Bullet (45 page)

I twisted the doorknob, feeling the beat of the music inside me.  It still didn’t feel quite real, and I thought to myself,
I know this goddamned song
, but I couldn’t figure it out.  Maybe if I could get into some real light, maybe if I could figure out where the fuck I was, maybe…

So I opened the door and, just as I’d suspected, I was
hard hit with light and sound.  It was overwhelming.  The light…so bright, so overpowering.  And the sound—like a concert in my soul.  I couldn’t process it all…it was way too much.

But then my brain forced itself to work, and the edges of my reality became clearer.  I was in the hallway of my apartment facing the kitchen.  And the music was coming from beyond there, maybe the living room.  Maybe from the new sweet stereo Brad’s mom had bought him for Christmas.  The kitchen was full of people, loud, boisterous, laughing happy people, none of whom seemed familiar to me in the least.  And they were all staring at me.  This must have been a bad dream.

It was then that I realized I was completely topless.  No wonder they were staring at me.  Especially the guys.  And this was real…right?

Fuck.

Still, it didn’t feel completely real.  But I wrapped my arm over my breasts just the same.

That’s when Brad appeared.  He looked concerned
, and he rushed to my side.  “Val?  You okay?”

I’m sure I looked like an idiot, just staring at him.  Was I okay?  I didn’t know.  But he wrapped his arm around me and led me to my room.

He sat me on my bed and then started looking around my room.  He found the robe I hung on the closet doorknob and brought it over, wrapping it over my shoulders.  “What happened?”

“I don’t know.”  That was my first response
, but tears started falling down my cheeks.  I didn’t know why.  But then it all came back to me as Brad pulled me into his chest, just letting me cry.

I
t was mid-March, and we’d just finished our biggest show ever.  The audience was huge and on fire, and we’d made the most money we ever had.  I started to think I could start to consider quitting my job.  There were two other bands playing that night—one that we’d played with multiple times (and, truth be told, probably the one that had really drawn in the crowd)—and another that we’d never played with before.  Brad was happier than I’d seen him in a long time.  In fact, he was ecstatic, and I could see in his eyes what I felt deep inside.

He knew I didn’t have to work the next day, and neither did he, so he invited both bands
and their guests to our place for a party.

We’d never had a party
at our place before, but we knew it was acceptable in our building.  We’d had to try to sleep through parties on our floor before.  Brad had just turned twenty-one, so I suspected it was also a reason for him to make his first liquor store run.

Back at the apartment, people started filling in fast.  Brad set up a bar of sorts on the kitchen counter, along with plastic cups and a bag of ice in the sink.  Ethan was drinking and had taken something
to go with it.  He was on the couch, talking with a girl with short blonde hair.  He hadn’t cozied up with her, but I figured it was inevitable.  I’d have to go over there and insert myself at some point, but first Brad had requested my presence in the kitchen.

“I know you’re not comfortable drinking, Val, but I bought this with you in mind.”

“What?”

“Butterscotch schnapps.”

“Why for me?”

“It’s smooth.  I thought you might want to get a little buzz on.  You helped propel us to where we are now.”

I smiled.  “Why do you want me trashed?”

“I don’t.  I just want you to feel good…just a little.  You deserve it.”

I nodded my head.  “Okay.”

So we did a shot together. 
Brrr.  It warmed a trail down to my tummy but made me shiver.  “How’s that feel?”

“Pretty good.”

“Okay.  Just one more.  As tiny as you are, I don’t dare let you drink more than that.”

Tiny?  That almost made me laugh, but he was right—I’d become thin…not scary thin
, but it was definitely different from when he’d first met me.  So I did a second shot with him.  I started to feel a little relaxed but just figured that was the power of suggestion.

