Angst (3 page)

“Indeed I do,” I say with a quirked grin. “You know I always
have gossip for you, my little gossip queen.”

“Yeah so stop talking about it and spill it,” she says,
flipping her long hair over her shoulder. I don’t even bother arguing with her
and launch into a story.

“So...you remember that guy from high school who flirted
with me constantly freshman year and I thought he was interested but he ended
up dating someone else?”

 “Uhhhh…yeah, Brad something or other right?” she says,
picking at her salad.

“Yeah, Brad Winter to be exact. I met up with him this
summer and guess what? Big surprise? He treated me like shit again! You are
gonna love this flipping story.” Amanda smiles, her food forgotten again in her
never ending quest for good gossip.

“So…stop dragging your feet and tell me, dammit!”

“Brad came in to the store while I was working and at first
he didn’t recognize me, but eventually he did and it was so awkward! You have
no idea how uncomfortable I am around him since he destroyed my feelings all
those years ago. Anyway, we started to spend some time together and we ended up
fooling around. Thing is, he wanted to have sex and I wasn’t ready. He got all
pissy that I wouldn’t put out. I mean seriously, why do guys assume that every
girl will sleep with them right away? The bastard actually said and I quote,
‘I’m going to have sex with you at least once.'”

“What the hell does that mean?!”

“I have no idea, but isn’t it kind of creepy and weird? It
really made me feel like he was using me and maybe it’s because he’s always
wanted to sleep with me, like a conquest or something, or to settle an old
score.”

“God, what a freakin creep! So…what exactly happened to end
it all?”

“Ah yeah…mother-fucker invited me to a party on campus,
telling me to call when I arrived and he’d let me know where he was and when I
showed up and tried to call him, he never called me back! And then he just
never called me again. Plus I found out he had been seeing several other girls
at the same time. Jerk!”

“Um yeah…I’m glad that prick never called you. Good
Goddamned riddance!”

“Yeah you’re right. I swear guys are always ditching me
because I don’t immediately put out. But I’m scared. I mean, it’s a big deal
and why do they deserve it at a snap of their fingers?!”

“They don’t deserve it, Vicky!” Amanda replies with vehemence,
always my staunch supporter in the destruction of what she terms “asshole
mother-fuckers.”

“Listen, Vic, don’t do it like I did with some random
jerk-off. You don’t want that. It’s weird and awkward and totally not worth it.
You remember Asshole Mo-fo-Ronnie?  He totally used me for what he could get
and it really hurt because having sex is so personal. At least to girls it is.”
Amanda starts playing with the bendy straw in her water glass, her brown eyes
suddenly serious instead of laughing.  She looks up, her expression thoughtful
and a little wry. “Guys seem to be able to remove their feelings from the
experience when they want to, but I wasn’t able to,” now her eyes spark, brow
lowered. “Victoria, guys are so f-in insensitive!”

“Yeah, you’re right,” I say, leaning my head on the palm of
my hand, feeling depressed. I play with the paper wrapper from my straw,
rolling it into a ball. “I wish I could find someone who respected me and was
nice.”

“You will eventually…. Hey, wait a minute, I know there are
other things that happened over the summer that you haven’t told me yet!” shey
says, her mouth curved into a fake pout, trying to get me out of my black mood.
I laugh.

“Yeah actually there are lots of things I have to tell you,”
I reply with a sly grin.

“Oh my God, what did you do?!” Amanda squeals, reading the
look I’m sending her.

“Well there were a few ‘situations’ from work this summer, a
couple different guys.”

“You little slutty whore, you’d better tell me everything
that happened!” she says leaning in eagerly, ready to hear the juicy parts.

“Ok, ok, Miss Bossy!” I say in fake annoyance. “You’re
totally right, I am such a hussy!! Well, there were three guys who liked me
this summer at work. Are you sure you want to hear this long, long, boring
story?”

“Stop it!” Amanda replies, her eyes huge and insistent,
“Stop teasing me, give it up, slut! NOW!”

“Haha…fine, but you are just as bad as those guys who try to
pressure me into giving it up! Ok, so first there was this guy Nick who works
in the produce department. He is so hot. He’s not super tall, but taller than
me with baby blue eyes and a muscular body to die for! You know how I like the
bigger guys with the muscles, and he was all of that and more. Well, to be
honest he was kind of a meat-head and full of himself, but I didn’t know that
at first. Don’t ask me how I didn’t know. Just don’t.

