I’m so cold. I can’t get comfortable; when did my bed get to be so unbearably uncomfortable? I feel like I’m sleeping on the hood of a car in the middle of January rather than in my warm feather top bed covered in my silk piasley comforter. I got up to close the window to stop the rustling of crisp fallen leaves and the bite of late October air drifting through the room.
I hate not being able to get comfortable. I think it has to be one of the worst feelings in the world. I tossed and turned, my almost-black eyes wide open looking everywhere I turned. Not being able to sleep isn’t an unfamiliat feeling considering it started my freshman year of college. My first and definitely not my last night with hardly any sleep was one I can’t forget. I turn and lay on my left side facing my husband who’s deep in sleep, snoring and breathing heavy, noises I’ve become in sync with, when he breaths out, I breath in, their noises I can’t sleep without.
“There’s a story I should tell you, from when we were in college. We didn’t know each other yet...” I didn’t wait for acknowledgement, knowing it wasn’t coming considering the only thing that wakes him up is... well nothing. I just kept talking.
“We’d been planning Halloween since we moved into the dorms on August 26th, 2008. My roommates, Danny, Bridget and I would gather on our neighbor Anita’s floor to talk about something we could all dress up as. It had to be original, fun and most of all sexy. Scandalous seemed to be our favorite word of the season and we weren’t taking it lightly.
“Danny was quirky and never failed to make me laugh. You would have like her, at first, everyone did. At times she could be ditzy and very forgetful; she was never too aware of her surroundings either which not only got me into some trouble, but also got her in trouble a few times as well. You were around to know how badly she treated me over the years, had sex with a guy I was dating and lied about it for two years... then when her dad died, left me every weekend to ‘be with her mom’ but went and hung out with her other friend lying for another four months... it still hurts to think about it, she’s really a terrible person.
“Bridget was selfish and our friendship didn’t last too far past Halloween freshman year. She was so pretty, long dark hair and beautiful blue eyes. On the outside she looked like that one doll every little girl had, the porcelain doll that was never actually played with but only sat on your shelf to be looked at but nothing else. Her personality turned out to be that of an empty doll as well. Our friendship ended not long after she slept with one of my friends from high school in my bed.
“Anita: the logic of our group of friends. She was like the mother duckling, always making sure we all had our phones and she never drank quite as much as the rest of us as if she knew at the beginning of the night she’d have to watch after us. You would have liked her, until she met Chad and disappeared half way through sophomore year, explaining why you never met her.
“Finally we decided our group of girl friends would be playboy bunnies and our best guy friend, Marc, would play the role of Hugh Heffner. Marc was his own kind of person. He’s gay; he had only told a handful of people because his die hard Catholic family would never have accepted him after those two tiny words shattered their hearts.
“Anyways, looking back I do realize it was probably the most cliché choice of a costume we could have made but it was exactly what we were looking for: sexy, scandalous and everything in between; little did I know I would hate this stupid excuse for a costume at the end of the night.
“In the year 2008 Halloween fell on a Friday so we had Thursday, Friday and Saturday to go out dressed up. Thursday was a pretty average night; we went to a house party where I met Matt: the first boy in Kalamazoo who I could actually see myself dating; a common freshman’s mistake in my now scarred mind, I feel stupid ever thinking about this now. I hung out with Matt the entire time we were at the party and we discussed hanging out the next day which seemed like a great idea seeing as I was planning on spending the day hung over in my sweatpants lying around with Danny.
“Friday afternoon rolled around and my phone rang waking me up from a slightly still drunken sleep; it was Matt. He came over to watch a movie and luckily Danny was out with Anita before I even woke up so it wouldn’t be awkward just the three of us crammed in our jail cell-like dorm room. Obviously this was our first time hanging out without the influence of alcohol on our side so I thought it was kind of strange when he reached over to kiss me warmly in our October-chilled room, but I wasn’t stupid and perhaps I was expecting it in the back of my mind. After about an hour he said he had to go hook up with some of his guy friends which seemed weird considering he was only there for an hour and all he wanted to do was make out, but like I said I wasn’t stupid. I didn’t hear from him the rest of the day but I wasn’t worried, he said he’d call me later when he was out and we could meet up, so I took his word for it and got dressed up as a bunny for the second night in a row ready to go out and drink with all my girl friends.
“We planned to go to a party in Copper Beech but we literally had no idea where it was so Danny, Anita, Bridget and I took six burning shots and got in a cab with Marc, our Hugh for the night and a group of guys who lived in our hall; honestly I didn’t even know their names. We arrived with style, all stumbling out of the van of a cab and started walking in no certain direction when I got a call from my best friend from home, Molly. We talked for a bit and slowly my group got farther away but the group of guys I didn’t know was not far behind so I wasn’t worried. Finally Molly let me off the phone and I held back a little so the boys could catch up with me; one of them was on the phone, talking a lot louder than he needed to be allowing me to hear every word.
‘Yeah, man no problem we’ll be right there… Is it a big party? ... Alright for sure, see you soon!’ He then snapped his phone shut.
‘Yo guys we gotta go back, Austin’s at this huge party let’s ditch these girls he said it’s huge and they have a keg!’
‘What am I supposed to do I have no idea where my friends are?’ I asked and I could tell my voice was shaking because already I was nervous.
‘I donno, figure it out!’ And all five of them were gone.
“I looked around and began walking, looking for any sign of Danny, Anita or Bridget but I couldn’t see or hear any of them. I then sat on a curb and, with shaking hands, tried to call all three of them. I got a few answers but I couldn’t hear because the party they were at sounded like a lot more fun than I was having.
