Stay

by Mulholland, S.

  I let him hold me this time because I’m not sure I can stand on my own. I’m suddenly dizzy and my chest hurts.

  “Are you sure, Ryan?” I ask trying to rub the pain away from my chest.

  He must see the sadness in my eyes because he gently pulls me toward him. “Alex, everything was gone when I got home, everything. I am SO sorry. I didn’t know he didn’t tell you.”

  He hugs me but I feel like I can’t breathe.

  I hear Buckcherry’s ‘Crazy Bitch’ fading away along with everyone singing along to it and it feels like the blood that drained from my face is all in my ears. All I can listen to is the sound of my racing heartbeat--this has got to be a joke.

  This just can’t be happening. He dropped out of school and left without telling me anything, without so much as an explanation or goodbye? I’m going to be sick. I feel like my world has just come to an end and someone’s punched me in the stomach and left me breathless.

  I push away from Ryan and bend over clutching my stomach with my clenched fists, trying not to fall to the ground. I feel Ryan tightening his grip on my arms to help straighten me out while asking if I’m okay. Am I okay? Jason left, he left without telling me…without caring about me…

  “Alex! Alex! What’s the matter?” He yells, still holding onto my arms so I don’t fall.

  I don’t know where my voice comes from but I am able to give some sort of response to him, “I’m fine, Ryan. I just didn’t know. That’s all.”

  I stand up and get out of his embrace, sprinting away from him. I feel him running behind me so I go faster to get out of this house and away from his concern for me.

  I’m just suffocating so I need to get out of here. Everything and everyone just fades away as I make my escape. I just can’t be here and know that he’s gone and I knew nothing about it.

  It’s like a knife has been stabbed straight through my heart. My eyes start filling up with tears as I run up the stairs of the basement and out the front doors, ignoring all the drunken people that I bump into.

  I get out the door and into the cool night air—then I’m finally able to breathe.

  I walk to my dorm with silent tears falling down my cheeks. I arrive and don’t even bother taking anything off me. I just fall on my bed and sob like my heart is bleeding from being broken in half.

  In the distance I hear knocking on my door but I don’t care enough to find out who it is or what they are saying. I just want to wallow in my heartbreak and be alone.

  I get up to turn on some music on my laptop to tune out the loud knocking. Soon, Leona Lewis’ song ‘Bleeding Love’ fills the room as I lie back down and sob because her words couldn’t be more fitting than they are right now.

  My heart is bleeding from being torn in two by Jason…my Jason, the one I thought could never hurt me.

  I don’t know how or when it happened but at some point he got under my skin and in my heart, making me feel like he was my one and only…like he was my home. That made it so much easier for him to make me hurt the way I am now.

  Not soon enough, I start to drift off to sleep with wishes of being in Jason’s arms for one more day.

  “Damn you, Jason.” I mumble in between sobs.

  Then at some point, I finally succumb to the blackness surrounding me.

  Chapter Five

  Four Months Later

  “AAAHHHH!!! I’M GETTIN’ LAID TONIGHT, BITCHES!” Jesse shouts as he barges in through the doorway with a satisfied look on his face.

  He walks past Magda who’s doing her makeup in front of our large mirror and jumps on top of my bed, proceeding to bounce up and down like a third grader. I need more mature friends.

  Startled, I hit his leg. “Jesus Christ, Jesse, you scared the shit out of me! When are you not getting laid anyway? I swear you and Magda get more action than this whole campus,” I say getting off the bed he’s currently assaulting.

  I grab my desk chair and take a seat to watch him abuse my twin bed.

  He stops abruptly and sits on the edge of the bed. “Listen, don’t hate the player, hate the game, baby girl.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “Aaagreed,” Magda chimes in, puckering her lips to apply some bright red lipstick.

  “A comeback that would be expected from Sex on a stick…” I point to Jesse, “And Jenna Jameson Wannabe over there,” I finish by pointing at Magda.

