From the Other Side of My Bed

21. Dante's Inferno

Streetlights, stop signs, everything becoming blurry, and the alcohol is getting warmer.
I wish I was fucking home, but i need ice and a new pack of Marlboro lights.
It's crazy.
So fucking crazy.

1:02am.

I pull up brusquely to the 7 eleven parking lot in the corner of 48th st with my windows rolled down and Megan thee stallion on the radio. Once I park at the front of the place, I take a sip of my Jack Daniel's and then throw the bottle in the backseat as I exit the car and pull out my wax pen and take a hit from it before I walk in the store.
Once inside, my vision is distorted and my head so high in the clouds.
I grabbed a pack of ice and then walked up to the register area.
My inebriated smile grows when I see my regular cashier, Stevie.
He knows me and knows how fucked up I'm right now, but he always finds it hot somehow. I went out with him once and made out (because he isn't particularly ugly) and then shared weed with each other at the pet park in my complex.
He's cool.
"A pack of Marlboro lights, please."
"I can't sell them to you today, ma."
"What do you mean, Stevie? You always sell them to me."
"Stick to your weed tonight, babe. Manager's in the back right now."
I look around, leaning forward and whisper:
"Bro, just do it silently and I will be gone."
He shakes his head and scans my ice, and it comes as 1.99 for it.
I roll my eyes and pull my card to pay.
"Are you okay? You're crossfaded?"
"Maybe... you could be like me if you weren't working, though."
And I removed my card from the reader. "I get off at 5am."
"Nah, man. I'll be dead by then."
And grab my bag and walk off.
"What do you mean dead?" I hear him shouted after me but don't give a fuck.

I threw the bag in the passenger seat, got in the car and shut the door.
Santigold starts playing on the radio and I vibe for a while with the cool a/c on and even sing along with the lyrics, then I start up the car, backing it up as fast as possible then stopping the car abruptly since I was about to crash in the tree behind me.
"Fuck, dude." I whisper to myself, pulling my wax pen and inhaling deep. "I'm so wasted."

I maneuvered the car to go toward the exit on the right side and step on the gas and oof I go furiously out the parking lot, almost running someone over who had the right of way, but I didn't car.
I didn't care about anything.
I was back on drugs again and I was a God.

-

The following weeks since the death of my stepbrother have been hazy on my mind. My activities during these times remind me of the 9 circles of Dante's inferno.
I know I suffered a few of these circles because tell me when I feel like being in the limbo the whole time.
Like I feel lost. And have not been found.
Ever since I started doing drugs again, and came back from my vacation time, I've been feeling like there is no good or bad about his death. Just blackness and emptiness. I talk to my customers and clients, and they are so happy to see me yet worried when noticing my lack of try in looking presentable. I gave up covering my deep dark blue under eyebags which give away my endless nights of drinking and smoking and partying too hard, they ask if I have enough sleep and I tell them a lie about my dad being sick. They ask around about me and often are met with the same old answer: she's tired.
I walk aimlessly out the store on lunch breaks to go smoke my weed and just sat there at the blade of the street, watching the houses and the cars pass by and when it's time to go back, I wipe my face with a beauty wipe and even brush my teeth and spray parfume on and just walk right back, feeling lost. I redo this monotonous cycle of faking that I'm fine but I'm in a gray area because well, I feel fine. I don't cry or starve anymore, well I lie. I kind of do but it's not like before. I eat in front of my coworkers, so they don't worry and when I go home, I throw it all up, but I feel content. Because I could be doing worse, yet here I am. In a high paying job, which is in my career choice, in the apartment of my dreams...
I'm neither in hell nor heaven, just limbo.
Waiting.
And waiting... for it to all end.

