Ruined

chapter 10

Roseanne.

ONE YEAR LATER...

I push through the days and nights in a blur of sleepless dedication. With twice as many credit hours as the average student, my life revolves around schoolwork. I throw myself into studying, maintaining a perfect GPA, and proving my self-worth. Being rejected by every person I ever loved started a vicious cycle of self-hatred. Until I realized the best revenge is to put all my efforts into me instead of dwelling on them.

Mason Park's funeral came and went. I didn't attend. There's an inheritance, but I left it up to Felix to handle the legalities from prison. Maybe someday, I can use the money and my future salary to buy the entire ranch. Right now, I just need to focus on succeeding.
I'm running full speed toward my future.

The all-work-no-play mindset works great for expediting my college career, but it's detrimental to other aspects of my life. Like new relationships. Or lack thereof.
I've had no contact with Lisa or Bambam. No visits with Felix. No friendships or boyfriends or lovers. I live in a college dorm and share a room with a quiet girl I never talk to. When guys approach me, I morph into a stiff, voiceless idiot. I've retreated so deeply into my work I don't know how to interact with people. Yet here I am, at the biggest field party in four states, subjecting my lungs to the smoke, beer, and hormonal stench of hundreds of college kids. The secluded field on the outskirts of town is where MSU students go to watch boobs bounce on a dirt dance floor, drink more than their stomachs can hold, stumble around in the dark, pick fights with cowboys, and puke on other people's boots. But that's not why I've been coming to this field party every Saturday night for the past six months.

I'm driven by an unshakable, deeply-rooted, screwed-up fascination with sex.

Three years ago, my body was used in unthinkable ways, but that wasn't sex. It was brutality. I've never had real sex. Not the kind that involves mutual participation and trust. Not the skin-heating, orgasm- inducing, elusive kind I hungered for with Lisa Manoban.
Lisa.
That's where I'm stuck.

Sex is so heavily knotted around my memories of her it's become a trigger-happy panic attack waiting to happen. My conflicted feelings for her, her betrayal, the ravine... I keep that shit locked down. Until someone grips my wrist, crowds my back, or simply catches me unprepared. Then it all heaves from my hyperventilating lungs. I can tackle the day-to-day monotony of schoolwork without feeling anything. But the moment I'm with a guy, my body turns into a field of land mines. One wrong touch, and boom.
I'm not looking for a boyfriend or attachments. I just want to unstick the celibate part of my routine, without resurrecting all the things that have gone to hell in my life.

Tied One On by Jon Pardi thumps deep and loud in my chest as I press through the throng of smoke-soaked flannels and cowboy hats. I have no idea who throws these parties or if the land owner even knows about them, but they happen every weekend, all year long, even when it snows. There's no snow tonight, but it's cold enough for coats and gloves. A roaring bonfire emits a blanket of heat and embellishes the wilderness ambiance. The linchpin of these parties, however, is the pickup truck. Not the trucks hauling in kegs of beer with a dozen under-aged drinkers hanging out of the cab. I mean, those are clearly important. But the truck everyone gravitates to is the one with the massive sound system of speakers and electronics stacked in the bed. An obscenely long extension cord snakes from the truck to some unseen power source near the barn.
The barn.
That's where I'm headed.
The washed-out, abandoned outbuilding seems to exist only so that MSU students have a place to fuck in private. The lack of lighting obscures the interior in blackness, and the blaring music penetrates the thin walls, making it impossible to talk over the noise.There's a tantalizing sort of mystery in that. Without sight and voice, the senses narrow to the caress of hands on skin, the taste of lips, the warmth of breath, and the languid circulation of lust sliding through veins. I want that. I ache to be consumed by the attentive, tactile sensation of a body against mine.