My Life After Now

by Jessica Verdi

  The bouncer looked me up and down—my hair was tumbling past my shoulders, and I was a vixen in all black: dressed in a low-cut tight tank top, tight jeans, and ankle boots with a stiletto heel. I’d bought the boots for a theater camp production of Cabaret, but tonight was the first time I’d ever worn them in real life. To my amazement, the outfit did the trick—he handed the ID back to me, stamped our hands, and waved us inside without even asking Max and Courtney for their IDs.

  “That was incredible!” Courtney said as we made our way to the bar. “I thought we were goners for sure.”

  I bought three Long Island iced teas and slurped mine down before my friends had even finished half of theirs. I promptly ordered another one.

  “Um, you okay, Luce?” Max asked me. I wasn’t usually much of a drinker.

  “Samantha,” I insisted, pointing to my chest. I finished my second drink and slammed the glass down on the bar. “Let’s dance!” I shouted, and began to move to the music.

  “Lu—Samantha—I don’t think this is the kind of place you dance at,” Courtney said.

  She was probably right. The band up on the stage was playing acoustic alternative rock, and the most anyone was doing was moving their heads or swaying the tiniest bit in their seats. But the drinks were strong, and my body was warm, and I didn’t care what anyone else was doing. I wanted to dance. So I did.

  And guess what? Other people followed my lead. Soon there were at least a dozen people out of their seats and dancing. After a few songs, the band’s lead singer spoke to the crowd.

  “We’re going to mix things up a little for you guys. This next song is for the girl in black.” He pointed to me.

  He switched from an acoustic guitar to an electric one, and the band started playing a new song. It was loud and it was fast and it was the best dancing song ever.

  “Woooo!!!” I screamed, jumping up and down. I wanted another drink, but I didn’t want to waste time at the bar, so I just grabbed Max’s drink out of his hand and chugged it down. My head was beginning to get fuzzy and spinny. But that was exactly what I wanted. I wasn’t able to think about anything but the music.

  Courtney and Max joined in at last, and the three of us danced the night away.

  After the band’s first set, the singer came over to get a drink from the bar. He was gorgeous—flawless hair, totally sexy stubble, vintage tee that showed off the tattoos on his perfect arms. I was shocked as all hell when he approached me.

  “Your band rocksss,” I slurred.

  “Thanks.” He grinned and extended his hand to me. “I’m Lee.”

  “I’m Lucy,” I said. Crap. Samantha. Oh well, too late now. I made sure to wipe my sweaty hand on my jeans before I shook his.

  “You gonna stick around for the next set, Lucy?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Cool,” he said, and hopped back up onto the stage.

  Courtney, Max, and I stared after him.

  “That is one beautiful man,” Max said.

  “Amen,” Courtney said.

  I didn’t say anything. I just watched Lee retune his guitar, a smile playing at my lips, knowing I’d just found a surefire way to forget all about Ty.

  • • •

  One incredible set list and three tequila shots later, Lee found me again, his guitars slung over his back.

  “Hey Lucy,” he said. “Wanna get out of here?”

  I giggled. I’d thought people only said that in the movies. I nodded.

  I got up to leave, but Courtney grabbed my arm. “Lucccy, wait…you sssure y’wanna go withhim?”

  I laughed. “You’re so drunk!” That was the only answer I gave her. Max didn’t say anything because he was passed out on the table.

  I took Lee’s arm, and together we left the club.

  5

  If My Friends Could See Me Now

  A beam of warm, white light pierced my eyelids. I cracked one eye open, then the other, and blinked at the curtainless, bar-clad window.

  Where am I?

  I moved to prop myself up on my elbows, but the sudden shift in position made my body angry. My stomach heaved and I was weak and shaky. My brain felt like it was sloshing around in my head and crashing into the walls of my skull.

  Then I remembered—I got wasted last night. This must be what a hangover felt like. All I could do was lie perfectly still, clear my mind, and wait for the nausea to subside.