Another cycle is lust.
Like I haven't gotten over my fear of sex, but I crave and crave this feeling of togetherness that can only be accomplished by being oversexualized, used... even being hurt. Almost everything is the same.
A new guy in my bed.
Another guy I let go down on me.
Another guy I suck off until dry.
Another guy that convinces me to take pictures of me naked. Who knows how many of my private collections are out there for the sell.
Makes me sad to do these things... yet I yearn to be ... desired.
Wanted.
To be the thing that's unreachable, the thing you can't fuck your way up.
And God, the way I make myself into a porn star for some or be a daddy's girl disgusts me, but else no one is interested in me. Once I tried having a meaningful conversation with one of these guys and all he kept saying was "damn, that's crazy."
I learned communication is not needed for these things. So, I often kept quiet unless it was to encourage them for more. Some try to convince me to dance on them naked, some bought me cat ears or chokers which then can rip apart from me at any moment. Some try to convince me to do anal because "it isn't real intercourse."
Yes, it is, the fuck.
Anyways...
Some visit me or ask me to go over to their places for some spicy time, some I never hear from again which saves me time and phone data.
Some tear off my clothes off as animals hungry for flesh, some are really sweet and pleasers. Some buy me my favorite food or books. Some disappear and I prefer it that way.
Sometimes I think I'll never be able to love anyone again after all these guys. Its hard because some had girlfriends or kids with someone and had no remorse or gave a fuck on cheating on them for just a jerk off from a pretty girl.
It was disgusting.
I was disgusting...
At the end of the night, when the sun rises on the horizon, I always watch those who stayed, and feel dirty because they made me dirty and my desire for love made me a whore. Even if I didn't have vaginal or anal sex, I was disgusting dear reader. I didn't need those guys to be enough, but I was beginning to hate the cold side of my bed and I needed to be loved. Because in a few instances, even if the guy was rough, they all kissed me passionately, warmly, then kissed my forehead, hugged me to sleep, or held my hand proudly on their way out my apartment. You see how desperate I was for love? I'm so disgusting!
Disgusting! Disgusting! Ugh I hated myself so much!
Then God, I began to experience binge eating.
Known as gluttony.
There's this moment when your body, after days of not eating, starts to eat muscle and fat from your body to survive. Which resulted in my arms becoming finally skinny and my beautifully round athletic legs lost their form, and I was left pathetically skinny. Which god, it was so euphoric.
But that's beside the point.
The problem was that after the body eats up most of all the fat and muscle, it then throws waves of voracious hunger at you, and you have to stop and hold your stomach because if not it'll get out of your body and devour anything in its way. So, you buy food.
This is junk food. Lots of it.
You don't believe me?
I used to buy family sizes everything. And ate it all alone in large bites. I was just swallowing it all like nothing and then when it was all over, I was hurting so bad. My stomach couldn't take it from days of starving. This behavior started in late March of 2021.
I would order food after days of not eating, get it delivered at home and eat it all. God, the ecstasy I felt right after eating made me high almost.

Then greed happened.
I was greedy with the money and with myself. Many people during this time asked me for financial help and I refused it because if not I wouldn't have enough for drugs, then people asked to see me, and I would just isolate for days without an end. It was hard to see them when they all pointed out I was not beautiful anymore. Like the way my eyebags made me look hollow, empty. How my bones were peeking from my collar and how I was losing the form of my hourglass body. It was sad to me; I couldn't stand others seeing it too.

Then God, anger came around.

The experts say anger is really sadness contained for a very long time.
Which I found weak and pathetic. But I was also weak and pathetic. It was one of the main reasons why I didn't want to see anyone who knew me before, who loved me because I hated them for loving me.
Like, how can they love somebody like me? I don't even love anyone like me.
And you will ask why they wouldn't? The point is look at me.
Dear reader, look at me.
Look who's the person talking to you now.
Because you first met a very confident girl who didn't care about anything and had fun, to now a pathetic piece of shit who hurts the people she loves. And you don't even know half the people who make this story alive. I have only written so far about me. And I hate it. I hate that I can't remember half of anything without the notebooks I had wrote as diaries for me to remember.
I hate that I became so selfish with me and anything, I'm just in such a dark place and there's no light...

And God? He just kept up there in his ivory tower, never doing anything about me or my pain.
I guess that's what you call heresy.

At last,... violence.

My dearest Chunky Chunks, my hamster, was found dying one afternoon when I got back from work. He had lost all of his fur, and was looking like a complete mole rat but that's my mole rat whom I loved the most and who I grew up with for years and when I found him there, lying in a corner, barely breathing, I didn't know what to do.
Like what do you do in a situation like this? I felt like an actual human was dying before me and I wanted to call the ambulance and the cops so they could help and instead I called Jerome.
His ever so calm voice tried soothing my pain, but nothing could.
I was freaking out and I screamed and cried and destroyed completely the cage of Chunky Chunks by throwing it at the wall in rage and it fell into pieces in the ground loudly, but I didn't care if I offended my neighbors. For once I wanted my pain to be recognized. To be heard by all, including God because it was unfair everyone was dying around me. I hated being the one behind with the loss. It was a heavy burden I couldn't hold well like others. How could people not cry and fall apart for their pets? How could they not scream when the last breath is taken by their loved one and be okay that they are gone? How can people be so normal, yet I rip and destroy everything, I kill and murder everything in me in order to take out the pain? How can people just swallow it and be okay? How dear reader? How? Please do tell me because my heart is so heavy knowing that I'm just odd.
Odd...

I cried to God for Chunky Chunks to not die. I was afraid of losing him.
I've never been so afraid of losing a pet, it nearly destroyed me, and I wanted to kill myself and die with him together, as one. It was only right.
Chunky Chunks and I were one. He was a hamster and a goofy one but God, that he would lie on my chest when I cried and just stayed there, as if he knew I was sad. He was so docile and loved being kissed on the forehead. He loved strawberries. He loved lying on his back and sunbath in the grass.
He was not just another hamster; he was my hamster.


