Typical.

Chapter 13: Answers

“So do you remember when I told you about when I came home late and didn’t turn off the lights or lock the door and our TV was stolen?”

I nodded, and she went on.

“Well, I was late for a reason. I didn’t really remember any of the night because I was drunk and Noah had gotten me high. Not like, the weed, everything’s fuckin’ awesome type of high, like the hallucination type of high. Like, I took some sort of pill. I can’t exactly remember what it was that I took, but I remember Noah putting it in his mouth then we kissed and…” She trailed off, looked up, and with that thought, I cringed. I hated thinking of her with Noah. I really did. “And, so I got high. I remember… I remember blacking out, then I woke up in my bed, naked, with bruises around my waist. And when I came downstairs, the cops were there. I thought it had something to do with the fact that I got high the night before on illegal substances, but turns out, I’d come home without turning out the light or locking the door. You see, I had no idea who got me home so I didn’t know what to think. The cops assumed that they saw the light late at night, tried the door to see if it was unlocked, then took the first thing of value in sight. They never found the TV. My mom got mad at me for it, blamed me for everything that has ever gone wrong, called me terrible names, cut me deep… you know what happened. I shattered my mirror, cut myself. I was in a terrible place. Kate and Michelle stopped really asking me to go out and I didn’t know why. Noah was being an ass. My mom hated me.

“And then, when you texted me, I kind of was pulled out of whatever I was in and I was happy for a while. I loved letting go, but then, when my feelings for you started…” I looked up when she said that, but kept my word and didn’t say anything. “When my feelings for you started to change and confuse me and get in the way, it started kind of slowly coming back. The sadness and pain, I mean. And I still had no idea what had happened to me. All the confusion was clouding my mind and until you texted me, I didn’t have anything else to think about apart from how sad I was. I’d always assumed I got raped. But, I mean, who wants to believe that? No one wants to think that they weren’t a virgin anymore. It was in complete question and I was so confused and I had so many unanswered questions but I didn’t know who to ask. And at the club, when I was letting go and getting drunk, it was really nice because I didn’t have a care in the world. Between you and the liquor, I was able to let it go. And when we kissed, I didn’t think much of it. I didn’t think much of it because I was drunk and that was my excuse and it was yours so I guess I just didn’t let it affect me. And then when I heard you singing that song and when we were talking, my heart just melted and I kept thinking about everything,” she said, and I saw her eyes fill with tears that didn’t fall. “When we were talking, I remembered how important you are to me and how much I missed you and I damn well knew that I hated the idea of leaving again, so at that point, you were the center of my world. The most important person. The only one who cared. And I wanted it to last, never wanted to leave. Then when I woke up the next morning and I went downstairs, I was kind of confused about the way you reacted. Because you acted like it wasn’t a big deal. And I thought it was. And again, you made me forget about all my problems later that day when were at The Eye.

“Then those fucking fan girls swarmed us and you held onto me and they tried to pull us apart and pulled my hair and circled the car and followed us and you seemed to know exactly what to do in those situations, it all made me realize that I couldn’t let you be important to me because you’re important to everyone else. Like, the whole world wants a piece of you and I was scared that there wouldn’t be anything left for me. I know I was over analyzing everything, but that’s what I do. In my crazy artist mind, I over analyze everything and overreact. I think that’s why I’m a good artist, because I feel everything. Anyway, I didn’t want to share you and I got scared that I was all alone. And you told me I wasn’t alone and that I didn’t have to share you and… I don’t know, it didn’t necessarily work. I didn’t believe it because I was still in the mindset that everyone and the whole goddamn world was against me. So all that was weighing down on me and then, we started kissing when we’d had no alcohol, when we hadn’t been dared to, but because we wanted to and it was so great and it gave me a lot of hope.