Brutal Precious
Page 26

So I changed.
Correction: I’m changing. Change doesn’t happen overnight, except when it does, and I’m trying my hardest to make sure it looks like it does. I can’t stand the thought of being that bitter, stupid girl one more second. I want to be easy. I want to be happy and have fun.
“God,” I laugh through applying another coat of lip gloss. “She was so stupid.”
I check my eyeliner one last time, ignore the fact my foundation doesn’t cover my dark eye bags entirely, and make sure no tags are sticking out anywhere, especially not on my new radical tiger-print panties. I grab my phone, and stuff a twenty down my bra in case I need to take a cab home.
My phone vibrates, and before I take it out I pray it’s a text message from a certain icy someone.
But it’s Mom. Calling. I brace myself.
“Hey.What’s up?”
“Hi, sweetie. How are you?”
“I’m…” I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I’m a bruised skeleton with a bit of meat on her. “I’m fine. How are you doing? How’s work?”
“It’s just fine! I mean, it’s been slow, but I’ve been going every day. Dr. Torrand gave me these wonderful pills, and they’re doing just the trick. I’m sleeping like a baby again.”
Relief lets some knot twisted up deep inside me loose.
“That’s…that’s really great. I’m so glad.”
“What’s wrong, sweetie? You don’t sound too good yourself.”
“I’m just glad, that’s all. For a while there I thought –” I thought you hated me. “ – I thought you would get worse. But it’s good. Sleeping is good. Sleeping is the best thing, really.”
“It is. I’m about to do that right now, actually.”
“Did you eat dinner?” I ask.
“Lasagna,” She chuckles. “Although, it was nowhere as good as Jack’s. I do miss that boy. Whatever happened between you two?”
I gnaw the inside of my mouth, a little hurt to distract from the big hurt threatening to swallow me whole.
“He’s dating someone else,” I force out.
“Oh, that’s too bad. He was quite the catch, but there are always better fish in the sea, sweetie, and you only deserve the best. Sweet dreams you. Don’t stay up too late studying.”
“I won’t. I love you,” I say.
“Love you too.”
I ditch my car to walk instead – the night is too cool and pretty to be stuck in a tin box. Mom is actually wrong – I don’t deserve the best fish. I deserve whichever one will put up with my bullshit the longest. Fish that actually understand and accept and care for me won’t look twice at someone so f**ked up. Jack taught me that. He’s still going out with Hemorrhoid. Not that it’s any of my business. They look like a couple from a Gucci advertisement, and she clings on him too much for me to stare at them for very long.
I hope she’s happy.
I hope he’s happy with her, at least a little.
The Phi Omega house is a few blocks from campus. It’s a big blue multi-level house, old as dirt and probably full of history. And corpses. Hopefully both. I park, the music already booming across the toilet-paper strewn lawn. I knock, and a huge, dark-haired jock with green eyes smiles down at me.
“Isis! There’s my girl!”
“Kieran!” I squeal, and punch him in the gut in our customary greeting. He doubles over in mock-pain, and when he lifts his head I peck him on the cheek. “Where’s the booze?”
“Down the hall and to the left. Dancefloor’s boring without you. Get some girls grinding.”
I wink at him. “Will do.”
Girls and guys are already sloppy making-out on the couch, and the beer pong game is well into its seventh round. That’s how I know I’m really late.
“Isis!” Heather, a black-haired girl with the biggest lips ever, throws her arms around me the second I walk in the kitchen. She smells like tequila and reminds me of Kayla. “It’s about f**kin’ time! I was gonna text you to get your butt over here but…but I forgot my lock code thiny!”
“It’s 5429, girl,” I remind her. “Where’s Tyler?”
Heather sniffs. “Tyler and I aren’t talking. He’s a douchebag.”
“But you are sleeping with him tonight,” I say.
“Duh,” She rolls her eyes. “You were right. He’s hells my type.”
After one particularly gross make-out session with Tyler at another frat house in which Tyler tried to suck my lips off my face, I knew exactly who to set him up with – the girl on campus with the legendary lips. They’d been going out ever since with the fervor and rough visual resemblance of two crocodiles eating each other’s faces. I like playing matchmaker almost as much as punching jerks in the face. Almost. It warms my heart to see two people happy – even if that happiness is based on torrid and repeated sexual encounters versus, you know, an actual relationship. But who am I to judge? I’ve never had an actual relationship. Or an actual sexual encounter. For all my making out with random guys, I haven’t let them get under my clothes. I’m desperate to forget, not an idiot. I want to get better at being fun, and experienced, not better at contracting STDs. And it’s worked, so far. Every kiss has helped me become more confident. Every sloppy, throwaway, mindless kiss has helped me forget the important kisses that’ve seared tattoos on my lips.
Sometimes I wonder if they can taste him.
A song comes on with booming bass and Heather squeals and grabs my hand, dragging me to the wood dining room that’s been converted into a dance floor. I get lost in the music, laughing when Heather tries to pop-and-lock in six-inch drunk heels. She leans over and kisses a guy who isn’t Tyler, and it’s then I realize I’m not special. A lot of the people here - heck, maybe most of them - are kissing a guy, or a girl, to forget the kiss of someone else. We’d all rather be kissing that one special person, but for some reason, we can’t or won’t. So we’re here.
I’m not special. It just took me a while to come down to everyone else’s level, is all. It just took me a while to get desperate enough to forget. That’s all.
I wade out of the dance floor and pour myself a coke and rum, downing it as fast as I can. It burns. But, hell, everything burns nowadays. A headache blindsides me, so I go outside and sit on the steps where the cool air can calm my throbbing head.
“You really did a good job,” A voice says. Nameless, in a sweatshirt and jeans, sits beside me with a grin. “Losing weight, I mean. That was a lot of meat to lose. I’m impressed.”
“I didn’t do it for you,” I snarl.
“Oh, we both know you did, Isis,” He chuckles. “It was hilarious – watching you fade away. Picking at your food in the cafeteria. We used to take bets on it – if you’d eat the one single celery stick you picked out or not. You didn’t, most of the time. I lost a lot of money betting on you, piggy.”
I gnaw my lip to force myself not to run away out of habit. I’m not as weak as I used to be, and I’ll show him that. He can’t taint me with anymore darkness. There’s no light to snuff out in me anymore. I’m all shadow, now. He’s just hosing down a campfire that’s underwater.