This Is Wild

by Natasha Madison

  “Not tonight. See you tomorrow,” I tell him and walk out of the dressing room where the guys are waiting for me.

  “Thank fuck. You took so long,” Mika says. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  I’m about to bow out when Kevin slaps me on the shoulder. “Fuck, it’s good to see you.”

  “Yeah, you, too,” I say and then walk out with them. We walk out into the street, and my head is swirling with everything, and by the time I look around, we are walking into my apartment. I toss the keys on the table.

  “This place is a shoe box,” Kevin says, taking off his jacket and going over to the window.

  Mika on his phone texting away. “Pizza should be here in thirty,” he says, and I just nod at them.

  Mika goes over and looks outside, and then twenty minutes later, the door is buzzing, and when I answer it, I step back. The blonde runs in and goes straight to Mika. “There she is, Mrs. Hoover.” He uses the nickname he does for a girl who sucks his cock like a vacuum.

  She throws her head back and laughs, and her four friends come in and toss their jackets and purses everywhere. “Where is the bathroom?” one of the brunettes asks, and I point down the hall. I look around the apartment at Mika, who is dry humping the blonde against the wall.

  Chris is sitting on the couch with a girl on each side of him, both girls petting his chest. Kevin sits in the single chair with another girl in his lap, his hand already halfway up her skirt. My heart ​starts to beat fast, and I know I have to get out of here. I know I have to get as far away from this situation as I can. And right before I’m about to walk out, the brunette comes back out of the bathroom, wearing garters and a bra. “Did someone say this is where the party’s at?” she says, her hands going out to the sides. From one hand hangs a bag of bills, and from the other hand hangs a bag of coke and a couple of baggies of pills.

  “Fuck, finally,” Mika says, dumping his blonde and coming over to snatch the bag of pills from her. He takes a couple and then tosses the bag to the guys. I just watch, and it’s almost as if I have left my body. That I’m not ​really here. One of the girls turns on the radio and the other lowers the light as they ​start to dance in ​the middle of the room together. I feel sick, my whole body tingling everywhere. How did this happen to me, how did I allow this to happen to me is more like it. “What color, bro?” Mika asks me, and I just shake my head.

  “He wants the coke,” Kevin says, laughing, and then buries his face in the woman’s tits.

  The brunette walks over to me, swinging her hips, her tits fake are full and not even moving as she walks. “So, big boy,” she says as her finger moves down my chest, my skin crawls and my stomach burn the bile starting to come up, “where are we doing this line?”

  She turns and goes to the counter next to me. Tossing everything aside, she moves the stools leaving in front for the counter empty. She empties a baggie on the counter and then grabs a card out of her bra and cuts a line. I swallow hard, the sound of my heart beating so fast and so loud, I ​can’t hear anything else. She leans over with a rolled dollar bill in her hand and places it against one nostril. Blocking the other one with her finger, she snorts the whole line, then gets up and wipes her nose. “Fuck,” she says, putting her head back. “It’s so good,” she says, and then she hands me the rolled-up bill. My arm lifts on its own to grab the dollar bill.

  I turn to the counter and see the line there waiting for me. The tiny little pieces that look like salt, little, little pieces. The music fades away, the voices fade away, and the only thing I can see is the line in front of me. The only thing I can think of is the rush it’s going to give me.

  The door buzzes, and I don’t even notice or care at that moment. The only thing I care or see is that line, waiting for me. “Come on, hurry. I want another hit,” the woman says next to me, and I look at her and then turn to look at the line on the counter, the line right next to my keys. The key chain right next to the line. My eyes again go back and forth from the rolled-up bill in my hand to the cocaine “What the fuck am I doing?” I ​say to myself as I step back, but then I look at the door that swings open.

