“Good, cuz I need a partner for beer pong.”
He grabbed me by the hand and led me over to the edge of the table; our six red solo cups laid out in triangle formation, filled with a quarter of beer. I sucked at this game but figured I would give it a shot, especially since Connor promised to drink the beer if we lost.
Which we did.
I actually made two cups, but that wasn’t enough for the beastly sorority team that we were playing against. If anyone looks like they were born to play beer pong and excel, it was these two. They had their hair tied back, their jewelry off, their cleavage exposed, and their stances practiced. One also looked like she lifted at least twenty pound weights every other day by my estimation. So yeah, we were out skilled.
“Well, it was fun while it lasted,” Connor said, wiping away some foam from his lips.
“Hey, Con, I gotta go. See you at moms?” a man asked, coming up behind Connor with a stunning brunet in tow. I noticed his left arm was covered to the elbow with an extremely impressive half-sleeve tattoo. It was a stylistic impression of bright blue waves with beautiful koi fish making their way around his muscular bicep. He seemed older than the rest and had a bit of an edge to him. The stubble and longer dark brown hair framed his angled jaw line and deep hazel green eyes just perfectly.
He was hot, like really hot.
But he also wasn’t my type.
“Oh, Jason! Meet Emma, she was just at your hospital!”
Jesus, was everyone going to know I spent some R&R on a hospital bed?
“Hi Emma, I’m Jason. Hope you’re ok,” he said, extending his hand out to me. I noticed a quote tattooed on his forearm but couldn’t make out the words.
“Your hospital?” I said, confused as I returned the handshake.
“Yeah, I’m a resident over there but I was on the pediatrics floor this weekend,” he said, his fingers intertwining with the girl beside him. She looked at me without saying much, just sort of standing there as though I were going to pounce on her man at any moment.
Courtney came up from behind me and drunkenly side-hugged me. She looked over and instantly recognized Jason, throwing her arms around his neck and giving him a sloppy kiss on the cheek. If I thought that brunet wanted to stab me, I could clearly see she wanted to stab Courtney now.
Stab her about ten times by my guess.
“Jason! How’s Ryan?” Courtney asked, looking over to me at the mention of Ryan’s name. She had no idea what the meaning of the word tact was.
“Uh, he’s good. Going over his place tonight if you guys want to join.”
“Game of Thrones?” I asked, noticing that the brunette was now angrily flipping through her phone.
“Yeah! Is he inviting patients over now?” Jason asked, laughing at the thought.
“Technically, except I was discharged already so I guess it doesn’t count,” I responded while Courtney tried to get me to drink a concoction of alcohol through a straw.
“Jason, we gotta go.” Ah, so the brunette did have a voice. And here I was thinking that Ursula stole it along with her personality.
“Right, well it was nice meeting you!” Jason said, kissing me and Courtney both on the cheek in a friendly goodbye. I wasn’t sure if I was just being overly observant, but I could have sworn Jason’s hug lasted longer with Courtney, just slightly more intimate. Meanwhile, the girl just nodded our way and strutted off, flaunting her man like the catch that he was.
“Alright, Court. I’m heading out too.”
“Seriously?!” she said, shaking me by my shoulders and motioning out to the crowd of partying frat guys and cheering sorority girls. It seemed like fun, just not right now.
“Sorry. I’ll see you tomorrow though! And please don’t throw up inside someone’s closet again.”
“I can’t make any promises,” she said, slapping my ass goodbye and returning to her game of beer pong, spilling some of her mixed drink down on the concrete. I waved goodbye to Connor and headed out, wondering if Eric was going to be waiting for me at home. A piece of me imagined him standing in a dark kitchen, holding a “Get Well Soon” cake with one lone candle flickering in the darkness, shadows being cast on his smiling face as I walked in.
Of course, that wasn’t going to happen.
I was once again lucky enough to find a street parking spot just outside of my apartment complex. Thankfully, the drive home didn’t take too long either because my head was beginning to throb.
