I can’t handle the smell anymore so I leave Kara alone in the stall to fend for herself. Some friend I am. I walk over to the sink and I rest my hands on the side. The coolness of the marble tingles my fingertips. I took a deep breath in and let out an exaggerated breath of exhaustion. I look up to my reflection.
My hair that is light brown at the top but slowly turns to blonde the further down it goes and is tied in a pretty fishtail braid, so long the ends reach my hip. It won’t be like that long for much longer, I think. I took in my full face, with chipmunk cheeks, green eyes and a long nose. I imagine myself with sunken cheeks and hallow eyes but quickly pushed the thought away.
I brush my hands over my stomach and am glad I am gaining weight, not losing it. I have a pale pink dress on that has a nice flow to it but accentuates my curves. I try not to cry as I think: this may be the last time I look this good. But damn, I do look good.
“It’s okay...I got it,” Kara seemes frustrated.
“What?” I turn around.
She stands up and throws her one hand in the air -with immense exaggeration- that was holding toilet paper, and then quickly wipes her mouth as she makes her way to the sink. I am about to apologize but stop myself. This is my night, she’s the one who dragged me out here and I’m not going to keep saying ‘sorry’ every time something doesn’t go her way.
I wait for her to finish cleaning up. She pulls on the bottom of her ridiculously tight black mini- and I mean mini- dress. She pushes her boobs up and ruffles her hair. She looks at herself in the mirror and winks, like she always does. A self confidence boost I suppose. Then she turns to me, “let’s go get you a man!”
She turns on her heels and struts out of the bathroom. I took one last look at myself. Here we go. I look at my reflection and wink, then pull the door open.
~-*-~-*-~-*-~-*-~-*-~-*- ~-*-~-*-~-*-~
“They’re all douche bags!”
“OMG! Evelina you are so god damn picky!” Kara is red in the face, she is pissed. I’d been turning down every man she could find, and not only tonight but for the last three months. We have been talking to this group of guys for a couple hours now and they asked us to go home with them. They are kinda fun to talk to but I don’t want to do anything with them. I don’t think she understood that yes it’s been a long time but I don’t want it to be just anybody.
“Look. Whatever, this is stupid. You go have fun, I’m going home.”
“Evelina,” her voice softens a bit but is still firm. She grabs my arm. “Come on, it won’t be that bad.”
“Yes it will, I’m not like you. I can’t just hook up with any and every guy I want and not care about what happens.” I feel bad as soon as the words come out. She looks like I just slapped her in the face.
“You’ve got some nerve”- I cut her off.
“I’m sorry,” there’s that word again, “but I can’t do this right now. Go have fun but I’m going home.”
“Same old Evelina!” She starts shouting at me as I start to walk away. “All talk no walk! You know soon you’re not going to have a chance to do this!”
I turned. My blood starts to boiling. “YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW THAT? I know how much time I have left and I do not need you constantly reminding me every fucking two minutes. Believe me, I’m quite aware!”
“Oh quit the pity bullshit routine Eve. I know what you have and I’m sorry. I’m just trying to make the most of you while you’re still here. So stop playing this thing” -she waves her hand to gesture me, but I know what she means, she means what is eating me from the inside out- “as a way to get pity, cause I’m sick of giving it to you. You need to start living in the moment and stop the fucking ‘my life is horrible’ routine. You know what? Yea, your life sucks, but you didn’t get to choose which life you live, you just get stuck with the one you’re handed. So suck it up and live a little.”
I am stunned. I am so speechless I can’t even turn and walk out in anger. I just stood there with my mouth open with a million thoughts running through my head but none of them coming out. She gives me a pathetic look that makes me feel two inches tall, she wipes a tear and turns not looking back as she disappears into the bodies around us, the bodies completely oblivious that my life just fell apart.
I don’t know how long I was standing there but eventually I find my way to the back door. My hands find the door handle as I push the steel door open. I walk out into the brisk air, I forgot my coat inside but I don’t care. All I want to do is run away, to run away from this stupid club, from Kara, from my life and from this fucking disease.
I lean back against the wall a few feet away from the door and slide down. I hear some my dress rip a little as it catches on the rough brick but I continue to slide down anyways. My ass hits the cement and I start to ball.
I am crying for quite some time and I don’t even hear the door open. It isn’t until I hear the voice of a man that I realize someone is there.
“They actually are douche bags. So... you’re right about that.”
I look up with mascara running down my face and snot trying to seep out of my nose. I wipe my face with the back of my hand. “Pardon?” I am so confused I don’t even have time to take in his features.
He leans down and holds out some tissues. “Those guys back in there,” he points behind him towards the door. “The ones your friend was trying to set you up with, you were right, they are douche bags.”
I take the tissues and offer a hint of a smile. I wipe under my eyes and blow my nose.
