You think that’s enough for a ten-year-old girl for a while, right?
Hold on a second, my sixth grade year was not done crapping on me quite yet.
Because then, I went into my house, changed into my pajamas, and used the bathroom. I saw crap all over my underwear.
Yes, crap.
Now, I know it had been a hard day, but I think I would have felt myself having an accident in my own pants. Then, I wiped and realized it wasn't crap. It was dried blood.
I’d read books.
This. This was my period. Um. Okay.
Um.
Sweat broke out all over my forehead and chest. It tingled of heat, and I felt faint. Can I bleed to death from this?
I wadded up a bunch of toilet paper and shoved it between my legs and stood, pulling up my dirty panties to hold it in place.
I ran to my mother’s bedroom door and knocked lightly. I knocked harder. Finally, I was pounding my fists against the door. It was locked, and she was not coming out.
My vision blurred, and with the room spinning, I grabbed the house phone and called Joey. Thank God his mother answered.
She came running over to help me and then told me I should celebrate becoming a woman. So I absolutely did, with a whole gallon of Butter Pecan ice cream, that I ate so fast I couldn’t feel my tongue for the rest of the night.
Yay for periods!
And for my swift kick in the ass into becoming a woman.
I wish I could have stayed
A kid forever.
Police Report
Investigation: Criminal Sale of Controlled Substance
Date: September 25, 2014
Time: 1830 Hrs.
Location: Cross Streets Bleecker/Barrow
John Doe “Doc” [CASE SUBJECT] - Male/Caucasian, Approx. 25-30 years old. 5’11 -6’2”, 200 LBS. Wearing: White dress shirt and tan pants.
On September 25, 2014 at approximately 1800 hours, while in a long term operation in an undercover capacity under the supervision of Lieutenant Masterson who was conducting a case buy operation in the confines of the 16 Precinct, I Undercover (UC) #C5192 picked up approximately 100 count Oxycontin in large clear container. Each Oxycontin cost $20.
In return I handed “Doc” $2000.00 USC/PRBM which he placed into his back pocket. I then shook his hand and informed the C.O. what transpired. No arrest made-Case Buy.
Chapter 4
Charlie
It was a Friday night and Bren was holding court on his couch; all his loyal subjects surrounding him. As always, I felt the unyielding desire to jump out of one of his windows.
Bren was actually sitting in the middle of his couch in a tuxedo, drinking an enormous goblet of brandy, and covered in a cheesy, dusting of Dorito crumbs. There were about half a dozen cheesy handprints on the pant legs of his tux. He better not ask me to take those filthy things to get dry cleaned tomorrow.
Next to him was Jett, son to a famous, washed out, bad-boy rock star. So washed out, I didn’t even remember his father’s name or what 90s hair band he was the front man for. Both idiots were balancing their drinks in their hands while holding X-box remotes and playing some sort of crazy fighting game with lots of guns, while their drinks spilled mindlessly and carelessly all over the floor.
I sat across from them, front row for the train wreck.
Added to my entertainment was a barely dressed woman named Lola, who sat next to me and repeatedly rubbed her thighs together and giggled like some demented horny cricket. Supposedly, she was a district attorney. Wow, I felt safe with her crickety pheromones running rampant.
“You are the luckiest girl on earth,” she said to me. “You know, to have someone like Bren. He is so hawt.”
I pitied our justice system.
Then Bren jumped up, arms waving in the air, doing some idiotic victory dance, while Jett grimaced, cursed, and threw the game controller at the wall.
Disgustingly impressive, he threw it so hard that it stuck right in the drywall.
Violet sat silent on the other side of me, frozen, with that deer caught in the headlights look. She may have been in shock; she had never seen Bren act like this. Plus, Bren (the wonderfully thoughtful guy he was) thought it was a terrific idea to invite Matt, so the poor girl was crapping a pill the entire time.
“So,” Lola said, placing her hand on my knee. “Is Sage your real name?”
Shaking my head, I gave her my typical Groucho Marx answer, “Nope, it’s not mine. I’m just breaking it in for someone else.”
