The Strip

Part 18

Freen POV;

The morning after the dinner party - the biggest failure of a party (and you're a stripper that's been thrown up on at a few bachelor parties) - with your head pounding and mouth tasting like you had stuffed your cheeks full of cotton, all you want to do was carry on like nothing had happened. You want to move on with your life and forget the disappointment of making a grave mistake in letting your mom back into your life, even if it was just for one night.

You just want to forget.

Rebecca, on the other hand, has her own ideas. "Are you okay?" She asks for what felt like the hundredth time. From the second you had woken to the middle of the day, she kept tiptoeing around you, treating you like at any moment you were going to fray at the edges and fall apart.

So, eventually, you did. There was a maelstrom of negative thoughts flying around inside your skull since the second you opened your eyes, and you were getting no respite from feeling that way with Rebecca looking at you the way she was. Looking at you like you were just as broken as you felt. Looking at you like you were just as volatile as him . You don't know how to voice that all you want to do is forget what your mom said, and what she couldn't say - what she didn't want to say. You just want to forget that it even happened, so you snap.

You end up fighting with her, screaming and shouting and saying things you know you would never mean and would never voice aloud if you could even twist your thoughts to be that horrific, repeating the things Noah had once said to you. You repeat the slurs and the slanders that he told everyone that would listen about you. You know that the words you're saying make no sense to throw at your girlfriend - they're not even directed at Rebecca, but you just feel so... so raw. So raw, so confused, in so much pain and so worthless .

It has taken Rebecca months to convince you otherwise, and seconds for you to fall back to square one. Seconds for every cruel word Noah spoke to you, every sharp dismissal from your mother and every empty memory of your dad to overwhelm you into pushing away the person you needed more than anything else.

It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Rebecca being Rebecca takes every blow you deliver with poise and grace, the love in her eyes never wavering even as you start to see spots from hyperventilating. It makes it even worse. Your heart burns in your throat and you feel more exposed than ever before because she's not listening to you. She's not following the script you've imagined in your head.

You call yourself a stupid whore and tell Rebecca to leave and never come back. She stares at you, green eyes searching for what, you don't know, imploring you to feel something other than the hollowness of your stomach.

When you ask her to leave again, she complies, kissing you on the forehead with words dying on the tip of her tongue as she walks past. It takes everything inside of you - every dark and twisted emotion to remind you that you're not good enough to reach out for her hand.

And just like every other hurricane in existence, the destruction that those thoughts left inside your chest has you feeling off balance, unmoored, truly broken.

Sophia walks in that night - you know Rebecca sent her because she has a spare key, and sighs. The canvases are off the wall, there are broken plates and shattered glass all around you. You can't even look at her, but she doesn't ask you to, just sits with you on the floor of your kitchen as you drink an entire bottle of whisky and subsequently throw up everything that you had in your stomach (which wasn't much). She holds your hair back, and reminds you of how bad of a bitch you were to have accomplished so much on your own. She plats your hair while you cry on the phone with Rebecca, doesn't interrupt or try to take the phone away as you mumble incoherently to your silent girlfriend.