  She turns quickly towards me leaving a line of bright red on her cheek from the lipstick, making her look like a clown.

  I burst out laughing and they both stare at me like I’m a freak.

  “What?--She looks like a fucking tool!” I laugh some more as she narrows her eyes at me while Jesse tries to mask his laugh with a cough.

  My eyes begin to water, so I try to control myself.

  She points a finger at me. “You’re lucky you’re my best friend or I would have to cut you for that statement. Besides, we all know I am way better than Jenna Jameson. I don’t see the humor in you thinking I want to be like her. Although, seeing you laugh made that little joke worth it,” she adds.

  That’s when I stop laughing because I know where this conversation is headed and I don’t want to go there.

  Jesse stands and walks over to Magda’s side. They both look down at me sitting on the chair.

  “True. You haven’t laughed since J—“

  “Stop!” I run over to cover his mouth to keep him from saying his name out loud. “I’m fine. I have been for the past four months, all right?” I shrug nonchalantly so they think I don’t care.

  I hope that my indifference will stop them from going any further into the subject because the truth of the matter is that I am totally not okay.

  I’ve spent the past four months trying not to even think about what happened, let alone talk about it.

  Ever since I found out Jason left I made trips to his dorm room thinking he would come back but he never did.

  I even called him like five hundred times and came up empty except for those stupid hang-ups that had me on the verge of changing my phone number, of course, I couldn’t do that, in the hopes that Jason would call me to explain himself. That didn’t end up happening, though. I got nothing from him.

  I realized at some point during my madness that I had to accept the fact that Jason disappeared from life without a care as to how I would feel about it. This acceptance didn’t make the pain go away, nothing did.

  I still wonder where he is and why he left without so much as a goodbye but in the recent month Magda and Jesse have made sure that I no longer torture myself thinking about what could have been.

  I know that my friends want me to move on and forget him…but if it were that simple, it would have happened already. Jason ran away with my heart, my love, and my happiness.

  I’ve spent every month since his abrupt departure listening to sappy love songs to help me in some way, but they haven’t, it’s just made the pain feel worse.

  After two and half months of torturing myself to the tunes of Avril Lavigne, Toni Braxton, and Mariah Carey, I made the decision to live each day without regret of ever meeting Jason. The time I spent with him was the best time of my life. I wouldn’t take that back, not even for all the pain I feel right now.

  I remember that on a particularly bad day for me right after he disappeared is when Magda started to make it her mission to get me out of the deep depression I fell into. She started by burning all of the pictures of Jason and me together in a nearby trash can by the Cafeteria. “Just putting the trash out” she said.

  I was numb at that point but I still had the capability to keep the one picture that will haunt me for years to come—the one I took of him leaving me that fateful night four months ago. That picture is a constant reminder of what I lost.

  I keep it hidden inside my favorite book Taking Chances because I know no one will find it there—my friends aren’t necessarily into the sappy love stories as much as I am, so I know my only picture of Jason will be safe along with
the memory of him being mine for a short period of time. God! I’m so pathetic, I look at that picture everyday—why do I torture myself?

  Anyway, I also made the decision to not show anyone any ounce of feelings about my situation because the day after I found out he had left. I had about the whole campus asking me if I was okay and acting like I was going to jump off of a bridge, which I was close to doing, but that’s totally not the point.

  I just hate it when people do that, get up in your business because they don’t have better things to do than feel sorry for you.

  I don’t need anyone to feel sorry for me, he left, I’m still here…there’s nothing left to say about it. I mean, do I sound okay to you? Granted, I haven’t been the same since, but I do try to keep my friends happy and keep them from asking me about my feelings every hour.

  Wanting to keep them away from nagging at me, leads me to the reason I am going to a bar called “Bobba Louie’s” on Main Street tonight. Do I want to go? Absolutely not, but in order to avoid the drama of my friends saying I look homeless and need to move on, I am forced to go.