Her eyes crossed in confusion.
“Didn’t you say she was a district attorney?” Violet whispered next to me.
Lola finally laughed. “And what is it you do for a living, Saaaggggeee?” she asked, purposely enunciating each letter of my nickname. “It sounds a bit like a stripper’s name.”
Yeah. That’s original and not at all bitchy. Nope, I never heard that stereotypical remark before.
“I’m an artist, and I was asked to teach a few classes this semester at the School of Visual Arts,” I said, quietly. My mind was done with the conversation between us and was steadily watching what Bren was taking out of his pocket and setting up all along the coffee table.
Bren looked up at me through his pretty little lashes, his lips in a pouty expression, already asking me for forgiveness for what he was going to do in front of me. His hands spread out a mountain of fine, white powder, and then divided it up into smaller straight lines. It was like something you’d see on television or in one of those horrible 80s movies about disco and drugs.
His eyes shifted to Lola and then back to me, “Sage is a tattoo artist. Best one in the whole city,”
Bren bent over the table and snorted a long line of whatever the hell it was in front of him. What was it, cocaine? I knew nothing about drugs, but I knew all about vomiting, which was exactly what I felt like doing. He lifted his head to continue talking to her, but only looked at me, “I’ve been working my ass off to get her shop on the new reality show, Forever Inked. She doesn’t need to be some stuffy art history professor in some stupid-ass college she went to. She’s gonna be a star.”
A wave of hatred and disdain surged through me. Was I the only one who thought that what he just did was nasty and vile? And why the Hell are the things that are important to me to do with my life, like my dreams, easily swept aside by him? Who the Hell was he to judge my dreams and tear me down, like my feelings about my life were insignificant, and that he had the final say?
Bren turned his glassy eyes away from me and smiled stupidly at the ceiling. Matt leaned on the couch behind him with a menacing look directed toward me. He'd been watching us the entire time we were there.
“Oh, what a cute little job,” Lola smirked at me. Then the district attorney bent over her side of the coffee table and snorted double the amount of cocaine that Bren did.
“Holy shit,” Violet whispered next to me.
Bren’s head wobbled back and forth as his chin sank into his chest. “Sage, I’m going to marry you one day…” he slurred lazily. His glazed eyes seemed to crawl over my body, repulsing me so much that bile burned in the back of my throat.
“You’re not the marrying kind,” I shook my head, stunned. Was this why Bren was the way he was? How long had he been doing this stuff? How often? How could I have not known? Sometimes, people only take the time to see what they want to see, I suppose.
His head lolled heavily against his shoulder. “I’ll never let you leave me, Sage.”
Grabbing Violet’s hand, I tugged her off the couch, “Let’s go.” I gently pushed her in front of me and practically shoved her out of Bren’s living room. When I got to the door, I felt a pair of heavy hands grabbing the back of my arms; fingers digging sharply into my skin and pulling me back in. Whoever it was twisted my arm, meaning to cause me pain. “Where do you think you ladies are going?”
The meaty hands gripped harder, spun me around, and shoved me roughly against the wall next to the door. Viol
et screamed out next to me, when a thick, fisted hand hit the wall next to my head.
Without even thinking, I balled my fist tight and swung, hitting my assailant, hard, along the bridge of his nose. A spray of blood spurted across his face as he grunted and fell backward.
Matt.
I gently pushed Violet out into the hallway and turned to face him head-on.
Holding his broken nose in one hand, he grabbed me with his other hand, “You stupid cunt! I’m going to kill you!” Pain tore up my arm as he squeezed my flesh and tried lifting me up off the floor.
With an open hand, I shoved my palm straight against his bloody nose; he dropped to the floor with a sickening crunch, out cold. Then, everything seemed to move in slow motion; everything quieted, dulled down like time had stopped.
Bren still sat on the couch, watching through dull, empty eyes.
Lola giggled, slowly snorting another line of cocaine.
Jett laughed silently, slowly slapping at his knees.