  My eyes fly to her, standing there as she takes in the whole room. The women in ​the middle of the room still dancing with Mika. Kevin getting head from the woman, and then Chris ​who has the woman half naked. Then her eyes come ​to me, first to my eyes, and then to the counter. The tears in her eyes now falling, and she just turns and walks out.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Zoe

  I take in the whole scene in front of me, and I want to throw up. Guys I’ve never seen before but I know are from his old team are scattered around his apartment half naked with women who look like they are paid by the hour. My eyes finally fall on the man who has taken over my life. I see the counter with its white powder on it, and the rolled-up bill in his hand, and ​I know I’ve lost.

  Everything I thought we had was lost in this one second. The tears come, and I don’t stop them. I don’t wipe them away. I do the only thing I can do. I turn and walk away. I walk down the hall to the elevator, and ​all of a sudden, the purse on my shoulder is too heavy for me and slips down my arm. I’m so focused on getting to the elevator that I don’t notice I’m dragging it. My hand comes up and presses the button once, twice, three times. When the ding finally lets me know that the elevator is here, I walk in and turn to press the lobby button. I look up and see him rushing out and toward the elevator with my name on his lips.

  “Zoe,” he says and slips his hand into the doors right before they close, and they open again. “Zoe, please.”

  “Get out of the way, Viktor,” I tell him, surprised my voice isn’t cracking.

  “It’s not what it looks like,” he starts saying, and I look at him, not knowing anything. I look at him, and I know nothing except that my heart will never beat again the way it should. “I swear I didn’t do anything,” he says, coming into the elevator and grabbing my arms in his hands to turn me to look at him. The elevator doors close, and I start moving. “They came over, and it was just out of control.”

  “You really don’t have to explain this,” I tell him, moving out of his touch so his hands fall to the sides.

  “You’re my friend,” he says the words, and I see his turmoil. I see the pain in his eyes; his face ravished in pain. “A friend doesn’t just leave.”

  “A friend.” I say the words softly, and the door opens to the lobby. “A friend.” I look down and then look back up at him. “You warned me,” I start to tell him. “Told me that all we would be is friends.” I shake my head, and the tears just don’t stop. It’s like the dam has been opened, and it’s all rushing out.

  “Zoe,” he says my name, his voice breaking.

  “I can’t be your friend,” I tell him, walking out of the elevator, and then stop, taking what little bit of strength I have inside me. He watches me, his own tears in his eyes. “I can’t be your friend because I’m in love with you.” I say the words out loud instead of just in my head, and his breath hitches, and he opens his mouth. “I’m in love with you with everything that I have,” I tell him, “but it’s not enough. I can’t love you for both of us.”

  I take one more look at him before I turn and walk away from him. I walk out the door and turn to walk away from him, but I have to stop at the corner and lean against the wall. My sobs come out, my mouth flying to my hand to stop the noise. Help, I need help. I turn the corner and sit on the concrete sidewalk, ignoring the cold going through me like knives. I grab the phone out of my purse, my hands shaking like leaves falling off the trees in fall.

  She answers after one ring. “Hey, did you find him?”

  “Zara,” I say, and the sob rips through me again.

  “Where are you?” she shouts. “Zoe,” she says, and then I hear her talking to someone. “Turn around!” she shouts. “Turn around now.” Then she comes back to me. “Zoe, I’m on my way. I’m going to be there in seven minutes. I need you to stay where
you are.”

  “Okay,” I whisper.

  “Are you alone?” she asks, her voice low. “Tell me you’re okay.”

  “I’m not okay,” I sob out. “Not even one bit,” I say, and then I listen to her telling me that she’s going to be right here, and everything is going to be okay. I don’t know if it takes her seven minutes; I ​don’t know anything except seeing a truck slow down in front of me and the door opening before the truck comes to a full stop, and I hear her calling my name. She takes me into her arms, and I sob, clinging to her. “I love him. I love him so much,” I say into her neck, and she rubs my head.

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Sweetheart, you need to move, so I can pick her up.” I hear Evan’s voice. “Let me put her in the truck, and we can take her home.”

