Angst (20 page)

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, dad,” says Jared, straightening his shirt
and helping me to my feet. “Let’s go…”

Back downstairs, the living room and dining room are more
crowded than ever, guests spilling into every room, their faces alight with
pleasure over the food, warmth and softly playing music. Jared and Andy squire
us around, introducing us to aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, second cousins,
aunts and uncles who are really cousins but are the same age as their parents. My
head spins with the many names and faces.

Suddenly after being introduced to their Aunt Mavis, my
attention focuses inside and I think,
wow I haven’t freaked out all night
long, it’s amazing, but what if I did freak out…now? What if I go crazy now? What
if I get sick? Would everyone know? Would his family make fun of me? Would he
hate me?
And with these racing thoughts, come the feelings, instantaneous,
flashing over me like lightning, heat rushing to my cheeks setting them on fire
and my belly tightening deep inside and I feel like I’m going to throw up. I’m
trembling, holding my cup and plate, staring intently at Aunt Mavis’ white
pearl earrings and her jowly chin, glazing over, living inside my own head,
nodding to what I assume she’s telling me. I can’t hear her. I can’t hear a
thing, except the screaming thoughts. I. Am. Crazy. I. Am. Sick! Embarrassment.
Is. Assured!

I’m going to throw up, I can feel the bile rising in my
throat, I can feel the churning cutting pain in my stomach.
I need to
escape. How can I politely walk away?
Jared has left me here, talking with his
aunt, nodding my head dumbly, smiling like a fool, barely noticing when she
pauses as if I’m supposed to say something. I just keep on smiling with vacant
eyes, my limbs quivering.
Run away.

“Excuse me,” I finally gasp out, rushing out of the room
without looking back.
If I don’t see her surprised expression, perhaps it
won’t really exist?
I rush into the bathroom in the hall and shut the door,
leaning against it for a moment, gazing at my terrified face in the mirror. I
have just realized that I am trapped.
Hannah and I rode together
. There
is no escape unless I ruin her night as well as my own.
I am trapped!
I
cannot leave without dragging her away. My heart thuds, boom, boom, boom and my
stomach turns over and over again. I rush to the toilet, trying to hold back,
but I can’t and now I am regurgitating everything I have eaten all night long
into the toilet bowl.
I. Am. Disgusting.
I gag, trying to swallow,
realizing I cannot brush my teeth because I don’t have a toothbrush with me. I
just kneel there on the floor, elbows on the toilet seat, staring at the white
emptiness of the lid before me.
I’m hateful. I don’t deserve to live.

A knock comes at the door. “Anyone in there?”

“Just a minute,” I gasp out weakly, struggling to pull
myself up. I feel like I might hurl again or something worse.
Please no,
please no, please no.
I’ve managed to get myself standing, body weak,
swaying like a tree with no roots, nothing to support me.
This is his house.
Don’t be sick. Fuck. You.
I walk to the sink like a wooden doll, stiff, my
equilibrium all off, and rinse out my mouth. The taste is horrible. My stomach
churns again. I can’t hide out in here all night. I can’t monopolize the
bathroom. With this thought the feelings flash over me again, hot and roiling.

After a few more moments, I know I have to leave. I grab my
purse and open the door and am out as quickly as possible, not even looking at
the person waiting in the hallway. Escape is all I can do. I’m walking down the
hallway now, as fast as I can without running or making a very obvious scene. Now
through the (
thank-God
) empty kitchen and finally out on the porch where
my coat is hanging. Now my coat is on and I’m outside, around the side of the
house following a path to the far side of the barn.
Alone.

It’s freezing outside, a dusting of snow on the frozen
ground, and I lean against the barn, my hands stuffed into my pockets. My
breath is coming in little cloudy gasps and my stomach is aching fiercely. Finally
I squat down, hoping my stomach will feel better if I crouch into more of a
fetal position. I’ve got my head in my hands and I can’t believe this is my
life.
This is me. I hate me. I need to leave, but I can’t. I can’t go back
inside. I can’t face Jared or Hannah or Andy or anyone normal.
I need to
get into my car and drive away from this place, leave my insanity, but I know
it will look even more fucked up if I do that. I can’t leave Hannah here. So I
just sit there in the cold, I’m shivering now, holding back tears, wanting to
sob. There are too many people inside, too many pairs of eyes to witness my
breakdown. I can’t go back in there, I will feel claustrophobic, trapped,
smothered in the sickeningly sweet, warm, fresh baked cookie smell, pressed in
upon by so many people all watching me lose my cool in front of
him
. How
could I ever have thought this would be a good idea? How could I have let
myself come here? I don’t deserve to be liked by anyone.