“Anyway, I thought he’d never be interested in me and I’d
never talked to him before but one day I was working in the booth with Chrissy
and she’s friends with him. He called her on the in-store phone and was telling
Chrissy how much he wanted to fuck me and what kinds of things he wanted to do
to me. Apparently he had a crush on me except I had no idea. Can you believe
that shit?!”

“Holy shit! Who does that?! Are you kidding me?! So…what
happened??? Tell me!” Now Amanda’s mouth is hanging open in anticipation. She
pokes me in the hand, trying to hurry me along, “This guy sounds like trouble!”

“Well I was pretty intimidated and thrown off guard when I
first heard the things he was saying to Chrissy. But eventually the idea
started to turn me on. I mean this sexy guy wanted to do all these scandalous
things to me and it was kinda hot. It was like the bad boy scenario and I was
interested but also kinda nervous and scared because I figured he was probably
a lot more knowledgeable about sex than I am.

“So, we ended up dating for a little while. There was lots
of dry humping in his car, my car, his parent’s house, and everything else but
sex. You know Ms. Prude over here, the loser bitch who never gives it up,” I
say, pointing to myself. “Anyway, I went away on vacation with my loving family
for a week over the summer, you know, camping at the lake like we do every year.
I tried to get out of it so I could hang out with Nick all week, but my parents
were not having it. So I went. While I was gone, ASSHOLE, decides to sleep with
another chick!”

“No way! Seriously?”

“I know, men, right? Anyway, I got back home and found out
he cheated and that was it. Over. Nothing more. I was pissed! But I’m over it
now. I mean he’s a male whore and will sleep with anything. The girl he slept
with was fricken nasty too. So gross!”

“So wait, how did you find out that he cheated?”

“The girls in the courtesy booth at work told me as soon as
I walked through the door the day after I got back. I hadn’t been able to get
in touch with him the night before and then it all made sense why he wasn’t
answering his phone, the jerk.”

“Good riddance, where do you find these jerk-offs? God,
Victoria, you are such a slutty piece. I can’t stand it,” Amanda says smiling
slyly, trying to hold back laughter.

“Yeah thanks a lot, Nun Amanda the Pure. Anyway, that was
guy one. The others aren’t as shocking. There’s this other cute guy at work,
Will. He’s ridiculously nice and good looking and he drives a nice car and has
a motorcycle and he likes me. I mean he flirts with me all the fricken time,
but for some unknown reason I can’t like him. It’s so weird. He’s all the
things that I normally like, but the spark just isn’t there. I really tried,
too. We kissed and went on a motorcycle ride together, but I just couldn’t like
him. He even said to me, ‘Victoria, I have a nice body, I think I’m decent
looking, I drive a nice car, I’m a nice guy, what is wrong with me?’ I had no
answer for him. It was pathetic.”

“Ok, ok, I can see that. There are guys that should be good
for you, but you just can’t feel it. I’ve felt that way before with a couple
guys who liked me. Ok, so that’s two, are there others? You said THREE and I
need to hear the nasty stuff!”

“Well, actually I lied…there might be four,” I say,
attempting to hold back the grin that is threatening at the corner of my mouth
as Amanda laughs. Amanda is certainly good at cheering me up, enjoying our
silly banter, but suddenly I’m reminded of my latest asshole, Brad. Before I
can think any more about him and his recent second defection, Amanda is
starting in on me again.

“Skanky, whorish, slutty, bee-otch!” she says covering her
mouth with her hands, her eyes wide as if she’s surprised and shocked.

“Shut up! Hrmph, you are soooo mean to me! Ok, so number
three was just this guy that liked me. He’s nice and so not attractive. I felt
bad that I couldn’t like him. But he was a nice guy.”

“You shut up, that does not count and I don’t want to hear
it,” says Amanda covering her ears, her mouth turned down into a fake
overstated frown. “I only want to hear about how you slutted around, that’s it.
That’s all I’m capable of hearing.”

“Fine. Fine, is that all you care about?” I ask, feigning
anger, my brows lowered, eyes glaring as I try to hold back the huge grin that
is hiding under my play acting. “God, I thought we were friends Amanda you
gossip-monger.”