  She slowly lets me go, and Evan scoops me into his arms. Zara runs ahead of him to open the back door of the truck, and she gets in. Evan sets me down, and Zara puts the seat belt around me. I don’t know what they talk about. I know nothing because I’m living in a nightmare, a nightmare I can’t wake up from.

  I close my eyes and try to forget it all. I try to block it out. I don’t know where we are going, and I don’t care because I know I’ll be safe now. ​Zara will make sure I’m okay. I hear Evan talk.

  “I can’t right now,” he hisses. “I don’t give a shit what he fucking needs. I can’t be there!” he shouts, and I blink my eyes open and see he’s on the phone. “Fine,” he hisses. “I need to take care of something, and I’ll be right there.” He tosses his phone on the empty passenger seat. “Change of plans.” He looks into the back. “We are going to go to the brownstone.”

  “Okay,” Zara says, not asking why.

  “Why does it hurt so much?” I whisper to her, looking up at her. “Like right here,” I say with my hand to my chest. “It’s feels like little shattered glass is being sliced into me.”

  She doesn’t answer me because the car comes to a stop, and Evan gets out of the car, opening the door in the back for Zara, and then he is suddenly at my side of the car. “Hey there, beautiful,” he says to me, and I sit up. My hair falls in front of my face, but he pushes it away and tucks it behind my ears. “You’re going to be okay.”

  “Carry her in, Evan,” Zara says from beside him now. I didn’t even feel her get out of the truck and walk around it.

  “I can walk,” I tell him. He holds out his hand for me, and I grab it. He squeezes it, and I can’t help the tears that fall and one of them land on his thumb. He looks up at me. “Promise me.”

  “Anything,” he says, looking at me.

  I put my hand on my stomach, Evan’s eyes watching as it shakes. “Don’t tell him. I don’t want anyone to know.” It’s the only thing I can say before my legs give out, and he takes me in his arms.

  “We have you,” he says. “Zara, get the door.” He scoops me up again for the second time tonight. Zara gets the door open, and he walks upstairs straight to my room. He places me in the middle of the bed and kisses my head. “I need to talk to Zara for a second, and then she’s going to come back, okay?” I don’t listen to what he says. Instead, I fall into my bed and get into a fetal position and watch Evan pull her out of the room by her hand. He talks to her, and she just crosses her arms over her chest. He kisses her, and then he’s gone.

  She walks back into the room. “Do you want me to run a bath?” she asks me, and I start to shiver, the cold ripping through me all of a sudden. Or maybe it’s the shock of what just happened.

  “Cold,” I say, my teeth chattering together. “So cold.” She puts her hand on her mouth, blocking out her own whimpers as she runs around the room, grabbing blankets and tossing them on top of me. “So cold.”

  She gets into bed with me, wrapping her body around mine to help heat me up. “Promise me.” I look at her. “We don’t tell anyone.”

  “Zoe,” she says, her hand coming out to wipe away my tear.

  “Promise me,” I tell her. “Twinsie.”

  “Okay,” she whispers. “It will be our secret.” I nod at her and then turn back to look at the doorway.

  My eyelids get heavier and heavier, my pillow becoming more wet as time goes on. “I can’t stop the tears,” I whisper. “No matter how much I try, I can’t stop the tears.” My eyes now stay shut as I listen to everything around me until I finally sink into the darkness.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Viktor

  “I can’t be your friend because I’m in love with you.” She says the words out loud, and I stop breathing. Everything around me ​closes in, and I suddenly feel the bottom open under me, and I’m falling. I open my mouth to say something, to tell her that she can’t love me, but nothing comes out, and she continues to talk. “I’m in love with you with everything that I have,” she almost whispers. “But it’s not enough. I can’t love you for both of us.”