‘Hey are you okay?’ A voice came from behind me. I was so scared and with tears and mascara streaming down my face, trying to remain composed I replied,
‘Yeah I’m just looking for my friends.’
‘Well, my name’s Jimmy, I’m going into this party right here I’ll be out in a few minutes to check on you. You don’t seem okay.’ He walked inside and I wondered why he didn’t invite me in but I don’t think I would have gone with him inside anyways.
‘Alright…’ I could even tell I didn’t sound like myself.
“I called Danny, Anita and Bridget all at least seven more times but still no answers. I sat on that curb grinding my thoughts trying to think of anyone I could call to come get me, and then it came on like someone threw a rock at me: I could call Matt. Sure I had only just met him but he soberly came to hang out with me today, he acts like he likes me and he said he’d call me when he was out anyways. He’ll probably come meet me here right away. I don’t remember if I actually thought all these things were true but at this point I was just trying to convince myself that everything was going to be okay. I dialed. It rang again and again, but there was no answer. I hung up and tried again; I didn’t think this counted as being clingy considering my friends had just left me on a curb completely alone. This time he answered and there was a lot of noise coming from his end much like on all my friends’ phones.
‘HEY WHAT’S UP?’ He yelled from his end.
‘Nothing, hey, my friends left me here do you think you could come get me? Maybe we could just hang out now that it’s almost 1?’ I had to steady my voice because at this point I knew this was my only chance to get back home.
‘NO WAY I CAN’T DRIVE AND I’M NOT LEAVING THIS PARTY. CALL ME WHEN YOU GET HOME.’ I should have known the second he hung up on me right after this brief but informing phone call.
“A door shut from somewhere vague behind me and someone sat next to me: Jimmy. I spilled the entire story to him, which seems stupid even to me as I tell this story, while crying and he took me under his wing into the party where I was terrified to be. I could have been raped! Which ironically didn’t happen at the party but rather in my “home” for the school year; Jimmy found me a ride back to the last place I wanted to be but the only place I had to go: Ackley Hall. Danny wasn’t back yet which I was mad about because I would have loved to hit her at the moment. About fifteen minutes later her, Bridget and Anita walked in laughing about the night. Instantly I started yelling, it wasn’t even in anger I had just been so scared all night and they didn’t even try to find me. Danny got mad at me for yelling and went to sleep in Anita’s room.
“I was about five seconds from sleep and my phone started to sing: ‘Incoming call from: Matt S.’ Being the freshman girl that I was, and an idiot, I answered it.
‘Hey you wanna hang out? I’m just about to your dorm; I’ll be there in a sec, come let me in.’
‘Wait but -’ Too late. He already hung up.
“I dragged myself downstairs feeling groggy as if I hadn’t slept in months and I saw him walking into the building still in his stupid wanna-be band member costume. We walked upstairs without even talking, which I wasn’t too worried about considering the night I had. We sat on my couch and again he started kissing me instantly but I pushed away, I had been crying all night, I was lost, I was fighting with all my friends and I just wanted to go to bed. I made that clear to Matt but he wasn’t having it.
‘I had a horrible night I just want to get in bed and sleep,’ I felt the tears coming on again.
‘Alright let’s get up there then.’
“I couldn’t even get a word in; he was up on my loft as fast as a jungle cat in a tree ready to pounce on its prey. Slowly I made my way up to my tiny twin bed that could barely just fit me, shaking the entire way up. Finally I was next to him and he started kissing my neck; I could have thrown up right there.
‘Please don’t, I don’t think you realize how bad my night was. I even called you to help me because my friends all left me.’
‘Ha I don’t even remember that call, I’m so drunk and I just smoked a ton of pot with some of my friends. I’m so fucked up!’ His laughter coming through his words mixed with the smell of alcohol and weed made me feel even sicker than before. He then pinned me down, held my wrists and forced me to kiss him. I heard the tear of a wrapper.
‘No, sorry but I’m not doing this. I just met you last night, are you serious right now?’
‘I don’t think you have a choice right now, honey.’ Out came the condom and he put it on his small dick. Do all the assholes in this world have small ones?
‘God, sex feels so good when you’re high, you should try it sometime.’
“As I was held down being forced into something that was supposed to be “beautiful”, or so all the text books told me, I started to cry again. Finally he got off me, put his pants on and climbed off my loft, this time he didn’t have the grace of a jungle cat.
‘I’ll call ya a little later; maybe I’ll be back for round two.’ I couldn’t even gather a response from anywhere inside me. I cried until I fell asleep hours later but kept waking from pain and nightmares; total of sleep I got was probably close to two or three hours. I woke up from a doze the next morning to Danny storming in, and by the look on her face I could tell she was expecting an apology.
‘I’m sorry I blamed it all on you. It was my fault too.’ I said, in an unusal defeated voice which doesn’t often come from me.
‘It’s fine, I mean whatever.’ Clearly it wasn’t fine.
“I climbed off my loft in a sloth-like motion and dragged all my bedding to the laundry room in the basement. I put everything in three different washers, sat on top of one and pulled my knees to my chest; I started crying again. And now the healing process begins, I thought to myself, promising I couldn’t anyone because I would be judged or called a slut, or something cliche like that. After that night I forgot what it was like to have sex with someone I actually cared about. My biggest fear until I was 20 was that that memory would never come back, as if, maybe, it didn’t exist in the first place.” Again, silence.
“It feels good to get that off my chest.”
“I love you,” he whispered.