In my ear, he said, “Now…half an hour from now, you don’t feel like you’ve got a buzz on, come back.  I’ll hook you up.”
  He hugged me then, a warm embrace, and I hadn’t fully expected it.  Yes, Brad and I were close, and it wasn’t the first time he’d hugged me, but I wasn’t quite sure where it was coming from.  “In the meantime, though…”  He grabbed one of the clear plastic cups he’d bought for the occasion.  He put a handful of ice inside and poured water in it.  Then he handed it to me.  “Nurse this.”

I grinned at him.  “Thanks, Brad.”  I had a mission, though, and that was to make sure Ethan’s cheating ass was behaving itself.  I couldn’t trust him anymore.  “See you in a while.”

I made my way through the bodies toward the couch.  Sure enough, Blondie was closer to Ethan, her hand on his thigh.  Damn it.  That was my man.  I was tired of girls staking their claim when he was not available, and I was tired of him taking them all up on their offers.

So I walked straight over to him and sat on the other side of him.  “Hey, babe.  Glad you could join us.”

Us?
  That was a great way to piss me off.  But he just grabbed me around the back of my neck and pulled me into an erotic kiss.  Jesus.  It felt like he was going to fuck me right there on the couch.

Typical Ethan.  But I didn’t stop him because it was sending a message to the little
skank trying to steal my man.

His tongue didn’t stop.  He thrust inside me with aggression more than once until I felt a little spark, but then he stopped.  “How you
feelin’, babe?”

I tried not to look sad.  “All right.”

The girl leaned over Ethan, placing her hand on my thigh instead of Ethan’s.  Well, maybe she was just a handsy individual.  I took a gulp of my water.  Ethan said, “Kandy really likes the band.”

The girl named Kandy purred.  “Oh, I
really
loved you.  You are so sexy onstage.”

Was she talking to
me
?  I took another gulp of water, feeling nervous again.  What the hell was Ethan up to?  I managed to squeak out, “Thanks.”

And that’s when it hit me.  My vision started to get black and fuzzy around the edges and things started to feel…not quite real.  My grip on what was going on was loosening.
  I blinked a couple of times and took another sip.  “You okay?” Ethan asked.

“Um…maybe.”  Whoa.  If this is what alcohol did, I’d have to avoid it or drink less.  But I’d drunk it before, just not a couple of straight shots.  This was hitting me harder and faster.  Kandy snaked her hand around behind Ethan’s shoulder and started playing with my hair.  Okay…that was overly friendly.  She was starting to creep me out a little, but nothing seemed real.

I looked over at the poster-sized print of the Eiffel Tower I’d bought last fall to decorate in our Spartan living room.  I kept staring at it as time seemed to slow to a crawl.  It appeared to hover a foot away from the wall.  And then my eyes were glued to it, fascinated.  How was that happening?  It was just hovering there, as though magnetically propelled away from the wall.  And that was the last thing I remembered.

But sitting there on the edge of my bed, Brad’s arms ar
ound me, the tears continuing to fall, more came to me.  Ethan and the blonde named Kandy helping me walk across the living room.  Then lying on the bed clueless.  Then drifting off because it was the easiest way to cope with the perceptual overload.

“Brad, what the hell kind of proof is that schnapps?” I finally asked.

“What?  Why?”

I just confessed.  I told him what I’d felt, what I’d seen, and I saw the look on his face as he slowly grew angrier and angrier.
  Brad asked, “What’d Ethan give you?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit.”  He stood up.  “You okay here by yourself?”

“What are you
gonna do?”

“Find out what the fuck he slipped you.”

“He didn’t…”  But I stopped there, because Brad was right.  Nothing felt real, like it should be.  Something wasn’t right.

He didn’t wait for an answer, instead standing up.  He was more pissed than I’d ever seen him.  He opened my bedroom door and stormed down the hall to the other bedroom.  All I could think was
No
!  But I just followed him, the edges of my reality still black and fuzzy, like dark spider webs.