  When I was ready to try again, I carefully sat up and looked around.

  I was in a small room, not much larger than the bed I was in. The sink was piled high with dirty dishes, and laid out on the counter were tiny little Ziploc baggies, needles, and pipes.

  Under the unfamiliar sheets, I was completely naked.

  I quickly pulled the top sheet up to my chin. The equally-as-naked, tattooed man lying face down beside me sparked a few more sparse fragments of last night. The club. The band. The singer. What was his name? Lee something. Through the filter of my drunken stupor, both he and his apartment had seemed a lot more glamorous last night. But now everything about this place felt dirty.

  I shouldn’t be here. I have to go home.

  As smoothly and quietly as I could manage, I slipped out of bed and gathered my clothes. I dressed quickly, found my purse on the stovetop, and crept out of the apartment, my boots still in my hand.

  The door clicked shut behind me, and I leaned against it, my heart racing. My mind was going in a million different directions, but I forced myself to be pragmatic.

  First things first: shoes. Gingerly, I sat down on the stairs and wedged my boots on.

  Next: communication. I checked my phone. Eight missed calls and seven texts received from Court and Max between one a.m. and six a.m.—which was less than an hour ago. All were various versions of: Where are you? and Are you ok??

  I didn’t know the answers to either of those questions, but I quickly wrote back, Yeah. Sorry. Explain later. I slid the phone back into my bag.

  Next on the agenda: leave this godforsaken place. But my body wouldn’t budge. I planted my feet squarely on the step below me and tried again. Nothing. Come on, body, I begged. Work with me here. I promise I’ll never do this to you ever again. I gripped the railing and pressed firmly on the cinderblock wall. Leverage. Okay, I warned myself, on the count of three…

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  My unwilling body remained stationary. But the alcohol inside it lurched into motion, and before I could do anything to stop it, I was vomiting all over the landing. When I thought there couldn’t possibly be anything left in me, another surge came on. I sat there, helpless and miserable, puking my guts out for a long time. At least it was early enough that no one came out of their apartments to find me. Thank god for small favors.

  Eventually, the nausea receded. But I was still too brittle to move. I was beginning to think I’d be stuck here forever. Doomed to spend eternity in this filthy stairwell, with no company except a coagulating puddle of puke and some mysterious-looking mold, staring at the outside of Lee’s apartment door. I rested my head on the railing.

  What happened last night?

  I desperately tried to recall even the smallest shard of a memory, some clue as to the events of the last seven hours. But it was hopeless—I couldn’t even remember coming to this apartment building, let alone what happened after I got here.

  But the longer I sat, the more my head unclogged, and soon a solitary ray of recognition broke through, dull at first but growing sharper. I didn’t need to actually remember it to know what had happened; it was obvious from the moment I woke up in that bed. I had sex with Lee.

  I suddenly felt an entirely different kind of sick. I drove myself upright at long last and ran down the stairs as fast as I could, not caring about my body’s protests and not caring if I woke up the whole building with my clomping. I pushed through the front door, and the cool morning air slapped me in the face. I shivered. My skimpy outfit had seemed like such a good
idea last night, but now I just felt foolish and cold.

  I rubbed my arms and began to walk. The streets were nearly empty at this hour. I walked briskly, eager to get home, desperate to put as much distance between myself and Lee as possible.

  I passed subway stations, and vacant taxis passed me. I had money in my purse—I could have taken any of them. But I welcomed the discomfort that came with walking. The frigid air, the way my stomach lurched with each step I took, the fuzziness of my teeth, the blisters my boots were rubbing into my feet…I deserved all of it and more.

  I was filled with shame. Lee was only the second person I’d ever done it with, and I didn’t even remember it. I knew nothing about him. What was his last name? How old was he? What color were his eyes? Did he treat me nicely?

  Soon, Grand Central loomed ahead. I took the first train out of there.

