Bully

by Sky Corgan

  I opened door number three and discovered two girls going at it. Gross. Kissing another girl was okay. Fucking one was not. Boobies are awesome. Vaginas are disgusting. Say no to vaginas!

  The couple didn't seem to notice me. I rolled my eyes as I began to close the door. The girl on top was chubby. That shouldn't have mattered. It didn't matter at first. The door was almost closed when I noticed something strange and gave pause. She wasn't very shapely either. My gaze trailed up her back to her hair. It was long, black and silky. Perfectly flat ironed...

  I swallowed hard and the lump that choked me fell and tore a hole right through my heart. That was not a chubby girl. That was... And he was... Her legs were over his hips. Her long black hair spilling over the side of the bed. Her voice was a sound of pure pleasure—a sound the settled into the very pit of my soul and festered there like a ghastly infection.

  I mouthed his name, but no sound came out. Then I shut the door, because at that moment, I realized that I had been wrong. Dealing with Dustin had been the far better option.

  The tears didn't come right away. No. The shock of what I'd just seen held them back. I could not count the number of times I had fantasized about seeing Bobby naked. Hell, in the four years that I'd known him, I'd never even seen him shirtless. I didn't want it to be like this. Not like this.

  He was supposed to be with me tonight. Not her. That had been the plan all along. My plan, at least. Maybe he had planned for this. I had been too scared of the answer to ask him.

  I covered my mouth with my hand as if it would keep the pain from spilling out into a broken shriek. All I could do was stand there thinking about how surreal it was that just a few yards away, Bobby was having sex with someone else. Someone who wasn't me.

  It hurt. God damn, did it ever hurt. Hurt me worse than when I found out he had slept with that other girl when he and Christine were taking a break. It shredded the very fibers of who I was at the deepest level. Suddenly, I was nothing. No one. Nothing mattered. I just existed.

  I knew I had to get away. I couldn't stay here any longer. But I also knew that I didn't want to feel.

  Bring on the alcohol.

  I exhaled a deep breath and turned to look over the banister. Dustin wasn't there anymore. It was the first thing that had gone right all night. Maybe the universe was finally going to give me a break. I'd been fed a shit sandwich and had swallowed the whole thing down like a starving girl. Now it was time for my reward.

  I took shaky calculated steps down the stairs. It was like I was already drunk. My body was so numb on the inside that I could barely function. I told myself that it was the effects of the beer I'd already drank, but deep down, I knew that wasn't true. I was emotionally devastated, and everything inside of me was trying to cope somehow.

  I stayed close to the wall as I made my way back to the kitchen. If I could have blended in with the paint, I would have. I didn't want to be seen. My entire focus was on getting to the alcohol. I had remembered seeing a bottle of Jäger sitting out on the kitchen counter. I've always hated Jäger, but if it was still there, I was damn sure going to drink it.

  It wasn't still there, but as luck would have it, a huge bottle of some cheap whiskey was in its place.

  I found an empty Solo cup sitting on the counter. Not a new one. Someone had drunk all of the beer out of this one. I didn't care who. Caution was long gone.

  I took the cup and twisted open the bottle of whiskey, pouring myself a good two ounces worth. I threw it back, reveling in the sear at the back of my throat. Pain felt good right now. Physical pain, at least. It helped to burn away some of what was going on inside of me, but that only lasted for a second. I needed more. So much more. Enough that it wiped my memory clean of everything that happened tonight.

  The irony was that I couldn't drink too much. I still had to make it back to my dorm. Alone. Without Bobby.

  Wetness brimmed my eyes, and I poured myself another shot to distract my thoughts. I tossed it back with equal vigor.

  “Whoa there, cowgirl.” A hand landed on my shoulder.

  I jerked back to face the guy talking to me. He must have seen the wild look in my eyes. I glared at him, a clear warning to stay away. My palm gripped the bottle of whiskey more tightly. I imagined that I looked like a feral dog guarding a piece of meat. If he tried to take the bottle from me, I would snap.

  He held his hands up in surrender and leaned away from me. “You shouldn't be drinking so fast.”