Brad didn’t knock.  He just shoved the door open. 
That
was a lovely sight.  Ethan had her on all fours, and he was on his knees behind her, fucking her doggy style.  He still had his shirt on, and he was holding a bottle of something.  He seemed even hazier than I was, hands clinging to the robe draped over my shoulders.

Ethan stopped but didn’t pull out.  Kandy was pleading with him.  “Fuck me.  God, why won’t you just fuck me?”

Ethan just looked at Brad.  Brad asked, “What the fuck did you give her, Ethan?”  Ethan’s eyebrows were raised, but he was having a hard time finding an answer.  Brad leaned over, and his voice was dangerously low.  I could barely hear him over the music.  “Goddammit, answer me, man, or I’ll beat it out of you.”

Kandy looked up then and acted like she was going to cry.  But then she started laughing.  “She’s tripping.  Don’t you feel great, sweetie?”

I couldn’t focus on her, and she seemed like a dream.

Brad asked,
“Acid?”

Ethan let out a breath
but didn’t change position.  “I guess.”

“Yeah.  Now would you please either get out of here or help him fuck me?”

Brad gritted his teeth and then asked, “What the fuck is wrong with you, Ethan?”  When Ethan didn’t answer, he said, “I should beat you anyway, just on general principle.”

Ethan took his hand off Kandy’s hips and held
it and the one still holding the bottle out to his sides as if to tell Brad to go for it.  I was pretty out of it, but I was starting to feel infuriated…full of anger not only because Ethan didn’t give a shit but also because he had the nerve to not stop screwing that girl in front of me.  And that realization was all it took for me to lose it.

Before I could even stop it, my right hand was out of the robe
and my finger was pointing at my boyfriend.  “We are
over
, Ethan Richards.”

“Babe—”

“Go fuck yourself.”

I turned around with what little dignity I could muster, pulling the robe back up and over my naked torso, and left the room.  And the tears were falling again.
  Brad didn’t care about his party anymore.  He just held me until the tears stopped, and I’d become sleepy.  Then he laid my head on my pillow.  “You gonna be okay tonight?”

I tried to smile.  I really did.  It was just so damned hard.  “Yeah…”

He squinted his eyes.  “Talk to me.”

I took a deep breath.  “I feel so weird.  This is scary.”  And it was.  I still felt like I wasn’t in my own body.  What if I died?  My parents would find out I’d been drinking…and that an entire crowd of people had seen my naked boobs.  It was horrifying.

That was when Brad stretched out next to me and just held me in his arms until I fell asleep.  And I didn’t think he’d stayed there all night, but he was there when I woke up the next morning.

I didn’t even want to see Ethan, let alone interact with him.  I was wishing I’d had to work.  I considered getting out of the house, but I’d eventually have to return, so I shut myself in my room and just wrote and did stuff on my computer—catching up on emails and that kind of thing.  But sometime in the afternoon, he decided to knock on my door anyway.  He caught me off guard because I hadn’t heard him up at all, hadn’t heard the stupid blonde girl with him.  In fact, the apartment was eerily quiet.

I should have asked who was at my door, but instead I said, “Come in.”  When I saw Ethan’s puppy dog face, I said, “Oh, not you.  Get out.”

“Val, just hear me out.”

“No.  You had your chance.  Get the fuck out.”

“Val…”

“
Go.
”

He turned around, his hand on the doorknob, but he didn’t open the door.  He just stood there.  And then he said, “I thought it was what you wanted.”

Oh…I just had to ask.  “What?  What was what I wanted?”

“You said it.  You said you wanted to be with
both
of us last night.”

I took a deep breath.  “What do you mean?”

“Kandy propositioned you…
us
…and you said
yeah
.”

I
had
?  I’d wanted to have sex with Ethan
and
that girl?  I couldn’t wrap my mind around it.  I shook my head.  “So…it was my idea?”

“No.  But you agreed to it.  Val…babe…I wouldn’t have done it if you’d said you didn’t want to.”