  I watch her walk away from me. I watch the only thing that was pure and perfect walk out of my life. I watch it walk out of my life because, ​at the end of the day, I’m just a fuckup. I stand here looking down at the floor, and the tears just come, my hand holding my chest that suddenly feels like it’s being crushed. The elevator doors close, and I collapse on the floor, sliding down the back of the elevator until my ass hits the floor. I look at my hands ​that are trembling uncontrollably now, and I shake them, trying to get them to stop. The elevator doors open again, and I’m still in the lobby. The darkness from outside left the only thing for me to see is Zoe walking away from me, the pain in her eyes cutting through me.

  The elevator doors open on my floor, and I get up and ​start walking down the dimly lit hallway. The sound of music coming from my apartment fills me with rage ​right now, rage ​that I lost another thing in my life. I open the door and find pretty much the same scene I left with, though a little less clothes. Kevin is half naked, and Mika is about to fuck a girl on my table while another woman sits on her face, and I just can’t take it. I turn on the lights, and I hear a groan from everyone.

  “What the fuck?” Chris mumbles from under his own girl. “Shut that shit down.”

  I walk or more like I pounce to the radio and turn it off, and now Kevin sits up, pushing the girl off him. “This guy obviously needs more blow.” He laughs.

  “Get out,” I say softly, and then they all look at me. The bag of pills sits on the middle of my coffee table along with more bags of coke. “Get out,” I say again, and this time, Kevin stands, and Mika has his back.

  “Just like the good old days.” I laugh bitterly as my blood boils. I want to hit something, I want to smash things, and I want them out of my fucking apartment now. “Here is something not like the good old days,” I tell them and walk to Kevin. Chris gets up, and the girls looking around, trying to figure out if they should get dressed or just keep going. My head held high, my hands itching to move. The pull to look over at the counter and see if the line of blow is still there. “I want you guys out of my fucking house, now!” I yell the last part and advance on them. “Now.”

  I turn to look at the girls, and it takes a split second for Kevin to lunge at me, but because he’s flying fucking high on whatever he’s taking, I see his arm swinging for me. It might be my reflexes or ​the fact that every single nerve in my body is tingling, but I swing my right hand and knock his jaw with it, and he falls back into Mika and Chris who now hold him back. “GET THE FUCK OUT NOW!” I roar out, the girls now run around, grabbing what pieces of clothing are theirs and getting out. Kevin sits up and touches his lip ​that has a little bit of blood leaking out.

  “You’re a fucking waste,” he says to me like his words can hurt me, like I don’t know all of this. “What, you think you’re a bigshot now that you’re playing for New York?” He laughs now. “You can take the scum out of the gutter, but he still lingers with scum.”

  I throw my head back and laugh. “You’re so fucking gone you don’t even make sense.” I advance on him. “I don’t think I’m
a bigshot, far from it.” I look at Mika and Chris. “I just know that I deserve better than this fucking shitty cycle.”

  “Oh, here he is, Mr. Therapist,” Mika says.

  I shake my head and grab the phone out of my pocket. “I’m going to make it really easy for you assholes. If you don’t take your shit out of my fucking house, I’ll call the cops.” I chuckle. “Can you see the headlines? I know my team is going to piss me, but unlike you three, I’m going to come back clean. So, what’s it going to be, boys?”

  “Fuck this shit and this asshole,” Kevin says, grabbing his clothes from the couch. “You’re a waste.”

  Mika and Chris grab their things also and then walk out, slamming the door behind them.

  I look around the apartment and see that the chairs around the table have been knocked over as well as some of the stools at the counter.

  I look down at my phone, picking it up, and I know I have to call someone. I need the help, so I dial the first person I can think of. He answers right away with a groggy voice. “Hello.”

  “Jeffrey,” I say, my voice cracking. “I fucked up.”

  “What do you mean you fucked up?” he asks me, and I hear him moving around in the background. “Where are you?”

  “I’m at home sitting on my couch,” I tell him. “There is stuff everywhere.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he says into the phone. “Whatever you do, don’t you dare give up.” The phone disconnects, and I make the second biggest call of the evening.

  “Matthew,” I say, my voice cracking. “I need help.” I don’t know where he is. He is probably at the pub because I hear him shout for Max.