I dragged myself out of the car and up the concrete stairs, checking our mailbox on the way in. The hallways in the apartment building were kept relatively clean but always smelled like someone was cooking a huge Brazilian meal, the scent of spices and churrasco filling the narrow space. Sometimes it made me hungry.
Today it just made me nauseous.
I unlocked the door to my apartment and walked in, almost tripping on a pair of worn out green converse conveniently sitting right at the entrance. I groaned Eric’s name, wondering if he was home as I picked up his sneakers and brought them over to our bedroom. He didn’t seem to be around as I checked through our small, one-bedroom apartment. It was a modest lifestyle, both of us trying to minimize the debt we were signing up for with the whole higher education thing. Our apartment was pretty much all Ikea bought and Me assembled, which would explain why our computer desk tucked away in a small nook had an upside down drawer.
Woopsie
.
I was never that great of a builder. I remember my mom trying to teach me when I was younger, something I remember my aunt seeming a little wary about. But my mom wanted her little girl to hold her own and that meant learning all kinds of different skills, one of them being woodwork and construction. She would try to get me to make small bird houses or little doll mansions, with functional toilets and a tiny arcade room.
My mom had high expectations.
Needless to say, I never really succeeded at building. It was weird too, because I could somehow understand how it worked, the concept underlying the actual object, I just couldn’t put a hammer to a nail and create something that’s functional. So I leaned more towards books, burying myself in towers of different books from all sorts of genres. Classic literature to satirical fantasy realms, I read them all.
Nowadays, it was much harder to find time to read. It was something I missed.
I went over to our kitchen and opened up one of the creaky wooden cabinets. Just as I was about to pour myself a cup of milk, I felt strong hands grip my waist and slide down my front.
I jumped up, scared at the sudden touch. My muscles immediately tensed once I heard Eric behind me.
“Hey, you’re back,” he said, nuzzling his face into my neck. It was moments like these that fueled my hope for a brighter future but also kept me on edge. These were the moments that my subconscious held on to every time I considered cutting the cord and going on a self-reflective Eat, Pray, Love journey of my own.
“Yeah,” I said, shifting forward and breaking his grip on my hips. I finished pouring my milk and gave him a quick peck on the lips. His dreamy blue eyes tried to captivate me with his gaze. One thing about Eric was that he had a face that resembled a small puppy’s in the fact that he had the power to melt most peoples’ hearts. I wasn’t sure if he was actually aware of the persuasive pull his expression had over others.
Or maybe it was just me.
I gave in and wrapped my hands around his sturdy waist, speaking up at him. Eric was very tall, which explained how he was pretty much born to play basketball. I was also really happy that he didn’t seem upset at my cellphone situation. I was worried he was going to assume I had been up to no good, but it seemed as though it never happened.
“Courtney was a wreck,” I said, trying to cover my story and move on to the next.
“I know, babe. I would be too if you left me. I would be a literal fucking disaster,” he said, pushing closer into me. His lips brushed up against my forehead. I could sense what he was trying to do by lowering my guard down. He probably felt how anxious I was and knew that ever since we were younger, my weakness was always tender kisses. The kind that left a tingling mark underneath your skin for moments after. It was the kind that he was giving me now.
And I felt my walls wane.
“I won’t ever let you get like that,” I said into his chest, his lips still moving across the top of my head. Suddenly I became aware of a familiar warmth spreading from my center outward, reaching the tips of my fingers and toes. He pressed his growing excitement against me, making me feel the bulge that was growing through the front of his gym shorts. I couldn’t help but feel a lust begin to blossom from inside, sending small heat waves coursing through my blood. My fingers dug into his UCLA College t-shirt, feeling the ripples in the small of his back underneath.
“I know you aren’t going to,” he said, so matter-of-factly it almost took me by surprise.
“How so?” I asked, my hands sliding their way down towards his firm butt.
“Because I love you too much,” he said, tilting my head up and leaning down towards me. Our lips met in a passionate exchange of longing, our tongues dancing together, transferring the desire between us. His kiss overwhelmed me before I could truly process the words. Before I could truly understand that Eric’s love was indeed too much. A burning wildfire that would consume everything, and everyone, in its path.