“Just tell me, Tits McGee!”

“Fine you win. The last one is the worst. This friend of
mine from work, Anne, told me about a party out in the woods with a few of her
friends. So I went and I got really drunk and I fooled around with this guy
simply because he was decent looking and he had on leopard print boxers and I
had on a leopard print thong. I know it’s pathetic. Don’t judge me. It was
right after asshole Nick cheated.”

“God, I can’t believe you,” says Amanda, shaking her head,
smiling like the devil. “Now tell me the details.”

#######################

I like to joke around with my friends, talking about
scandal and sex, but sometimes I feel so fake. I feel like I can never express
to anyone how I really felt in that moment because no one knows about my
problem. I feel so alone. I feel like no one really understands me or knows me.
The only people who understand or know are my parents and brother. None of my
friends know the truth. They know the fake me, the laughing, joking, sarcastic
person who pokes fun at herself and not the person who has a major mental flaw
and tries desperately to find someone who understands. I feel like I’m
searching for my best friend and a person I can love, the person who can accept
me for who I am, so I can finally feel comfortable and let my guard down. I
want that so badly. I want acceptance, love, understanding. I want to feel like
I am good enough. I’ve had such low self-esteem for so long. I feel ugly,
unattractive, different, weird, crazy. I want to feel attractive, sexy, normal,
interesting. I guess I’m asking for someone else to make me okay.

My Journal Assignment: Why do I write?

I write to create a mood out of words, a color, a
sensation, a touch, an explosion of nerves on paper. I write to speak to you in
ways I cannot articulate with my mouth. I scream. I cry. I live. I die in this
thing we call writing. I write to create beauty. I write to express myself. I
write to describe that sunset, those waves, that time he said, “I think I’m
falling in love with you.” I write to portray feelings that can never really be
described in words. I write because language is so fleeting. I write because it
is all that I have. To say these words to you, to touch your soul. To pinpoint
that second where I felt love, hate, emotions on high, emotions on low, to describe
my pulse, my heartbeat, to tell myself that I am ALIVE.

I. Am. Crazy.

I imagine myself as a shivering frightened animal
crouched in the dark waiting for the death blow, alert and terrified. My
stomach violently twists and turns and I’m focused inside my own head, my
thoughts of doom blaring, siren-like, again and again. Bad things are going to
happen; horrible, terrible things. I cannot pay attention to anything but these
thoughts and the terrible way my body is responding. My pulse throbs, hands
shaking like an addict, and I feel as if I am going to vomit. I try desperately
to act normal. I try to behave as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening
inside me. I feel frenzied, frantic, about to lose all control. And the best
part? I’m just standing in line at the grocery store.

#######################

I feel that finally, finally I am insane. Finally I am
past the point of no return. I cannot do anything, I cannot go anywhere. But I
HAVE TO. I am forced to continue living. My only other option is to shut myself
in my room and refuse to live, refuse to go out ever again. How can I do that? How
can I let this thing control me? How can I admit failure? I feel so damn close.
Fuck. Fuck!! Fuck!!!  I am a failure at life! I don’t deserve to live. I can’t
stand living. I want to let it win sometimes, just for the peace it would
bring. Except it wouldn’t really be peace. It would be humiliation. So I can
never find peace this side of the grave. Never. Things are getting so much
worse, far worse than they have ever been before, far worse than I imagined. My
body feels horrific. There is no such thing as relaxation. God help me. I
despair.

#######################

I stare out the window of my parents’ house, not really
seeing the bright sunshine filtering through the lush green trees onto the dense
lawn, the sky bright blue with wisps of white clouds, birds chattering, leaves
dancing in the breeze. Instead of seeing all this vibrant life, I see my
inability to live life, stuck inside this house, stuck inside my mind, living
with the monster.

I start to think about death again, about escaping my
throbbing heart, my tense, shivering muscles, feverish body, painful
mid-section, and spinning mind and I imagine blackness, deep and dark, silent
and soft, a wonderful emptiness. Peace. Quiet. Death is envisioning my earliest
memory and then trying to remember even earlier. It’s an inky, thick, warm
place, arms open, blessed oblivion.