By the time Jerome came, Chunky Chunks was already taking his last breaths of life and I was sitting on the balcony's floor, curled up against the wall with Chunky Chunks on my lap covered in a pink blanket. Jerome sat next to me on the ground and gave him (in vain) CPR to revive him and he just ... wouldn't... come back. I screamed at him not to go.
That it wasn't his time.
That I needed him.
That my life would be different if he came back.
To please, fuck, to please come back.

But he died.

Jerome wrapped his arms around me and held me tight as I screamed and cried uncontrollably.
Oh, Jerome... no one, not even me, deserves you...

-

Why do I feel everything I love is vanishing?
I used to like trees; I like the change in leaves from brown to bright hues of green. I used to like to climb trees when I was a little girl, now I stare at them and feel empty. When did I become empty?
I smoke and smoke and I feel yet a hole where my chest should be at. While I sit here in the dog park, letting the hamsters run around, eating worms, I don't feel joy at looking them eating, or laying on their backs, enjoying the sunlight. Ever since Chunky Chunks died, I feel like I don't connect with this world, even when I am on the ground, my hands on the grass. They said I am the very image of our Lord.
Has he ever felt alone?
I hate now that I'm questioning if I may need God or not.
I have so much hate toward him. For letting him take away my stepbrother from Socorro, for letting my dad be away from me, for Chunky Chunks.. for turning a blind eye at me and my suffering. Does it all pains him, or is he an unfeeling, hateful God?
I just wis-

"I almost thought you were an apparition."
I turn around and look at Ares walking down the small hill toward us in the dog park, and I quickly finish my cigarette. "An apparition?"
My dear Greek god is wearing blue jeans, white shirt and a men's bun with some of his loose blond flyways dancing in his face. When he kneels and sits next to me, his blue eyes hold mine so intensely I must look away.
"I only see you at night. I never thought I would see you so bright under the sunlight."
"Bright, huh?" I laughed and lit another cigarette. "You acting as if I don't look like shit right now." And then when I look back at him, he's smiling.
"Just because you're not wearing makeup doesn't mean you're ugly. You have beautiful features."
"Such as?"
"Your eyes," he tilts his head very slowly to look at me better.
"Your face," he then lifts his hand, and caresses my face, from forehead to chin.
Then his eyes focus on my lips, fingers grabbing my chin in the process.
"That mouth," I can only stare at his mouth as he speaks, I feel we are drawing each other in or I might be just the one leaning forward for a kiss, doesn't matter. I want him. "Just everything about you," he then leans forward, but not to kiss me, but to come close to my ear. "Makes me want you, my love."
As much as I like this whole scene, I am much in a foul mood and when he said he wants me, I automatically get upset.
"If you just want sex," I say, shoving him off me. "Find it somewhere else, love."
I start to get up, not before he brusquely grabs my wrist and pulls me back down.
"Look at me." He demands, but I refuse to meet his eye. I focus rather on how the hamsters are sunbathing. "You cannot possibly believe every guy is out to just fuck you and leave."
"And if I do?" I say, finally looking at him, and becoming undone from his grip. "Does it make me a monster or them? Those who made this thinking?"
"Them. But I am different." And I start laughing so hard I must cover my mouth. That was the best joke I've heard, dear reader.
How can he possibly believe I'll fall for that?
"Look, Greek god- "
"Greek god?" He looked amused at me. "You look Greek."
"Is it the nose?"
"The style and features."
"So, the nose."
"Ugh,"
He laughs and I get annoyed at him. I feel stupid for telling him that, but I am very busy being upset by the whole "I'm different" joke.
"Anyways, I am not gonna believe you are different. Ever. So, get used to it or fuck off."
"And if I don't like those conditions?"
"I'm not compromising."
"Sure, you are." I raise my brow at him. "Is that so?"
"Yes."

Silence.

"Why is that?"
"Because you happen to like me too."
"I don't know you."
"But do you want to know me?"

Silence.

"Let me take you out. On a real date. Somewhere you want."
"I'm busy." I said dryly.
"Yes, with me I hope."
Oh my God, how not to like this man?
"Fine. But I'm paying for myself."
"Nope. Out of the question."
"And if I don't like the conditions?"
He smirks. "I'm paying, that's it."
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
"You're not."
"Why?"
"Because you want me to like you too."
Automatically our faces turn more radiant, smiling and even feeling warm for our desire for one another. We sit and talk for a while in the doggie park, playing with the hammies. It was a beautiful day out.
He made it beautiful, at bit.