Suddenly I hear a voice. “Victoria? Victoria?” It sounds
like Hannah. I gasp, pulling myself upright, stretching out my tense stomach,
my hands quivering even harder now. I have to walk around the corner. Let my
presence be known or else Hannah will think I’m a freak hiding out here alone.

“Over here, Hannah,” I say wearily, my mind racing to come
up with a reason for why I might be here near the barn. I walk back over the
frozen ground toward the front door and Hannah is standing there without her
coat, shivering.

“There you are!” she says with surprise, “I’ve been looking
all over for you and the last place I thought you would be was outside, but
then I noticed your coat was missing.”

“I thought I lost my keys so I came out here to find them,”
I lie, “But they were in my bag all along. Silly me.”

“Oh,” she says and then hurries on, “Come on, Andy and Jared
want us to go downstairs to hang with Seth, Ian and Samantha and I had to find
you.”

“Ok,” I say, following her into the house, climbing back
into the prison of my mind, and now it’s worse than before.
Sick, sick,
sick, following my executioner
. Poor Hannah has no idea. I follow her down
the hallway and finally down the basement stairs where Andy, Jared and everyone
else is hanging out.

The basement is a long room that is finished off and serves
as a kind of family room with a large TV and several different gaming stations.
Racks and bookcases hold DVD’s, games, and more. There are two couches facing
the TV. Jared and Andy are leaned back on one while Ian, Samantha and Seth are
on the other. Everyone is talking and the TV is on.

As soon as I get to the landing, Andy is up and handing
Hannah and I each a beer and I quickly take two huge sips, secretly swishing
the acidic beer to get the gross taste out of my mouth. The guys have been
playing quarters and drinking and Samantha smiles and waves at me as I take a
seat on the arm of the couch next to Hannah.

“Let’s go outside and smoke this roach,” Andy declares and
everyone seems game, filing out the basement door and into the cold air. I
don’t have my coat now, but I don’t really care, hugging myself to keep warm, secretly
guzzling my beer. The roach passes around and I take a hit, just enough to feel
a little high to go with my beer.
Thank you illegal drugs and alcohol,
again.

“We should play f-in Mario Kart, bitches,” says Andy as soon
as the roach is gone, and he’s pulling open the door to the basement, everyone
following him back inside except Jared and me. I feel a little awkward out here
with him since I have no idea how he feels about me, but part of me is kind of
thrilled too. I lean against the stone of the basement and casually drink my
beer and Jared does the same, until he finally breaks the silence.

“You look really pretty tonight, Vicky,” he says with a
smile, looking at me quickly out of the corner of his eye before looking out
over the landscape of field and trees covered with a dusting of snow.

“Thanks,” I say casually, not sure where else to take this,
but obviously I’m melting inside that he complimented me. I guess my warming
face is saying something different because he continues on.

“Hey, don’t act like no one ever tells you that,” he says
looking at me again for a second with a grin. I smile back.

“No one tells me that,” I say looking at the ground,
scuffing my shoe in the snow. But then I realize that people do tell me that,
but it never feels like this. It never feels real or solid. It never feels
true. But for some reason when he tells me, it feels authentic. I smile up at
him.

“I’d tell you that you look good too but I know it will only
inflate that conceited head of yours.”

“Wow, thanks, Victoria,” he says, “I know you think I’m some
kind of ego-maniac but I’m really not. I just know that I’m totally amazing and
awesome. It’s just truth. I’m like Chuck Norris or something.” I burst out
laughing at this and roll my eyes.

“Yeah I’m sure that you’re so awesome, you can roundhouse
kick yourself in the face,” I reply and he just looks at me, fake-shocked.

“How dare you!?”

I laugh.

“So hey, yeah, how’s the art and Pink Floyd coming along?”
he asks and I smile.

“Pretty good. I think I’m gonna get some art supplies for
Christmas from my parents so I can start on a new series. I really need some
new paper because it’s super expensive and I think they’re getting me some.”