  Courtney answered the door in her pajamas. Her lips were dry, her long black hair was tangled, and there were dark circles under her eyes. She looked as bad as I felt. “Lucy, thank god! We were so worried!” She pushed me in the direction of the bathroom. “Hurry up and wash your face and put on your pajamas—my mom is gonna be home any minute.”

  I did as she said and crawled into her enormous bed beside a conked-out Max.

  “What happened last night?” Courtney asked, getting back in bed too. “I called and texted you a million times. We didn’t want to leave without you but the last train was at two a.m.”

  My eyes were already closed. “Tell you about it later,” I mumbled, before drifting away into sleep.

  6

  Put on a Happy Face

  We all finally woke up around noon, and I ended up giving Max and Courtney the abbreviated version of the evening’s events: cute guy, spent the night at his place, didn’t really remember much else.

  “I bet it was amazing,” Max said dreamily.

  “Yeah, he really did seem totally into you, Lu,” Courtney said, a touch of envy in her voice.

  Their heads were bobbing with romantic ideals of love-at-first-sight and tender kisses and feather beds. I drowned in embarrassment.

  “I have to go home,” I said abruptly, unable to keep talking about this.

  I drove home in my pajamas.

  Dad met me outside before I could even get out of my car. “I’m glad you’re home, Lu. Are you ready to talk?”

  “Is Lisa still here?”

  “Yes,” he said. “But I think once you talk to her—”

  “I can’t deal with this right now, Dad,” I said, walking past him toward the house.

  He didn’t follow me. “Well, whenever you’re ready, you know where to find us.”

  I ran straight upstairs to the bathroom—keeping my line of vision locked away from the living room and kitchen in case Lisa was there—and stood under the shower until the water ran cold, scrubbing my skin raw, rinsing, and scrubbing again, watching the remnants of last night cascade down the drain.

  I spent the rest of the weekend in my room—homework, line memorizing, and guitar practice kept my attention, for the most part, away from the bad places.

  Sunday night, Papa knocked on my door. “Lucy?” he called softly.

  “Just leave it outside,” I said, assuming he was there to deliver my dinner.

  “Lucy, can I come in please?”

  I strummed the guitar strings absentmindedly, debating.

  “Come in,” I said finally, only because it was him.

  “Max called for you. He said he tried your cell but it was off. I told him you’d call him back later.”

  My phone’s battery must have been dead. I hadn’t taken it out of my bag to charge it all weekend. “Okay, thanks,” I said.

  Papa closed the door behind him and leaned against my bookshelf. “How you doing?”

  I shrugged.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Me too.”

  There was a long stretch of silence.

  “So that’s it?” I said finally, my voice painted with bitterness. “She’s here to stay? What happened to let’s-all-share-our-feelings-and-sing-‘Kumbaya’-and-decide-together?”

  “Lucy, you ran away. You made it pretty clear that you didn’t want to be involved in the discussion.”

  “So I freak out one time and now I just have to live with the consequences?”

  Papa sighed. “Of course not. If you really don’t want her here, then she’s gone. But I do think…if you just spoke to her, it might help you understand why she’s here. Maybe it will help you feel better about the whole thing.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Or maybe it won’t,” he said. “But I think it’s worth a try. You can’t spend the rest of your life in your room.”

  After Papa left, I rummaged through my bag in search of my phone. But as I did so, my fingers grazed something else in the bag—condoms. They were leftover from my Ty days, and I’d forgotten they were even in there. But they triggered something in the back of my mind. There were still two of them, intact and sealed in their wrappers.

  I frantically thought back to Lee’s cluttered apartment. There had been dust bunnies, dirty laundry, and a trashcan overflowing with empty soda bottles and crumpled up pieces of paper—but had I seen any condom wrappers? I couldn’t remember.

  I shook my head to clear my thoughts. Just because I didn’t remember seeing any wrappers didn’t mean they weren’t there. I’d just been in such a rush to get out of that apartment that I hadn’t noticed them. Lee must’ve provided the condoms, which was why I still had these in my bag. Yes, that made sense. Even though I had been on the pill for over a year, I never had unprotected sex. Never, ever, ever.