A few people I knew, Bren’s friends, pointed, laughing at Matt, like insane, scary-ass clowns at one of those freak-ass carnivals.
One man stood to my left; he stood out like the summer sun on a cold winter day. Sandy blond hair, blue eyes, crouched down low, hands reaching into the back waistband of his pants, waiting to jump in and help me, the only one ready to defend me in a room packed full of people.
Violet was yelling my name, pulling me out of my trance. I winked at the gorgeous blond, who immediately straightened up, smiled at me, and looked around to see who was watching him.
Then I walked out the door.
Bren didn’t follow me. Didn’t check to see if I was okay. Didn’t jump in to defend me–not that I needed it–but still.
It was easy to walk away from Bren’s apartment that night. And I knew Bren; he wasn’t someone you could expect more from. But what hurt me was that I wanted more from him. I needed more from him.
And he wouldn’t give more.
I wanted to punch myself in the face. I didn’t want to be one of those girls who needed to be rescued. I didn’t want to be one of those girls who wanted to be rescued. I wanted to be the heroine of one of those books where I rescued myself. I didn’t want to be one of those girls who stood FOREVER and waited until some dumbass knight in shining armor just happened upon me. I wanted to be the hero of my own story. I didn’t want to be saved by someone else.
But still, it would have been nice for the guy who was supposed to be in love with me to make sure I was okay, or stand up for me in some way.
“Oh. Oh. Oh. My GOD!” Violet freaked as soon as we hit the sidewalk in front of Bren’s apartment building. “You just kicked the crap out of Matt! What the Hell?”
Looking straight ahead, I kept walking down the block, not answering her. Well, I couldn’t really. I was wound up tight; pure adrenaline surged through my arms, anger boiling just under the surface of my skin. I walked faster.
At the corner, Violet jumped in front of me, arms up, hands waving in front of my face. “Charlotte! Holy crap!” She held her hands out to stop me from walking. “I have never seen you go all animal like that! You knocked him out. How did you do that? Is that from your karate classes? Because I think you need to sign my ass up!”
Taking a deep breath, I stopped trying to move forward, “No Violet, it’s from seeing too many people being bullied and pushed around in my life to let anyone ever again hurt me…or someone I love.”
Wordlessly, I continued to my apartment; Violet trailed quietly behind me. I didn’t know how much she really knew about me. No one really knows what other people know about you, what has been said about you behind your back, what secrets you don’t realize you’ve let slip. But, she walked so quietly behind me, I wondered if she knew, if she understood why I was the way I was. Or maybe she was just reflecting quietly on her own life. Nobody ever really knows.
Once in my apartment, I headed straight for my bathroom and ran the water until it was icy cold and splashed it over my face.
I looked up at the mirror and stared at the reflection. My arms were already bruised with purple handprints. It was okay, I thought; I defended my friend and myself before he could hurt either one of us. I stared at my bruises. Okay, before he could seriously hurt one of us.
I might be twenty-four years old, but all I could see in my own reflection was a scared little girl.
Sometimes, I wish I could sit down with that seventeen-year-old girl, hold her hand tightly, and tell her everything would, one day, hurt less. Tell her she needs to be strong. Tell her she will get knocked down, but for every time it happens, she’ll come up swinging.
Just like tonight.
When I look back on all the past chapters of my life, I see all the pain I have endured. I see the mistakes and heartbreak, the horror and loss. But when I stand in front of the mirror now, I see all my scars and the strength I’ve found from them. I see the lessons I have learned about life and the wisdom I’ve gained from each of my experiences. I will be fine.
I used to wonder, second-guess myself constantly, about the decisions I made in my life; if they were the right ones for me. In my teens, I had all the answers—don’t we all when we’re that young, and have the world open like an unwritten book in front of us? Then life shit on me, changed me forever in ways that I can’t even put in to words. I wish I could just whisper to that little girl of my past, just once. Give her a little pep talk before the big bad wolf came in and just screwed it all up.
Wouldn’t that be helpful? You get what I’m saying, right? Being able to have a little heart-to-heart with the person you were before the world crashed down on you.