  “That's none of your business.” I blocked him out, returning my attention to the booze.

  He was right. I could feel the warmth of the alcohol curling around my intestines and spreading through me like a disabling disease. My limbs were looser. My concentration, not what it had been before.

  I took one last shot before capping the bottle. By the time I got back to my room, I should be able to settle straight into sleep. That's what I needed right now, unconsciousness. I needed the relief of not having to think about what I saw. The man I loved...pumping into another woman. The image of him between her legs was stamped into my mind. Those sounds she was making.

  I cursed, wiping my mouth on the back of my arm before stumbling towards the front door. The sooner I got back to my dorm room, the better. I was done. Fuck Bobby. He didn't need to know that I was leaving. He could spend thirty minutes searching the house for me like I did for him. I didn't care if it took him all night to figure out that I was gone.

  By the time I got to the front door of the house, everything was spinning. I only made it halfway down the porch stairs when I knew I had to sit down. I'd taken one shot too many. Water was what I needed now, but I was too weak and sick to go back up into the house to get it. This is where having a friend would have come in handy. But I didn't have any friends. I was alone. I had followed Bobby to this stupid college, away from all of our friends—I'd followed him to this stupid frat party—and now I was alone. There was no one for support. No one to lean on. No one to help me.

  Tears came to my eyes unbidden. I couldn't stop them. It was like even my body was trying to dehydrate me more. Everything was working against me.

  I hugged my knees and bent forward, resting my head against my arms to try to stop the world from spinning around me. I kept my sobbing to a minimum. It came in waves with my thoughts, which were highly unstable. One minute I was thinking about Bobby. The next minute I was thinking about Dustin. The minute after that, I just wanted to be home. I could have gone to community college with June and Petra. They went to Northwest Vista together. They were probably having the time of their lives right now, going to classes during the daytime and hanging out at night. They weren't living on campus like we were.

  Yeah, if I had stayed home and gone to college with them, Bobby would be out of sight and out of mind. Getting over him would have been hard. Maybe I would have even still held on to hope that a romance would bloom between us when he came back for vacation. I don't know what I was even thinking anymore. All that mattered was that I wouldn't be alone. I wouldn't feel friendless like I did now.

  The world was awash with misery. Since I wasn't drinking water, the spins weren't going away. All I could do was sit there and hold my knees and pray to God that the sickness would pass long enough so that I could stumble back to my dorm room, or that some kind soul would take pity on me and bring me some water so that I could start to sober up.

  The sound of music kicked up several notches as the front door opened. I groaned as my headache pulsed in time with it.

  “Are you alright?” someone asked me.

  A guy. It was another guy. Great(sarcasm at its finest). Hopefully, he wasn't some sleazeball that I'd have to fend off. It seemed that this party was full of them...not that anyone had approached me in a flirtatious manner. Unless you count the guy that dragged me into the wet T-shirt contest. That wasn't so much flirtatious as it was...I don't know.

  Now I was scowling because I hadn't so much as gotten hit on. Bobby and I walked through the door
of the party and he got swarmed by girls. None of the guys even turned my way. What was I, chopped liver?

  I knew I wasn't not the most attractive girl. My outfit wasn't particularly stylish. My forehead was a little high and my blonde hair a bit too wispy. It wasn't cooperating tonight. That's why I had pulled it back into a ponytail. In hindsight, I should have kept it down. All of my past boyfriends seemed to like it better when I wore my hair down.

  “Hey.” A foot nudged me, drawing me away from my thoughts.

  It was the same guy. He was still there. Maybe I could get him to bring me some water. Hopefully, it wouldn't cost me any sexual favors.

  Finally, I looked up at him. When I did, sheer anger sent the nausea at the back of my throat scurrying down my intestines to hide.

  This was it. The last fucking straw. I was not about to let this fucker make my night any worse.

  I stood up and glared at Dustin Nikoli. If looks could maim, I would have castrated him and made him choke to death on his own balls. There was no way I was going to let a snide comment slip from his lips. We were enemies, and for once, I was going to have the upper hand.

