I didn’t get to do a large enough spectacle. He ruined my life, my opportunities to kill have been few and far between. I deserve a medal for what I’ve put up with and for how I kept my monster chained up extra tight, even when I desperately wanted to let it out to play.

I think I’d have the power to level towns, to raze whole cities to the ground.

I think of dragons and magic and unicorns and laugh to myself.

I keep telling people I believe in Santa Claus and unicorns and everyone always smiles, laughing saying how cute and adorable I am. Just because it’s cute doesn’t mean it's safe. Delusional is delusional and any amount of delusion is dangerous.

I push myself up to my elbows and look up the stairs. There are ALOT of them. Lots, and more and more and I can’t see properly.

The lyrics from Just Dance cross my mind as I laugh, singing a little but completely off tune. I can’t sing for shit these days. I push myself up, grunting with the effort and hold onto the solid wooden banister to my left and climb. Maybe if I am in bed and looking hideous, he will leave me alone when he comes in and just go to sleep. Maybe, if I'm quiet he’ll not come up the stairs at all and instead go into the living room, park his fucking arse on the couch and watch TV instead. He does love the TV whereas he’s never been capable of loving me.

No more so than I can love him. Which is probably what pisses him off the most.

I make myself get up the stairs. It's not long before my stomach catches up to me. My incredibly weak ability to hold alcohol makes my stomach cramp, badly.

Shit.

That may happen too.

Fuck.

The bedroom is the first door directly at the top of the stairs and for some reason I decide going in there is a better option than the bathroom which is a little way down the hall. Fucking idiot.

I make it to my side of the bed before I fall to my hands and knees. The vision of me, completely made up, long hair now a mess from crawling about the floor, my pretty little black dress and jewellery, and I vomit right there on the laminate flooring. It’s my side of the bed; the far side and I remain there on my hands and knees between the bed and the window.

I hate vomiting, from the old days of being sick a lot as a child. I can’t cope and sometimes hyperventilate and suddenly I want Graham there to comfort me. I am alone and I'm throwing up an orangey streaming mess of chunks of whatever I had last eaten. Along with the sparkly gin my forearms are covered and I’m still crying and throwing up.

I shake, the crying wasn’t enough to stop him, nothing I can say will reason with him.

I hate him.

I hate him so fucking much.

I can’t move, I’m stuck, I’m mortified and I’m genuinely shocked and confused.

Eventually he finishes. I am lucky that in a way he never lasts long so it’s over quick enough but every second that passes is too many. I expect him to help me up at the very least. I think he will help me get cleaned up. No, there is none of that.

He stands, moves around to his side of the bed, stripping off whatever clothing he still had on. I know this because I hear things falling onto the floor. He gets into bed, turns away from me and goes to sleep. Just like that.

I just lie there.

I don’t know how long, as I am unable to move.

Sometimes after being raped, I get an increase in rage which burns through me in a dangerous way… Other times I become catatonic, laying wherever I've been left and just not moving. Not making any sounds.

This is one of those times.

I do eventually get up; the alcohol is still there somewhere but it’s a distant haze now. How sobering the evening has been… As quickly as I can, I clean everything up including myself and go to bed. I lay down in the bed next to the man who thought it was a great idea to rape me while I was crying and vomiting, down on my hands and knees, desperately wanting help.

These moments make me remember how alone I am and no matter what I do to connect with others, that’s just not possible.

I am on my own.

This is the last night I will sleep in this house. I made that promise to myself before I succumbed to the exhaustion of what my body has been put through.

[Dear reader, she did in fact never get drunk again after the events of this night ]