“How do you know? Are they your friends or something?”
He gives a half smile. Damn that was sexy. That is when I noticed his messy-neat brown hair, his perfect jaw line and perfect slightly sunken-in cheeks. His nose has a perfect slope and his cappuccino coloured eyes that have a kind of warmth to them that melt you when you look into them. In one word he is: dreamy.
“Brothers actually. Well just two of them, the other two are their douche bag of friends,” he says, this time with a smirk.
“Oh shit. Well...I mean... they weren’t completely douche bags....” Fuck.
“No, no. They are, I’m agreeing with you”. He gestures to the spot next to me, “may I?”
“Um, no actually. This brick wall is specially reserved for girls who decide to have a breakdown in a club and then come out here to cry about it. And from what I can tell you’re not a girl, you didn’t just have a break down and you’re not crying.”
“Pretty and funny, bonus.” He plops down beside me and I get a whiff of his cologne. It smells like sexy… that is, if sexy could be a smell. “I could start crying if you want, I can do a pretty good fake cry.”
“Nah, I think one of us crying is more than enough.”
“Suit yourself.” We sit in silence for a few moments before he continues. “So what brings you to this club to hash out your arguments with your friends and storm off into the night for?”
“Friend,” I correct him. “And this club is no special club; it was just the first one we saw.”
“Ahh, so you’ve never been to this club before?”
“No, I’ve never been to any club before tonight.”
“Oh! You’re a club virgin! What else are you a virgin in?”
I blush.
“Oh- um.. That’s not..err.. That’s not what I meant. Fuck, sorry. I just meant because I love doing new things, taking new adventures, taking life by the reigns”. His hands gesture to holding reigns with imaginary horses in front of us. His smile turns to embarrassment as he continues, “so I just mean what else have you not done in life? You know...not sexually.” He starts to blush a little as he drags his hand down his face.
I giggle. I am usually the one making a fool of myself and stumbling on my words, so it was nice to be on the other side of that situation for once. “A lot actually.”
I guess that was his cue. He immediately pops up, brushes himself off and hold out his hand. He must see my concern and confusion on my face. “It’s time to start your adventure.” He explains. “Apparently you don’t have long, whatever that means, so your quest must begin as of now.”
He heard, he overheard our conversation. I really shouldn’t be too surprised, we weren’t that quiet. But he doesn’t know what ‘not having a long meant’ and I am glad for that. I want to keep that part of my life a secret. Just do it Eve, suck it up. Live a little.
So I grab his hand and he pulls me up. He hold onto my hand and starts to shake it. “Eli.”
“Evelina.”
“Close to my name.”
“Yeah, but mines better,” I state with a grin.
“Well you can’t spell Evelina without Eli,” he winks.
He smirks as he if had just won the battle and takes his coat off putting it around my shivering arms. He gestures his hand out towards the dark alley in front of us. I don’t move. “That’s a dark alley.” I pause, waiting for him to realize that that could be dangerous. His eyebrows rose so I finish my thought. “There could be people with guns down there or something.”
“But yet you come out here crying all on your own.” He waits, letting his fair point sink in. He continues “this...is our first quest.”
I don’t know why I trusted him. This complete stranger who leads me down a dark alley way and somewhere deep down inside of me I have this feeling that this will be a good thing. That this alley which could be full of gang members is like a new door opening when all the other ones have just closed, or maybe it’s a window that I have to climb through, either way this alley is a window of opportunity that I am suppose to seize.
So I put one foot in front of the other and head towards the creepy, dark alley that is probably filled with people with guns and all sorts of weapons.
~-*-~-*-~-*-~-*-~-*-~-*- ~-*-~-*-~-*-~
We are running. No, we are sprinting, which is somewhat of a challenge when your body is giving up on you. My tiny legs are moving as fast as they can. Tunnel vision is taking over my eyes but at the end of the tunnel isn’t a bright light, it isn’t death, it isn’t even safety, it is Eli. With him right in front of me running just as fast I keep my eyes on him and stay focused.
It is around 5 a.m and it is still dark so trying to navigate a route while running throughout the city is rather difficult when you can’t see anything. But I can hear his footsteps in front of me letting me know he is still there. Each step he takes makes a thump against the ground, as if saying “follow, me. Follow me.”
Until, I hear his footsteps stop and I caught a glimpse of a shadow to my side. Then I feel his arm pull me into a break in the concrete wall. It is barley big enough it just covers two people. He pulls my arm and pushes me in first and then stands in front of me shielding me from whatever may be coming into this little dip in the wall. I am stuck with the brick behind me and this gorgeous man with a boyish smile in front of me and I don’t want to be anywhere else.