  Magda got us some fake ID’s in the beginning of the school year so there’s no problem on that front because my name is Michelle Mason and I am a twenty one year old foreign exchange student. I don’t know how she got those. The only thing I know is that someone named Adalric got them for her. I know that because he used to call our dorm pretty often and I could not understand him, aside from his name, due to his thick German accent.

  I hear Magda’s voice and it breaks me out of my sad thoughts, “That’s amazeballz! You better be because you’ve got Zac now, anyway. Way better catch than J-turd--so get ready for Bobba’s and try to remember that it’s the end of our Freshman year and have some fucking fun, Bitch! No sulking allowed and get laid by someone else for God’s sake—preferably hunky Zac!!!”

  I ignore her comment when she leans over and licks Jesse’s cheek for some odd reason.

  “Mmm…” I hear.

  I shudder with disgust. Gross! He, of course, doesn’t seem to mind so he licks her neck in return.

  “Fucking sick!” I say disgusted with their behavior.

  They both laugh.

  “You guys need to scratch that itch, already!” I yell as I leave to go to the bathroom, shaking my head to get ready for another night of pretending.

  I sigh heavily at the thought of Zac.

  He’s someone I met at a party I was dragged to by Magda like a week or two ago. I am not the least bit interested but he’s nice and easy to talk to, so I don’t mind hanging out with him whenever I get forced to go out because it makes the time go by faster. I do however, hate that it seems like everyone thinks we are dating, when we clearly are not.

  He is a nice guy and the star basketball player here, but I am still too heartbroken over Jason to even entertain the idea of someone else.

  The stupid part is that I haven’t even been on a date with him for everyone to be thinking that we’re going out. Drama.

  I mean it’s not that he’s not a looker with his six foot five frame, hazel eyes, and sandy blonde curly hair, but the fact is, I get ill thinking about being with anyone that’s not Jason.

  No matter how much I don’t want to think about him, I do, and that doesn’t let me picture my life with someone else. My friends try to get me to replace him whenever they get the chance but I can’t. I’ll never be able to replace the one person that owns my heart.

  ***

  Three hours later I’m sitting on a bar stool at the bar watching my friends enjoy our last night as freshmen.

  I am officially a sophomore tomorrow, it should make me happy, but it doesn’t. It’s like my life has gone by in a blur and I have no idea how I got here.

  I grunt and turn back around to avoid everybody glaring at me for not having as much fun as they are.

  I tell the bartender to give me another Long Island to torture myself with. I hate those things. They are not good, no matter what anyone says. To make matters worse its couples’ night tonight or lovers’ or fuck buddies’ night—can’t remember which one. So that is great since I’m here all alone.

  Ugh! Listening to all these sappy ass songs just make me think of the one person I’m supposed to have forgotten about already.

  As she places a new drink on my coaster I hear all this commotion coming from behind me so I turn around and look to where my friends are.

  I see everyone huddled in a circle near the stage where a bunch of stripper-esque looking girls are dancing a little too close for their own comfort.

  At the same time I’m looking over, I see Magda standing outside the circle and her face is as white as ghost. I start making my way towards the group and she catches my eye.

  Before I know it, she’s trying to get to me before I reach her but it’s impossible because of all the people surrounding her on the dance floor.

  I keep seeing her open her mouth like she’s saying something but I can’t hear anything with everyone yelling.

  I finally make it closer and when I’m about to reach her, she grabs my hand and pushes through the crowd, dragging me towards the exit.

  “What the fuck?!” I yell over Coldplay’s ‘The Scientist’.

  She ignores me, so I pull my hand away to free it from her death grip.

  She turns and glares at me. “Let’s get out of here, NOW! I’ll call Zac so he can come and pick us up.”

  Her eyes look angry but I can’t figure out why.

  I know then that something serious is going on because she knows that Zac hates being at parties or bars or anything remotely considered “fun”.