Our hands enclosed each other’s body, locking us into a fervent embrace as he pushed me up onto the small, tan counter top. I let a short moan escape my parted lips as he pushed himself onto me. I could feel his thickness through the light material of my scrubs, instantly soaking my pink lace underneath.
His hungry mouth met my exposed neck. I could feel his teeth bite against my sensitive skin, the sensation firing waves of desire through me. His tongue traced the inner lines of my nape as one hand moved up to massage my breast through the scrubs.
And that was when shit hit the fan.
I felt him pause, my eyes still shut in the heat of the moment. I wanted him now. My hips slowly gyrated in place. But he wasn’t doing anything. I didn’t feel his lips meeting my sensitive skin anymore and his hands were no longer exploring my body.
I opened my eyes and my stomach instantly dropped, all my arousal immediately vanishing. In Eric’s hands was the crumbled piece of paper with Ryan’s address and his first name written underneath. I could see a red flush begin to overtake Eric’s features as was starting to realize what he was looking out.
This was going to be
really
fucking bad.
“What the fuck is this?” he asked, now standing feet away from me, the hand holding the crumbled up napkin was beginning to shake.
“You fucked someone, huh?” he demanded, his volume escalating now.
“No, no, listen Eric. It’s totally innocent. It’s just a girl I met. She’s a big Game of Throne’s fan. I wanted to see it tonight at her house,” I said, secretly thankful that Ryan’s name could also belong to a woman. But Eric still wasn’t taking it. I’m sure that the way my voice shook didn’t help instill confidence in my story. I felt myself losing control of the situation.
“Fucking bullshit. Even when you’re helping your own fucking best friend, you still find a way to cheat on me, you dumb fucking slut.”
Suddenly, Eric grabbed a glass cup next to him and propelled it at me, thankfully missing my head by inches. I heard the cup smash against the white wall behind me, shards of sharp glass raining down around me and onto the floor. I shrieked as he rushed towards me, grabbing the back of head and dragging me out into the living room.
“I fucking trusted you,” he spat, venom in his voice.
Tears were now freely streaming down my face as the throbbing of my concussion was now mixing with the pain of Eric’s grip, pulling my thick hair behind him. I tried dropping to the floor to break his grip, but he was stronger. He threw me on the couch, bringing me vivid flashbacks to the first time he had ever done this.
“Eric, please,” I begged in between sobs that stole my breath from me. My heart was racing as his fist slammed down on the armrest next to my face. His open palm struck me across my cheek, sending an intense cutting pain burn through all my nerves.
“Eric, this isn’t you,” I whimpered as he loomed over me, fury pushing out any semblance of a logical thought.
“I knew I should have never stuck my dick in you, bitch.”
I was broken. I couldn’t tell what hurt more, the slap that cut across my face or the words that were slicing through my soul.
“Just… stop… please.” My fists were balled up, my nails digging into my palms and drawing blood. I had a sudden urge to fight. To be stronger. I wanted to stand up for myself. But that urge was destroyed when his powerful grip wrapped around my neck, cutting off my breath. This was it. This was the moment it would all go too far.
I brought my hands up and latched onto his forearm, trying to bring him off me. But this was a professional college basketball player. He was much stronger than me and his grip wouldn’t loosen.
My eyes met his. The same, crystal blue eyes that I had fallen in love with. Except there wasn’t anything but pure, blinding rage behind these eyes. I pleaded with the Eric I once knew. I tried looking through the pain and into the person who was threatening to end my life.
Suddenly, Eric’s grip loosened.
I ravenously gasped for the breath that was stolen from me. My vision was starting to go dark around the edges as I looked up at the man who stood above me. This wasn’t Eric. It couldn’t be.
This was a monster.
And just as quickly as it began, it ended. Eric, still crimson red from rage, stormed over to the door, snatched his car keys, and slammed the door behind him so hard that it fell off the hinges. I was left there, a crumpled mess, clutching onto my chest as sobbing heaves wracked through my body.
I held my body, uncontrollable shaking overtook me.
I was broken.