He looks down at me with excitement gleaming in his eyes and I can’t help but smile. Then, I don’t know why but at this particular moment I start to laugh. Out of everything that we did tonight for some reason I think running away from people trying to catch us and turn us into the police is funny. But his hand snaps over my mouth as he tries to stifle my laughter.
My laughter turns into a chuckle, then a giggle, then back into a chuckle until I swallow it trying to be quiet. We wait there for while, his hand still on my mouth. It starts to get sweaty and I want it off. I starting wiggling my mouth trying to give him the hint but he is too focused on listening for anyone coming our way. With my arms snug on either side of me I decide to take action another way, so I lick his palm. He looks disturbed at first and pulls his hand back, but after seeing me try and restrain my smile his hand slides down the side of my face. My own spit now smeared down my cheek, I curl my nose, “eww.” He puts a finger to my lip. It touches briefly but his hands are soft as he holds it there for only a split second. After what feels like forever but was only about ten minutes he lets out a breath. The breath symbolizing we are in the clear.
“I didn’t think you’d actually have the guts to do it.”
I am a bit taken back as I chuckle. “Seriously?”
He nods in agreement.
“ I’d broken into a house, gone skinny dipping, kissed a stranger, walked down a creepy alleyway filled with gang members-“
“There were no gang members,” he cut me off smiling.
I put up a hand to stop him from talking. “An alleyway filled with violent gang members yet didn’t dare show their faces to us because they know the strength and power I with hold,” he laughs. “Went clubbing, spray painted a wall and drank and extra large slushy until I had a brain freeze for about an hour, and you didn’t think I’d be able to egg a house?”
“Well, no.”
“Why?”
“Because all those other things were for fun, they weren’t to harm anyone. They were for your quest, to lose your virginity so to speak. But you said the house we were egging was getting back at someone for something they did to you. It was revenge but you’re not that kind of person. So no, I didn’t think you’d be able to do it.”
Not that kind of person? That one sentence struck right through me. Even though he was making an assumption and even though I’ve only known him for about 8 hours I feel like I’ve known him forever, there was just something familiar about him and I could tell he felt the same way.
“Also, I thought I was going to lose you there for a minute.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I looked back once and you looked like you were dying.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” he says with a huge smile.
I gave a small one back. I look down at myself. I am a mess. I have make-up running down my face, I am sweaty, have a bit of blue slushy stained on my dress from my spill earlier on and I have egg slime on my hands.
“You look like you could use a shower.”
“Speak for yourself.”
He steps up to me. His face inches from mine and for a moment I think he was going to kiss me. But he smiles as slips his hand into mine until our fingers are perfectly intertwined and starts to walk, pulling me with him.
“Come on,” he says in such a low husky whisper that chills run down my back and back up again.
He pulls me through a bunch of streets I have never heard of. The streets are empty as the street lights leave a red glow of the wet pavement waiting there, patiently for a car to come. We walk in silence hand in hand until we reach an apartment building. He begins to walk inside and without hesitation I follow.
He leads me in the elevator up to the 12 th floor and then into his rather big apartment. I don’t know how one person could afford this big of a place, especially a twenty-two year old. I don’t even know what he does for a living. And this is when I realize this man that I am voluntarily entering his house, is a complete stranger to me.
As I step in and take in the decor he closes the door behind me and slips off my jacket from behind. I feel his breath on the back of my neck and then I feel his soft lips plant a kiss on my neck. With the softness and most gentle touch and leaves kisses down my back on my shoulder and right up to my ear.
I close my eyes and take in the feeling of a man kissing me. My head leanes towards the opposite side he is kissing, exposing my neck to him. He is planting kisses right behind my ear that makes me shiver and my knees buckle. But he is quick; he catches me and turns me around.
He trailes his fingers up my face, down my cheek and through my hair where it stays, wrapping around my nape. “You are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen.”
I like being called a creature. Most would take offense to that but to me it was a compliment. Yes I am a woman, a human but when he says it it made me feel exotic, like I was one in a million.
I look up into his eyes and place my hands on his waist discreetly pulling him in towards me. He leans in and I close my eyes waiting for the moment his lips will touch mine. His hand grasps my chin pulling my face towards him as I feel his breath on my upper lip, then he kisses me.
Keeping his hands on either side of my facing he starts to walk forwards. I start to walk backwards or otherwise would have fallen. He seems to be guiding me, somewhere, a bedroom I hope. His tongue ever so gently explores my mouth. I feel my back hit a door and open my eyes to see a bedroom across the hall. Why are we not going in there?
I reach behind me and open the door to what was the bathroom. He keeps kissing me backwards until I am near the far wall of the bathroom when he immediately stops and goes about the bathroom. He goes over to the shower and turns on the water, feeling the temperature before pulling the knob out and water starts to flow from the shower head. He turns around and grabs two towels from the cupboard and hands them to me.
