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They’re all talking to each other but I swear I can hear an underlying ripple of, “Look at her, stood up on her date. Course she was, the freak. She’s that girl, you remember? The one they found walking out of the woods. Had her name sewn into her pants yet they dumped her there. No parents, no home, no one left to give one solitary shit about her.”
I sit and drink and feel sorry for myself. I know that the whispering voices surrounding me are right.
I wanted to believe that my missing parents were some kind of foreign royalty, that they misplaced me by mistake. Spent years thinking that one day I’ll get a Tangled-style reunion with them.
They’ll tell me how sorry they are for losing me, beg for my forgiveness, shower me with all their millions to make up for the pain of being without me all these years.
I wanted to believe that but having faith in any kind of happy ending is dumb. Eventually, I moved past it and came to terms with the truth that is simpler, but far more painful.
They left me there to die. They didn’t want me. Might even have tried to shoot me. I remember a gun barrel in my face so vividly, it’s a part of me like my unruly hair or twitchy fingers.
That kind of rejection cut me deep. It forms a core part of my being. The loneliness, the feeling that I was left behind. That I’m unwanted trash. Worthless.
The way I feel right now, of course, Andrew would run out of the diner without even saying goodbye. It could be because Enzo said something to him. Sure it could. Might just as easily be because he knows what everyone knows. I’m not worth being around. I’m never going to fit in. Freak. Beast. Outsider.
I stop playing Candy Crush long enough to pay the check and then I get out of there. All the while, I can feel eyes on me, voices talking about me, whispers behind me. The sky looks thunderous. The storm is about to hit. Matches my mood.
None of it is helped by me wondering if the other diners heard what Enzo was telling me. All that stuff about sex, talking to me like I needed to hear it.
I didn’t need to hear all that. Didn’t need my body to react to the words even as my mind was shocked by it all.
I couldn’t help picturing those things as he said them. Me submitting to him. Being spanked. Having things inside me. His tongue. Fingers. Maybe even something else.
I’ve never known anyone with the level of self-confidence he has, or maybe it’s arrogance. Polite people don’t discuss such things.
Maybe they do in the big city. Who knows? Out here, I’ve sure as hell never heard anyone discuss that kind of thing except Maisie.
I decide, when I get back home, to talk to her about it. I find her in pajamas in front of the TV, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is halfway through, popcorn bucket three-quarters done. She sits up when she sees me. Spock jumps down, stretches, and heads off to his bed. “Caught me,” she says with a sheepish grin. “I’ll replace the popcorn, I swear. Momma got needs, l’il Chloe. Butter flavored needs.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I reply, throwing myself into the battered armchair nearest the window.
She wrinkles her brow. “Who are you and what have you done with my Chloe?”
I look her way, doing my best to keep it together.
She sees my expression and gets to her feet. “Alcohol needed, methinks,” she says, putting a hand on my forehead like she’s taking my temperature. “Alcohol and ice cream, stat.”
“I’m fine,” I shout as she disappears into the kitchen.
“You’re not fine. I stole your popcorn and you don’t mind. You’re back off your date uber-early. Something’s up and only sugar-filled treats and hard liquor are suitable medication for such things.”
“Seriously, I’m all right.”
Her head reappears. “Don’t do that,” she says before vanishing again.
“Do what?”
“Lie to me. Do you think I don’t know you? I haven’t had one bad joke off you and you’ve been home nearly three minutes. I know something’s up and you might not want to talk about it and that’s fine. But you’re going to drink with me and watch Peter Bretter do his whole, ‘I’ll never get over Sarah,’ schtick until you feel better.”
She comes through with our wooden tray of misery fixer. It’s often got cake and tea on it but tonight there are two shots of our least rough tequila, which is still pretty rough, a two-thirds full bottle between a pair of matching glasses. Also, there are two tubs of Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Dough.
She hands me a glass, a spoon, and a tub. “Thanks,” I say, knocking back the tequila.
She immediately pours me another. “Mixing it with the wine I’ve had. Watch out, I might go crazy.”
“So you stayed long enough to have a drink with Andy at least?”
“Kind of.”
