rage • l.h

1. a mistake

Years of therapy and hopeful counselors who I single-handedly turned into pessimists couldn't even help me in this moment.

"What the fuck?" I screamed, to no one in particular, the yeast-scented, cheap beer already staining my shirt.

The shirt I'd especially saved for my first college party.

I guess it's technically not a party. What do you call a bunch of hopeful and acne-scarred freshmen sneaking tequila and michelob ultras into a dorm room that resembled a cell?

"I'm so sorry. Oh my god. Here, let me help you." The girl now faced me, the air in the room constricting my lungs as too many people cram together and attempt to dance.

Breathe, Cece.

I stare at the front door and focus on the hinges, the lock, the fire escape route posted. Anything to focus on but the rage that's threatening me.

"It's fine." My words come out more bitter than I meant, but I didn't blow up. I didn't yell. I didn't cry.

Cece: 1. Rage: 0.

"Let me find some napkins. I'll be right back." The small girl whose beer now soaked through my shirt and was quickly becoming sticky against my stomach spoke. She was gone before I could object.

She was a perfect example of the reason I hated myself. A girl whose name I did not know and probably would never know. A girl who probably loved sunshine and posted quotes about 'kindness' on her instagram story. She did nothing to me, at least not on purpose, yet I almost did everything to her. Maybe I didn't blow up this time. Maybe I kept it under control. But there would be more times.

More times when an innocent person fell into the path of my hatefulness.

It was easier to tell myself I didn't have a choice. That I was born this way.

I took in my surroundings, knowing damn well my night was over.

It was night two of living on my own. If you call a college dorm living on your own. If you call an RA ransacking your cabinets and a noisy upstairs neighbor who doesn't know how to lift their fucking feet when they walk living alone.

Just a few of us called this dorm home. For now.

This floor houses the early crowd, those whose parents couldn't make the official move in day. In three hours I went from a girl whose mom still had to hold her during tantrums to a girl who would soon have a roommate to inflict her anger on. I felt for the poor girl who got paired with me. I was going to try, I was going to try so goddamn hard to not scare her away.

Whoever was cursed with sharing space with me had yet to show up. I guess I had the one roommate on floor six whose mommy and daddy could come out for family move-in week and have all sorts of fun together.

My mom got scheduled to work the night shift every day of that week.

Yet another reminder of what I lack. While everyone parades their parents and siblings around, chanting cheers for our alma mater during spirit night and eating fancy pasta at the family welcome dinner, I would be in my twin sized bed video-chatting with the only therapist I hadn't scared away.

Yet.

Maybe I'd tell her about this night. How i'd already had six shots by 10 p.m because I thought maybe that would calm me down. And maybe it did. I didn't make the poor girl who spilt her disgusting beer all over me cry, did I?

Either way, I was done. Done with my attempt to feel normal. Done with trying to impress Taniya and Remi, my next door neighbors, by being present at yet another event that's the epitome of the 'college experience'.