RIDE ✧ {H.S.}

21

The confession booth was my only escape.

Before entering the peaceful box, my eyes partially shut in preparation for the fierce lighting shift stepping back into the church. The air somehow got warmer as the heat generated from grinding bodies continued. A thick layer of fog set above the dance floor from various fumes and smoke wafting towards the ceiling. Strobed lights beamed between my eyelids as the shifted atmosphere unconsciously lifted my mood. The smell of marijuana stuck to peoples hair but they shook away most inhibitions.

Everyone was wearing chunky white glasses with a red and blue lens, like the one's you'd get at a movie theater. I imagine it amplified their twisted perspectives from the psychedelics.

There wasn't a hole for me to crawl into, depriving me of the comfort to completely submit to insanity. I was being served a lifetime of embarrassment. I wanted to lunge at him and tear the perfect skin that held each tattoo. I didn't think my nervous system could handle the impact he'd have. I wanted somewhere to scream until my lungs shattered. I'm humiliated.

My newly-wed stepmother had her first dance to a sex anthem written about me.

If my father knew who that song was about, my life would shatter.

Whatever was once shiny and whole became broken into slivers of painful memories, dull and lifeless. I'd never be able to look my father in the eyes again. All the happiness and pigment was drained from my face while my tears began to create their own watery trail down my cheeks. They burned from my skins heat, circulating an influx of blood to accommodate my panic.

"Breathe, Clio. Breathe," I tried to remind myself of the most vital asset, oxygen.

Confined to these thick, wooden walls, I let myself unravel. To my left was a thin screen, dividing the priests side and the confessors place. Luckily there was no holy bishop to hear my pleas for mercy. Whatever I couldn't speak was now being shouted as my lungs vibrated at the power of my anguish. The Earth didn't have enough air for my suffocating lungs.

"What did I do to deserve this?" I felt fragmented words escape my lips in the form of a dry heave, "I'm so embarrassed." My voice was reduced to a hoarse whisper.

Only I could hear myself talk. The party continued outside the confession booth. I stole the only pocket of peace this chapel had to offer.

The entire church was lined with cocaine and commotion. Inside the house was desolate, serviced only by maids and tightly locked. I needed to be away from all that was hurting me.

I felt such a shame. This was my fault. None of this would have happened if I didn't fall. Vulnerability was my greatest weakness. I knew I'd get in too far and find myself drowning in regret. Though my involvement was just as crucial as his, but Harry wrapped everyone else into this problem. Every ounce of his being spiraled into something awful. We were the worst pair to conspire. Our destructive pleasure fused to create unreleased anguish, weaponized and taken out on each other.

There was a palpable tension we couldn't release.

God, I wanted this pounding in my head to subside so I could focus on wiping away my tears. My eyelashes captured droplets as clung each lash together, dampening my under-eyes mixed with lingering sweat glands.

The shreds of paper blackmail. A.C. Records riot. The harness photos. New York. Accardi contracts.

I'd do anything to make it all go away. I wanted to go back to my life of relative simplicity. At least before I didn't have a constant, bitter anxiety reach into my chest and squeeze my heart of every livable drop of blood. My heart rate used to be relatively normal. Now I was plagued with stress.