  But, Lucy, a little voice in my head whispered. You never go out in the city or get drunk or have sex with guys you don’t know, either.

  Shut up, I told the voice. I knew myself. And I knew that this was one rule I wouldn’t have broken.

  • • •

  Sunday night, sleep was out of the question.

  Lisa.

  Lee.

  Ty.

  Elyse.

  What I did Friday night—that wasn’t me. I’d gone so far in my longing to escape from my life of late that I’d turned into someone else completely. And it just made me feel even worse.

  I couldn’t keep going on like this.

  I needed to be me again.

  There was a song from Rent about the importance of forgetting the past and living for today. I repeated the lyrics in my head like a mantra. Forget regret. Yes. Excellent advice.

  The only question was, how?

  • • •

  I heard somewhere that just the physical act of smiling can actually make you happier. So Monday morning, I slapped on a smile and went downstairs for breakfast, determined to put the events of the weekend firmly behind me. I hugged my dads and uttered a polite “good morning” to Lisa, who was sitting in the chair that no one ever used.

  “Good morning,” she responded, surprised.

  I coated an English muffin with grape jelly and settled down with yesterday’s New York Times Magazine. But my attention kept drifting across the table. I hadn’t had a chance to really look at Lisa until now. Her hair was short, sticking out from her head in inch-long spikes, and she was wearing deep red lipstick that was either skanky or sophisticated—I couldn’t decide. Her face was fuller than I’d remembered, but there were new creases around her eyes.

  Breakfast slunk by in itchiness. It was like it was our first day being filmed for a reality show: the cameras were on us and we knew we were supposed to act normal…but we had completely forgotten what normal was. No one said much of anything, and there were a lot of uncertain glances being darted around. Every clink of silverware against a plate or rustle of a newspaper seemed amplified in the otherwise silent atmosphere. But we got through it.

  The week forged ahead, and gradually things started to make sense again. I continued to avoid Lisa, and she avoided me right back. I aced my pre-calculus test and I was the only
one who handed in the extra-credit assignment in Honors English. Courtney and Max and I went shoe shopping at the mall. Rehearsals with Ty and Elyse were still uncomfortable, but I was getting better at ignoring them.

  I even felt like the smiling thing was working. The more I smiled, the happier I felt. As the days went by, I didn’t have to remind myself to smile at all.

  7

  Something Wonderful

  A week after the Lee encounter, Andre finally dedicated an entire rehearsal to act 1, scene 4. Up until now, the schedule had been geared around Romeo and Juliet’s scenes, with the supporting characters only getting partial rehearsal time. But Mercutio was undoubtedly the star of this scene, and I was eager to sink my teeth into it. I got to take center stage and give a long, crazy speech about Queen Mab, the fairy who puts dreams in our sleeping heads.

  The scene also features Romeo, and it was oddly therapeutic to drop my inhibitions and dance around shouting nonsense right in Ty’s face.

  True, I talk of dreams;

  Which are the children of an idle brain,

  Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;

  Which is as thin of substance as the air,

  And more inconstant than the wind, who woos

  Even now the frozen bosom of the North,

  And, being angered, puffs away from thence,

  Turning his face to the dew-dropping South.

  It was the end of a rather exhausting, exhilarating rehearsal, and I finished the speech for the final time that day, surprised when applause came from the dark house. I hadn’t even realized people were watching. Shouldn’t they have been getting measured for costumes or helping the tech crew paint flats or rehearsing their own scenes in the practice rooms? The house lights came up, and it turned out that the majority of the cast was there. I had no idea how long they’d been watching.

  Andre came up onto the stage. “Excellent work today, everyone. Truly great job, Lucy.” He squeezed my shoulder.

  I couldn’t help glancing at Elyse out in the audience. Did I detect a hint of jealousy in her gloomy expression?