  “Listen, you furking asshoooe.” I jabbed my finger into his chest. Good God, it was like a rock. If I were sober, my joints probably would have ached from bending back against it. “If ya say one goddamn thang to me rit noa, Imma punch you in front of Gawwd and eryone else. I swear to fucking God ey will.” Why was God coming into this so much? Maybe because I had prayed to God that this confrontation wouldn't happen in the first place. So much for that.

  I swayed forward, losing my balance, and Dustin caught me by my forearms before I had a chance to tumble over the side of the steps. “Hey. Calm down.” His voice was firm. Commanding. I wasn't listening, though.

  I jerked away from him, stumbling back, my heel barely landing on the step. “Yer a reeeel piece a work, yaknow. I'm not gonna let you ruin my night.” I shook my finger at him. “Nooo siree. Ya know why? Because my night has already been fucking ruined by a prick up there.” I pointed to the house. “So fuck off. Fuck you and yer fucking football and frat house and biiiig truck.” I wasn't even making sense anymore, but I didn't care. It just felt good to tell someone off. To tell him off. Years of torment had all boiled down to this moment. At least, I got to use my liquid courage for something.

  “You're wasted.” He furrowed his brow. His ice-blue eyes darkened as he looked at me. If I didn't think he was such an asshole, I might have been attracted to him. Every girl at our high school had been. And why not? He had the perfect muscular body. The perfect chiseled jaw. He was practically masculine perfection. Captain of the football team and the basketball team. A man's man.

  Everyone loved him. Everyone but me, who he terrorized all throughout high school. One of my last memories of him was him kicking the back of my desk in Spanish class just to be a dick. That was tame compared to the time that he put gum in my hair on the school bus. Or when he stabbed my hand with the business end of a pen(that was shortly after I first met him my freshman year). I still had a scar from that.

  Nothing had ever made me happier than when he had graduated a year before me. My days of being terrorized by him were over. At least, I thought they had been. I enjoyed my senior year Dustin-free. The thought that I might have to deal with him for three or four years of college... I was going to put a stop to his bullying right here and now.

  “I am wasted!” I declared proudly, placing my hands on my hips. “And I'm damn glad.” My eyes narrowed into slits. “If you think you're gointa put me through tha same shit here that you did in high schoo.” I stomped my foot. “Ya got another thing coming, Mister. I will fucking destroy you. Do you hear me? Fucking destroy ya!” I practically shouted into the night.

  “Yeah, yeah. I heard you.” He regarded me with nothing but pure annoyance. “Now sit down before you fall down.”

  He reached for me again, and again I pulled away.

  “Don't you fuckin' touch me.” I shook my head at him. Bad idea. Almost instantly, I lost my balance and had to crouch down to keep from falling over.

  Really bad idea. The world starting spinning like a top. All I could do was stare forward at Dustin's white sneakers. The nausea that hit me was like a baseball bat straight to the stomach. I watched Dustin's sneakers turn orange as I upchucked the contents of my stomach onto them. Even though I should have been happy that I vomited on him, I was absolutely mortified. One more thing for him to make fun of me for.

  I didn't have much time to dwell on that though, because everything around me went black.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It wasn't my first hangover, but it was definitely my worst. I woke up to the pounding of a marching band inside of my head. The nausea I had felt the night before was still there as if it had been cuddled up within me all night waiting to wake up too. On top of that, I had that nasty 'you've been drinking' feeling. My God, was I ever ill.

  I tilted my head to the side, expecting to see my roommate sleeping in the bed next to mine. She wasn't there. In fact, it wasn't even her bed. I blinked a few times, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. They trailed up to a pair of blackout curtains that were hung over the windows.

  This was not my room. Panic spiked inside of me as I realized that I had no idea whose room I was in or what had happened last night.

  I threw the covers off of me. A pang of pain shot straight through my temple, and I had to grab my head. Damn. I should not have drank as much as I did.