“Cool. You should draw me something since I don’t have an
artistic bone in my body. I can only do stick figures. Andy used to make fun of
me so badly when he’d see my drawings. He’d point at them and ask me what each
thing was and just laugh and laugh.
Asshole
,” he says pretending to
cough the word, “Yeah… I’d love to see your stuff sometime.”

“Yeah, that would be cool,” I say and I can’t stop smiling. “Maybe
I can do a portrait of how awesome you are. You know science geek with a
big…uhh…brain, lady killer, Irish stallion, mechanic. You know…all the good
points.” I don’t laugh, just keep a straight face and he glares at me trying to
hold back the twitch of his mouth, taking another sip of his beer to cover it
up.
God, I want him. I want him to ask me out again. I want him to make
plans. I want him to kiss me.

“So…What are you taking next semester? I’m taking all boring
stuff. Engineering. It’s seriously really hard, but I force myself through it.”

“Well, you’re wicked smaaaaat, kid,” I say with a Boston
accent and he laughs.

“Yeah I mostly pretend to be smart…I’m really a complete
idiot,” he says, his eyes sparkling.

“No, no, you’re smart, smarter than me. I can’t handle that
sciencey bullshit,” I say, taking a quick swig of my beer and then continuing
on. “I’m taking mostly gen-eds, Drawing, Earth History, Western Civ and Intro
to Poetry. It’s gonna be all papers. I kind of suck at poetry though. Well….usually
I think my stuff is good, but no one else does.”

“I’ll bet it’s pretty good, Straight Up English Major,” he
says with a smile and then leans down conspiratorially. “Hey…you any good at
Mario Kart?”

“Hells yes. I used to kick my little bro’s ass at that game
all the time when we were younger.”

His eyes go wide. “Uh oh…I’m kind of out of practice,” he
replies and holds open the door for me as we walk back inside.

Once inside with everyone else I’m slowly able to let go of
my panic. It’s still there under the radar, a quivery jittery mess, but for the
time being I’m able to forget for a few seconds what happened earlier. I’m
trying to lose myself in the game and in conversation with everyone around me. It’s
sort of working.

We play Mario Kart and I’m having fun, but it still a relief
when finally I look up at the clock above the TV and notice that it’s now 10:00.

“Hannah, I think we should head out.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” she says stretching her sore
muscles from sitting in the same position for so long.

“We’ve definitely over stayed our welcome, especially since
we’ve been kicking your asses something fierce at Mario!” Jared and Andy look
crestfallen, their faces a hilarious study in sadness, while Ian and Seth grin.

“I guess we have to start playing more, Andy, our skills are
rusty,” says Jared with an exaggerated sigh, jumping to his feet.

“Yeah we’re really out of practice. We suck,” moans Andy,
making his sad face more dramatic. Hannah and I laugh, say goodbye to Samantha,
Ian, and Seth and tease them all the way up the stairs. When we finally enter
the kitchen, I note that the majority of the guests are gone with only a few
people sitting in the living room drinking coffee and chatting quietly. Hannah
and I make our goodbyes with Jared and Andy’s parents and are finally shrugging
into our coats in the entry way. Jared pulls me to the side for a moment as
Andy puts his arm around Hannah and she leans her head against his shoulder with
a smile.

“I had fun with you tonight, Vicky, we should get together
over break. Can I call you?,” he asks, pulling me in for a quick hug.

“Yea, sure,” I reply, turning my face toward him, looking up
as I move out of his embrace, but he doesn’t move to kiss me, just smiles, and
as I turn away he puts his hand on the small of my back sending a shiver of
pleasure up my spine as Hannah and I walk toward the door.

Outside in the cold air, Hannah and I make our way to my car
and I feel a bit disappointed. The night had been okay. Good and bad. I’m happy
that I had the chance to see Jared, but disappointed that nothing happened
between us except for him telling me he thought I looked pretty, although he
did ask if he could call me, so that is something. For some reason I always
associate physical stuff with us moving forward, and since it isn’t happening,
I’m not sure what to think. It’s weird that we fooled around at the beginning
and now, nothing. And of course in the back of my mind I’m really upset I
freaked out. It had been a close call, an almost disaster.