  He’s probably studying or sleeping. For her to say she’ll call him is a legit red flag for me but I can’t think of what could possibly be making her this crazy.

  I start to get butterflies in my stomach from my anxiety building up. “No. You dragged me here. What the fuck is going on?” I ask, turning to look at our group of friends.

  At that moment, I wish I hadn’t because I see a familiar face staring right at me. It can’t be though, so I tell myself that I must be dreaming. I close my eyes and open them again –Jason? He’s really here?

  Time stops for me and I can’t move when I see him standing by Ryan and Lindsay—Ryan’s new girlfriend. It doesn’t even feel like I’m breathing right now.

  I feel a lump in my throat when I see him just staring back at me with the same blue eyes I fell in love with all those months ago. He still has the same haunted-- almost sad look. My eyes start to water as I try to focus in on the meaning behind his penetrating gaze.

  I stand there looking at him for what seems like hours but soon enough I remember Magda’s at my side when she tries to yank me towards the exit again. That breaks my trance with the person I hope is a Jason look-a-like.

  To find out if it’s really him I turn to her.“Is that Jason? Please tell me that’s not Jason. Please tell me it’s my imagination. Please Magda!” I beg.

  My eyes plead with hers to tell me that I’m wrong and it’s not him because if it is…the wound that he left me with when he left is about to be reopened. I don’t think I can handle it again. I start breathing sporadically, waiting for her to reply.

  She looks past me and glares before facing me, “Ugh! Yeah, it’s him. Let’s go. He’s an asshole. He doesn’t deserve you going after him like I know you will!”

  I flinch at her words but refuse to let her get to me.

  Jason—he’s really here, but why? I have to know what he’s doing here and why he left the way he did. I deserve some sort of explanation. I refuse to accept that he thought there was nothing real going on with us.

  I pull away force-ably from Magda.

  I have no idea how I get the ability to start walking again but I do. It’s as though my body is on autopilot and it’s heading straight for Jason. My eyes follow his.

  Seeing him now makes me remember how I could never read him as well as I thought I could.

  How stupid was
I to think that the person behind those piercing eyes cared about me? Dammit! I can’t do this to myself tonight. I have to focus on finding out why he did this to me—to us.

  “Don’t do this to yourself, Alex, think of Zac—“ Magda manages to say before I get too far.

  I clench my teeth and don’t even bother to look back at her for that comment. Like I could really think about Zac right now. I could give less of a shit about him, he’s not the one for me and I know that with all my heart.

  He’s just the guy everyone thinks I need in order to move on from the person I really want to be with. He’s nothing else to me, never will be.

  Walking towards him he stands motionless not straying from my eyes.

  All I want to do is run into his arms and let him hold me until everything is back to normal with us but I know I can’t do that. I love him and I always will but there’s a huge part of me that knows there’s no way I cannot confront him about the reasons behind pulling my heart out of my chest and stomping on it.

  All these thoughts running through my head make me remember those months of misery and sadness I went through because of him and I start to get angry.

  When I get closer to him I see that he looks different. Still has the same sexy toned body, same buzzed hair, but there’s something in those blue eyes of his, aside from the dark circles around them that I can’t figure out…is it shame? pity? longing? I’m not sure, but I intend to find out.

  I find myself not being able to look away from him because it’s as if his eyes are searching for something in me that I can’t quite put my finger on. It’s as if he knows he’s broken me and I’ll never be the same—or at least I hope he knows that’s what he’s done to me.

  I finally reach him and I stand in front of him like an ice queen. He hasn’t moved an inch. Our friends have moved away so it’s just him and me standing in the middle of this crowded loud bar without saying a word to each other.

  He’s the first one to break the silence because I’m unable to think of anything nice to say, “Hi…”

  I hear his voice and it makes me want to curl up in a ball but I know I can’t do that anymore. He hurt me and although I would like to go back to the start like the song says—I know we can’t…I can’t.