  As soon as the throbbing subsided, I sat up. Moving didn't seem like a good idea, and so I didn't move. I simply sat there, staring down at the oversized T-shirt that I was now wearing. It was black with a grizzly bear on it.

  Not my shirt.

  The panic surged again, and I gave my body a pat check. Then I rubbed my thighs together. Unless the guy I was with last night had a pencil-dick, I didn't get raped. That was lucky. The last thing I remembered was...

  “Ugh!” I fell back onto the bed.

  The last thing I remembered was throwing up on Dustin Nikoli's shoes. Everything after that was a blur, which meant I probably blacked out.

  I groaned as I remembered other unpleasant things from last night. Bobby thrusting into Theresa. Fucking bitch.

  I wanted to be mad at her. I willed myself to be mad at her because it was easier than being mad at him. He was single. I had no claim on him. But surely she had seen the way that I was looking at him. Surely, all of those girls knew that I wanted him to be mine.

  They weren't your friends, I reminded myself. The girl code does not apply to them. You were just competition. Competition that was obviously easy to beat.

  Thinking about it was depressing. More depressing than the fact that I made an ass out of myself at my first college party and threw up on someone's shoes. If anything, I should be taking pleasure in the fact that I vomited on Dustin's sneakers. Sure, I'd probably hear shit about it later, but words were nothing in comparison to the fact that he had to clean my stomach contents up with his own two hands.

  A smirk crossed my lips at the thought of the disgusted look on Dustin's face as he rinsed his shoes off in the sink. Too bad I hadn't eaten more before the party. It would have been a lot better if there were chunks. I'm pretty sure that most of what came out of me was pure alcohol. Oh well. It's not like I had exactly planned it all out. The night hadn't gone like it was supposed to. Nope. Not at all.

  I laid there for several moments trying to decide if I wanted to get up and wander around or lie in bed until someone came to retrieve me. Thankfully, someone was nice enough to leave a glass of water and a trashcan next to the bed. By some miracle, the trashcan was empty. The glass of water was full, though, so I picked it up and drank it.

  Wrong move.

  Seconds later, it came back up with a vengeance. Now: trashcan full; water glass empty.

  A few strands of hair had come loose from my ponytail holder and now dangled over my shoulder, wet with the water and bile that had shot
up from my stomach. The nausea had come on so quickly that I didn't even have time to pull my hair back.

  Gross, I thought as I wrinkled my nose, spitting the last bit of vomit into the trashcan. It tasted like stomach acid. There was definitely no alcohol left in me. Well, not in my stomach, at least. My body smelled like a bar, and the hangover told me that the booze was still working its way out of my bloodstream.

  I thought about lying back down, but I didn't want to get my vomit hair on the kind stranger's bedsheets. With shaky legs, I pushed myself to my feet, then took shuffling steps to the bedroom door.

  When I opened it, light streamed in from downstairs. I covered my eyes, gazing down on the common area of the frat house.

  Shit. I was still in the frat house. I'm really lucky I didn't get raped.

  Thankfully, no one was downstairs, so I made my way to the bathroom, washed the pieces of my hair I'd thrown up on, peed, drank some water from the sink and threw up again. Rinse, repeat, minus the peeing and drinking more water. Obviously, nothing was going to stay down. It was best if I tried again later.

  When I opened the bathroom door, my heart nearly caught in my chest. The panic that I felt last night was there again, but it was usurped by the throbbing in my skull.

  Dustin was standing a few feet away with his arms folded over his chest. He didn't look friendly either. Here's where the emotional abuse began, and this time, I was too weak to fend him off. The liquid courage was gone. Now, I was just me. Cowardly and in pain.

  “I see you woke up,” he stated matter-of-factually.

  “I did.” I stiffened, trying to look tall and intimidating. I was certain the effort fell flat.

  “You drank too much last night.”

  No shit, Sherlock. “I did.”

  He reached up to rub the back of his neck, his bicep bulging. Damn, he'd gotten bigger in the year since I'd last seen him. He was always muscular, but now he seemed super buff.

  “I tried to find someone to take you back to your dorm room, but no one seemed to want to help, so I let you stay here.”