I'm Glad My Mom Died(58)

Liam and I are gonna do it soon. I just know. Maybe tonight we’ll kiss for the first time and then maybe in a week or two we’ll finally have sex, once enough tension has built up that we just have to break it. I’m excited as I fantasize about it. I chug another Pocket Shot.

Twenty minutes later and we’ve arrived at the dance club where our friend Emmy is having her twenty-first birthday party.

Colton and Liam help me hobble in since I’m so wasted and wearing such high heels that I’m not walking straight. We get inside and head to the bar. We order three drinks and guzzle them.

The party itself is fine, a little boring even while inebriated. I see Emmy watching Liam out of the corner of her eye. I hate when females are so obvious with their crushes. If you’re obvious, some other little bitch can come along and exploit that crush, use it against you, betray you with it. I learned this from Mom’s long-winded speeches about trusting women even less than men. “Men, they’ll hurt you without ever really knowing you,” she often told me. “But women… women will know you deeply, intimately, and then hurt you. You tell me which is worse.”

And so I don’t trust women. I just observe them. I watch them act desperate and weak and pathetic. It’s so embarrassing to be a woman. I study women like Emmy so that I can be different from them. Better than them.

I nurse another drink as I watch Emmy chat up Liam overanimatedly. And for too long. And with too many flirty blinks and hair tucks and “inadvertent” touchings of his arm. She’s doing it all wrong. Poor thing. I do the opposite of Emmy and ignore Liam completely for the rest of the party. It’s almost too easy.

Two hours later we’re back at my place. Liam dropped Colton off on the way home, so it’s just the two of us. Liam throws me onto the bed and takes off my copper dress. I’m dizzy. The room is spinning. I’m wasted. I’m confused. Where the fuck am I?

“What’s happening?” I finally ask.

“I’m having sex with you,” Liam says in a tone that nauseates me. It’s halfway to a baby voice, the same inflection as what a baby voice would do, but without jumping up an octave.

I kind of want to stop. This is not at all how I intended to lose my virginity. I never expected it would happen tonight. I thought tonight would be all about the magical first kiss, and the virginity thing could be done in a week or two. I thought I’d have time to mentally and emotionally prepare.

But I also kind of want to keep going. Who cares about the rituals and preparation? If anything, I’m relieved to be getting my virginity over with.

Fuck it. I say nothing. I squint my eyes to try and ground myself in some way so I can see straight. Finally I do. Liam’s holding my hips as he pumps into me repeatedly. A bead of sweat is trickling down his forehead. Gross.

Liam eventually pulls out. He cums. I don’t.

The next morning, I wake up in a puddle of sweat. I feel suffocated. Trapped. Like I’m in a straightjacket. My eyes fly open. Liam is spooning me. He must’ve been spooning me all night with the amount I’m sweating. I try and break free, but I can’t. A fucking giant is draped over me. That’s the thing about being a small woman. Every man feels like a giant. I squirm. That doesn’t work either. Finally, I start poking him until he wakes up, then I pretend that I wasn’t poking him and that he must’ve just felt something.

He looks me deep in the eyes and smiles at me. Says that last night was amazing. I lie to him by agreeing. Figure I’ll come up with a plan to ditch him later on when I’m alone.

He tries to hug me more but I tell him I really have to pee. I jump up to go to the bathroom and suddenly realize how incredibly sore I am. Walking hurts, so I waddle instead. I get to the bathroom and pull down my underwear to pee. There’s some blood on them. I know it’s not my period—I haven’t gotten it for years because of my various eating disorders. It must just be from having sex for the first time.

Peeing stings and burns, so I do it in little spurts, as if prolonging the pain will make it hurt any less. It doesn’t. Finally, I’m done.

I spend ten minutes washing my hands, lathering them up, then washing them, then lathering them up and washing them again. I’m stalling. I don’t want to go back in there with Liam. Something about his presence makes me uncomfortable.

Knock-knock-knock.

“You all right in there?”

I tell him I’m not feeling well. He leaves.

I Postmates myself some breakfast. Eggs and bacon and toast and potatoes and a latte with whipped cream. I eat rapidly, desperately, until I’m halfway through. I can stop here. I’m full, I don’t have to keep going. I can interrupt the cycle. I chuck the takeout box in the trash. Overwhelm floods my whole body. I rush to the bathroom, lift the toilet lid, and purge my breakfast. I wash up.

Usually I’m depleted by this point but this time I’m not. I’m still filled with pent-up anxieties. I need to rid myself of these fucking feelings.

I run back to the trash can and pull out the takeout box. I stuff my mouth with eggs and chew rapidly. Fuck what am I doing I need to stop I need to stop. I spit out the half-chewed eggs into the trash can. I grab a perfume bottle from the bathroom and squirt some on the remaining food to guarantee that I won’t eat any more of it. But then I eat more of it. The perfume makes me gag. I throw up.