LJ Idol Three Strikes: Prompt 20 — “Regrets, I’ve had a few”

[flipflop_diva]

Warning: Contains a non-graphic sexual assault


“Do you regret it?” His eyes across the table are soft and sad. Always her biggest supporter, even if he is thousands of miles away for most of the year.

She doesn’t answer, instead concentrating on eating the cheeseburger in her hands, letting her mind focus on the smell of the meat, the taste of the cheese, and not on the life she could have had.

She knows he doesn’t mean anything by his question; he’s just checking to make sure she’s okay. But he doesn’t know that they are always there, always in her thoughts: the dreams, the hopes, the plans. She was going to be a doctor, or maybe an artist. She was going to matter.

Until she threw it away for a charming smile and piercing eyes and the taste of bitter liquid on her tongue.

He is still watching her, and she wants to say something, but what words are right?

He already knows the story. Everyone still in her life does. She’s never hidden it.

Five years ago already. Two days short of her twenty-first birthday. Just two weeks after moving into her own apartment just a block from school.

The taste of freedom had been strong. So, too, had been the taste of youth.

She is still young, technically, but she has lived more than a lifetime since then. She knows the blame is only on her though. So many ways she could have chosen differently.

The bar that night had been packed, barely any room to move. The bartenders didn’t care about IDs. The drinks were strong, and they filled her body with a rush of adrenaline. Everything was funnier and brighter and happier.

He had come out of nowhere. She was dancing with her friends, and then there he was. Those piercing eyes. She was drawn to him like he was the air she needed to breathe.

He tended to her like he needed her too, buying her drinks and spinning her around the dance floor.

“Are you sure you don’t want to leave with us?” her friends had asked, hours later or maybe minutes, and they had probably looked worried, but she hadn’t noticed. She probably wouldn’t have cared if she had.

She looked over at him, at those piercing eyes, those strong hands that had been holding her hands, her waist, for hours. Her body pulsed along with the alcohol flowing through her veins.

“I’m good here,” she said, and she fully believed she was.

Sometimes now she thinks about what would have happened if her friends had insisted, if she hadn’t been so stubborn, so stupid. She would have gone to class on Monday. She would have celebrated her birthday like she’d planned. She would have stayed in school, would have graduated, would have gone to medical school. Or maybe to art school.

She would have become someone.

Instead, she stayed, dancing more with him, the drink sloshing in her hand and sometimes in her mouth. He kissed her as they moved, his hands brushing her breasts through her thin tank top. She shivered, pushing herself harder against him.

She felt so alive, so on top of the world.

And so when he whispered, “You want to get out of here?”, she hadn’t hesitated for a second.

She should have hesitated. She should have said no.

She said no later, but it was too late. By the time they arrived at his apartment — big and beautiful and so far away. She still can’t remember the cab ride. She thinks she maybe fell asleep, though she remembers the feeling of his fingers inside her underwear. She remembers she gasped and groaned — the world was starting to tilt, to blur, the alcohol finally uneasy in her body.

“Maybe we shouldn’t,” she said, as he kissed down her neck, his hands rucking her shirt up above her breasts.

He looked at her then, with those piercing eyes, and she wavered.

“We should,” he said, and she pushed away the unease in her gut, told herself it was all the drinks, and leaned back against the couch, letting her eyes drift close.

She felt him peel her clothes off, felt him slip inside her, felt the pain as if it were somewhere distant.

She remembers thinking she had been waiting for this all night and now she was too tired to enjoy it.

She remembers waking up, off and on, remembers he was still there, still on top of her and all over her, and she remembers drifting off again. She remembers that, just like in the bar, time had no meaning, stretching and condensing, seconds or hours passing by, she didn’t know.

She woke up in the morning, her body bruised and aching, her mouth dry, her stomach on edge. She stumbled around, pulled on some clothes, lost some of the alcohol in a puddle on the floor.

He appeared then, those piercing eyes now cold and hard, screamed at her, told her to get out, called her names.

She sobbed as she stumbled out the door, tripped down the street before finally stopping, her fingers shaking, to call a friend.

It was just a one-night stand, she said that day, to anyone who asked, but yet her mind refused to be okay with it. Her mind refused to move on.

A month later, she had dropped out of school, had holed up in her bedroom in her parents’ house, until they too had kicked her out.

Now, she thinks about her studio apartment, the way there is barely any space to move around. She thinks about the two jobs she works, always worrying it won’t be enough.

She would have been in medical school now if she had just said no, if she had just gone home with her friends.

“Do you regret it?” Her brother’s words still hang in the air as she munches her cheeseburger, the first real meal she has had in so long.

Beside her, Lila giggles, building a pyramid with her French fries and then knocking them over.

She turns to look at her, this little girl with piercing eyes, exactly like the sperm donor whose name neither one of them will probably ever know.

She could have been a doctor, she could have been in medical school, she could have had an easier life.

Instead, she is a mom. A single mom.

She turns back to her brother and smiles softly. She finally answers his question.

“How could I?”




Fiction. Though it's sadly too real for a lot of people.



This was written for therealljidol Three Strikes Mini Season. If you liked my entry, please consider voting for me! You should also go read all the other amazing entries. You can find them all here. Voting should be up Saturday night!

Comments

[banana_galaxy]

This was really difficult for me to read, but also I think demonstrated a lot of the complexity of situations like this. So often victims are blamed and blame themselves for ending up in situations like this. I know I have felt like that at times when I've been a victim. And then there are the times when we find a positive in a negative situation. I related to that part, too, because I may no longer have a relationship with my kids' dad, but I can't regret getting together with him in the first place because he gave me two amazing children.

[breakfastatholly]

Oof, this was a really tough and heartbreaking read but you wrote it so well and really captured the emotions. <33

[ofearthandstars]

This was a tough one to get through. I like the way that her answer can be read ambiguously - leaving the reader to wonder whether Lila's innocence and love is truly enough to blur out the past and the loss of her dreams, or if your protagonist is really only covering her pain and finding the polite answer.

[roina_arwen]

Very well written, full of truth and pathos.

[mollywheezy]

I'm tearing up reading this. I feel so badly for your character, and have heard similar stories too many times.

[dadi]

What a difficult choice...I have been in that situation and chose the day after pill. I never went on to "matter" either. So, some things probably don't change!
Very well written, and intense!

[d0gs.livejournal.com]

this was so well written and you captured all the emotional nuances so well.

[gunwithoutmusic]

This was a really gripping display of a simple feeling. It's easy to think that things might have been different if not for this, if not for that, and to blame one's self for it. But the annoying thing about regrets is that you often can't do anything about it, and there's really no way to know how life would have been otherwise. This is a bittersweet story, for sure, but I think it's good that she's able to find some glimmer of light from the darkness.