First Time

88

Emily

I don't know how long I've been walking around aimlessly in the freezing, dark streets of Watford. Luckily, the strong, bitter liquor is warming me up from the inside. I take another swig, swirling the liquid in my mouth a few times to dilute the awful taste before I swallow it down.

My head starts to spin. I run my fingers through my hair and squint as I try to figure out where I am.

I am lost. Completely lost.

Sobbing, I gulp down the rest of the bottle and stagger towards a wall. My back slides down the wall until I end up on the ground on my knees.

Still clutching the bottle, I wail and cry until it gives me a headache.

Or maybe it's the alcohol.

I tried to drink my sorrows away, like I've seen Aiden do so many times. Instead, now I feel nauseous as well as heartbroken.

I can't stop reliving the nightmare of the last couple of hours, days, months. How can my world have come crashing down like this?

Because of Aiden, I have nothing and no one. He's completely ruined my life.

I should have never gotten involved with him. I should have run away when that little voice in the back of my mind was telling me to. I should have listened to my parents, gosh, even Tim. Aiden was always bad news, but I was too foolish to see it.

Memories of the moments we shared flood my mind. Our first kiss, our first date, our first time. The pain of knowing that none of it was real is indescribable and makes me sick to my stomach.

I'm going to be sick.

I fall over onto my side and feel the alcohol push back up. Before I know it, the puke spews out onto the pavement in front of me. Along with tears. Internally I'm screaming but my mouth is too occupied with hurling to produce the sound. I smear away the grimy mixture of mucky makeup and vomit from my face in time for another wave to spill out.

When it feels like I've emptied my guts, I curl up into the foetal position. Shivering, weeping, hugging the empty bottle for comfort.

Aiden, look what you've done to me. How could you do this to me? How could you hurt me like this?

Despite everything, I still love him. I know I didn't mean what I said to him, but I had to hurt him. I had to make him feel even a fraction of what I'm feeling. And I know that's cruel of me. But I can't take it back now. And this time, he didn't come after me.

It really is over.

Maybe it's better this way. Maybe it's best that we end now before we destroy each other.

Now, I just have to find a way to move on. I can't even begin to imagine what life without him is going to look like. I don't even know where I'm going to go from here.

I don't want to be with him, but I also don't want to live without him.

I just want to die.

Please God, let me die right now.

I shut my eyes tightly and wait for the pain to end.

Instead, I feel a hand placed on my shoulder.

"Hey, are you alright?" a kind voice speaks to me.

I reluctantly pry my eyes open to find a policewoman stooped over me. Her initial look of worry melts into one of relief when I open my eyes.

"Are you alright? What's your name?"

I slur something incoherent and try to haul myself up.

"Whoa whoa, take it easy," she steadies my weak and failing limbs.

She takes a whiff of me as she helps me to sit upright. Glancing over at my clutch, she takes it and searches. She pulls out my fake ID and studies it dubiously.

"Hmm...I think you've had a little too much to drink tonight, Emily. Is there someone I can call for you? Or somewhere I can take you?"

I try to tell her I have no one I can call and no place to go but instead I mutter some incoherent babble and blubber.

"Alright, alright, it's ok. Come here, let me help you."

She picks me up off the floor and pries the empty bottle from my hands. Instead, she gives me my clutch and her arm to hold on to.

"Let's get you home and out of this cold, shall we?"

She guides me towards the awaiting police car which I hadn't even noticed until now. The swirling red and blue lights almost blind me as I stagger closer to the car.

"That's it, nice and easy," she goads me into the backseat, fastens my seat belt and shuts the door.

The warmth of the car is a welcomed relief from the bitter cold.

The policewoman climbs in the driver seat and looks back at me. She recites my parents' address which she must have read on the fake ID and asks if that's home.

It's not. It's not been for a while. Nowhere is home anymore. Aiden was my home and without him, I'm homeless.

But I don't have the energy left to explain. So, I just nod.

As the car sets off back to my parents' house, my heart beats fast and hard. I don't know what to expect or if they'll even want to see me. I don't know if they'll even want to hear what happened, how sorry I am that I didn't listen to them when I should have. If I can ever go back to being their little girl.

My heart full of apprehension, I close my eyes and try to pray. Though I have a feeling no one is listening.