And, it will.
Mark my words, one day you’ll feel like your world is crashing, spinning out of control, whatever the Hell that is to you, whatever storm that comes, whatever tragedy floods your life. And, believe me, you’ll have them; we all get touched by some tragedy in our lives. You better hope you’ve got the strength to swim, before it pulls you under and you drown, or become nothing more than the storm, forever moving across the waters, stirring up trouble wherever you touch down.
Somewhere in my small kitchen, I can hear the sounds of Violet looking for some sort of alcohol in my cabinets. All I have are the ingredients for a Mad Hatter shot, and a bottle of wine that Bren brought over one night when he was trying to be a real boyfriend.
Bren.
Maybe you think I’m weak, or a bitch. But, I’ve just proven to you that I’m far from being weak or a bitch. I guess that I haven’t told you enough about me; please don’t form those opinions about me, yet.
Not yet.
Not until you’ve heard it all. And I’m sorry, but I have been going slowly. Taking my time with my sweet memories, and trying to bury the bad ones. However, you can’t be selective and only bury the ones you choose to bury; I know firsthand.
They don’t stay buried.
Only the things you don’t want to be buried stay buried.
But to say what it took to get here, Hell, to put it down in words, damn it, it deadens everything. It makes it seem unreal, easily swept under the rug, and it’s not.
It’s not.
I’m so worried about missing something, of not doing justice to the emotions, to the people, to the heartache, and to the happiness. Because I don’t want my words to just be words. Every one of them has a history behind it, an emotion so strong that they changed me, touched me, killed me, raised me, made me.
Everybody has a dark side. Some are riddled with guilt about it and hide from it. Me? I needed to embrace mine, because I won’t let anything ever tear me down again.
Violet and I vegged out on my couch for the rest of that night, drinking the wine she found. Then, I mixed up some Mad Hatter shots for her.
I held my phone in my hands the entire time. But Bren, of course, didn’t call. Matt, on the other hand, called Violet at least twenty times. The last time it rang, she walked into the bathroom and took the call; I wa
nted to throttle her.
Looking down at my own phone, I swiped through my contacts and typed a text.
C: Hey. Had to use my mad Karate skills tonight!
J: WHAT?!
C: Yep. Gathered up my Chi and kicked some A$$
J: Glad now we took lessons?
C: Wax on!
J: Wax off!
C: Think I’m getting pretty buzzed.
J: You alone?
C: Sort of. Wish I wasn’t
J: Are you trying to sext me?
C: You effing wish!
J: You know, a beautiful girl sexting from thousands of miles away that she’s getting pretty buzzed ALONE, is the same as a dish of fettucine alfredo texting me it’s yummy all the way from Italy.
C: LMAO. Shut the eff up.
J: You still can’t curse right.
C: :P
J: Is that…your tongue wagging at me?
C: You are such a dork still.
J: Text me a curse. Come on. Text dick.
J: Come on.
J: Do it.
J: I dare you.
J: Chicken.
C: DICK! Cock, schlong, pecker, willy, shaft, rod, gut buster, flesh flute, soul pole, beef bus, el presidente, taco warmer, blue-veined junket pumper, 100% all-beef thermometer, Alabama black snake, anaconda, anal impaler, baldheaded, yogurt slinger, pocket rocket, skin flute, disco stick, man meat, meat popsicle, wanker, Johnson, and Russell the Love Muscle!
J: God, I miss the shit out of you.
C: Shut up.
J: You forgot penis.
J: But I’m impressed.
I couldn’t text it, but I missed the shit out of him too.
∞
My very first kiss happened when I was twelve.
Jase, Joey, and I were invited to Ava Marie Trebisky’s thirteenth birthday party, and just like in any boy-girl birthday party, our horny hormonal bodies immediately started a rowdy game of Seven Minutes In Heaven. And don’t even say that thirteen year olds don’t do crap like that, because I was at the party! I saw what they did. And honestly, I couldn’t WAIT for my turn!