I Just Wanted to be Edgy Too

Chapter Seventeen

Ellie

I chain smoked four cigarettes when the bus finally parked at the hotel. It was nearly three thirty in the morning and I hadn't found sleep yet. The lyrics of Red clung to me, dragging me further into the pit of my stomach. I shook under my thin jacket, the air crisp around me as I avoided the cut on my lip and brought my cigarette to my lips again.

Everyone else was asleep, finding it easy after a show that exhausted them. Not me. I was wide eyed and anxious. The cigarettes probably weren't helping. I could've used something stronger to take the edge off. Could have used a bowl or a few hits of Slim's one hitter if he'd have been awake. Maybe I could take a bunch of pills and portray myself as the addict Barns painted me to be to Van.

Van.

I shivered. I couldn't shake the way his face twisted into dissatisfaction as as dissected the words of Red to me on stage. My stomach growled.

I put the cigarette out with the toe of my converse, and shoved my hands into my pockets. I wasn't ready for sleep, wasn't ready to go back to the bus, and we couldn't check into our rooms yet. Everyone decided to camp out in their bunks for the night and left me to the back bedroom again. Barns had hesitated by the door as if he expected me to let him share the room with me tonight. I was too keyed up to lay down, and I wasn't ready for him to be that close to me for that long. He wrestled with his emotions as I shook my head at him. For a short second, the fleeting look of anger burned behind his eyes, but he pulled back and buried it. I'm not sure how deep he buried it, but it was gone from sight.

When I couldn't find sleep after several hours, I ended up outside, and had been there since. I started walking then, taking in my surroundings to make sure I would remember how to get back to the hotel.

The city was dead at this hour, save for the few homeless people speckled on benches or in the crooks of buildings and alleys. None of them spoke, just slept through the sounds of the concrete jungle. I dug my heels deeper into the cement and focused on my breathing as I passed small storefronts and restaurants that looked haunted in the glow of street lamps.

The truth was I needed to clear my head. I needed to find the space I was in prior to Barns, but I didn't know how to get there. I didn't remember who I was back then either. What was I like? What clothes did I wear? What thoughts did I have? That woman seemed foreign to me, a stranger. I wondered what she think of me now.

Van knew something. He knew more than something, he knew too much. I didn't know how long he'd keep it from others, and replaying the concern on Bondy's face, made me wonder again how much others knew. I was worried what they'd think of me. The girl who fell victim to assault by her boyfriend. They'd probably wondered why I didn't just leave. Probably wondered why I'd stay after something like that.

I'd tried to figure that out for years.

My answers to my own questions were messy, complicated. Part of it had to do with being comfortable where I was. If I started over, if I left Barns, I'd also be leaving everything about my life. It could be done but I didn't want to have to do it. That's the problem with the wounded; we don't want to be gutted, but we're too apathetic to change into armor.

I walked farther into the hum of the city, farther from the people I knew and the places that felt familiar. Bars illuminated the street and beckoned me in with neon signs. Back home, those bars would be hanging on the verge of closing, but here, they still had their lights on, still had people lingering around high tops, and the scent of beer pacified the nerves inside of me. If Barns wanted an addict, I could give him one. As petty as my thoughts sounded, I still let them consume me.

Without thinking, I stepped into a bar that reminded me too much of home. I felt sick for a minute wondering what life would be like if I were there instead of here. No one looked up as I walked in except the bartender. Everyone else was too deeply involved with whoever they were going to go home with, and whatever they were finishing off. I hauled myself onto a barstool and stretched my fingers.

"What time is last call?"

The bartender smiled. "Isn't one. My shift ends at five, then the breakfast crowd starts to roll in. What'll you have?"

"Whatever you have on draft is fine. And a shot of Jack."

He raised his eyebrows but complied with my request. He filled a tall glass with Budweiser and slid it to me, followed by my shot. I didn't hesitate as I poured it down my throat, only pausing to lift the beer to my lips to chase away the burn. He winced at my wince and laughed.

"Starting a tab then?" I nodded once and twirled my finger around, signaling another shot.

The bar thinned out as I drank deeper. A girl sat beside me for a while, telling me her life story about the guy she was with who shared drinks with his friends at the other end of the bar. I feigned interest and it seemed to work, because it kept her talking. It kept my mind off the reason I was drinking. Eventually my mind clouded over and I fell into the hazy drunken fog that seemed foreign to me. It had been a long while since I had buried myself in alcohol. Years perhaps. There were moments of a good buzz here and there, moments of wine and laughter, but this was a legitimate drunk feeling that I hadn't taken to in a while. Probably since it all went to Hell with Barns. That was the last time I was like this.

I frowned at the thought of him.

The girl beside me grabbed the sides of my face and shook her head. "Why are you sad? What's wrong?"

This girl was a stranger, and not just a stranger, but a drunk stranger. She'd forget about me come morning, well, afternoon at this point, and she'd forget me entirely. Immediately I wanted to tell her everything. I wanted to tell the truth about my life, because it needed to come out. It needed to be free, and drink girls don't judge. I knew anyone else around me, anyone close to me would judge the scene, and maybe that's why I didn't tell people anything.

"I got in a fight with my boyfriend a week or so ago and shit's weird. And I can't stop thinking about how fucked up the last year and a half has been, and how stupid I am for staying with someone like him."

She looked like she was going to cry. "Does he yell at you?"

I nodded and took another gulp of my beer. I'd lost count after beer four or five...this could have been six, it could have been eight.

"Does he hurt you? Is that where this came from?" She pushed her fingers into the yellowish bruises on my wrists and pointed to the ones higher on my arms. I pulled my jacket back on to hide them, but nodded.

"You can't let someone do this! You CAN'T!" Her words were heavy with alcohol and sincerity.

"I've done everything with him. I've been through every walk of life with him. I can't just leave him." I started crying, head on the bar, complete drunk at ground zero. That's what I had become.

She wrapped her arms around me and howled. "You've gotta tell someone. You've gotta get free. You don't deserve this. I don't care if you love him. This isn't love." Her words were slurred but accurate, and part of them resonated in the pockets of my subconscious. Drunk girls didn't lie.

"We were supposed to have it all, and then we lost it." I cried harder and she just shook her head.

"How long has this been going on?"

I knew. I could tell you to the date. "Seventeen months." I choked.

"You can't do this. You can't do this to yourself, you'll die if you live through it. It'll still ruin you."

"It already has."

I lost count of everything then. Of the number of drinks her and I shared. Of the times I cried and told her I couldn't just leave. Of the times I told her just how bad and just how ruthless Barns could be. I lost count of the hours, the seconds, and how far behind the rest of the world was than me.

The morning light cut into the corners of the dark bar as I turned my back on it and continued to lose myself in liquid truth.