The Culture of Hooking Up

CHAPTER NINETEEN

*Please be mindful of a TRIGGER WARNING for implied sexual content*

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Tip number three-hundred and seven of how to avoid writing another draft of your fifteen to twenty-page paper still due tomorrow: Dry heave into a toilet at 5:47am.

"This," I croak. My throat is on fire. Its been two whole years since I've thrown up like this—since I've felt like this. "Is your fault."

"Jeez, I know." Taryne is soberer than me by now and continues to hold my hair and pat my back, but more in an awkward way than motherly. I can't even blame her because of the smell. "I forgot you were such a lightweight."

I cough. "Am not."

"You know what I mean." Her fist taps my back, and I'm left to picture the way she rolls her eyes.

"I hate you."

"You love me."

My coughs fill the silence for another few beats. I'll save you the image, but I will say I had a whole box of pasta and almost a whole box of Cheese-its.

"Hey." Taryne's voice is softer as she adjusts her grip on my hair, but it's followed by a snort. "Does your mom still think we're together?"

I almost laugh--almost--but instead I'm left spewing more chunks.

His name wasn't Brad, or even Henry or Peter, but that's how I like to keep him ninety-nine percent of the time, tucked in another random memory on the outskirts of a beer pong table.

I can say I didn't plan to do it, but I did. Something about him, since the first time we locked eyes just felt right, and not in the chorus of angels kind of sense, rather, your fishing, even though I've never even been fishing, and you finally get a bite. I felt it in my gut, which is not what you are supposed to do. I repeat, that is not what you are supposed to do, and yet, I did. Maybe I'm not alone in this. I don't think I'm alone in this. I like to believe I'm not alone in all this, with all this.

Brad seemed nice enough. Nicer than Chad, who was always leering, and nicer than smiley face textbook guy, in which being nice was just for show. Chad at least doesn't pretend to be nice. Smiley face textbook guy does, which makes it even worse. Either way, both of them are only blurry pin stripes in my literal and metaphorical rearview after I had both literally and metaphorically set my sights on Brad. Treat people the way they treat you. That's all I did. Treat Brad the same way all the other guys I stumbled into at dorm building basement parties treated me.

It's no big deal.

I thought all I had to do is treat it like it's not a big deal, and it won't be a big deal. But it was a big deal. But it wasn't. Not really. Just unnecessary baggage I'm still carrying around. After weeks of partying all by myself. Back when Taryne and I were just roommates instead of best friends. I was always by myself. I was sick of being by myself. But sometimes girls were just hard to talk to. Guys can be complicated and annoying, but girls can be mean.

And so there I was, lonely in a basement full of people. I honestly hated drinking, but I was lonely. And there was Brad, who I noticed often seemed just as lonely, always nursing a red plastic cup more often than a conversation.

     For once, I was the cat. He was the mouse. I didn't go in for the kill right away. Fishing is all about patience, so I'm told. I baited and waited.

The first night, the first party after the beer pong table incident, he was wearing a thin navy blue sweater that had a small v-neck with a red and blue plaid shirt underneath. Too fancy for a basement party.