Bad Enough for You (Currently Editing)

There Was a Slut Parade You Couldn't Miss

It had probably been predetermined from the very beginning that there would be a time in my life in which I took that final step and crossed the line. The line was drawn in the sand, constantly under the threat of being washed away by the more powerful influences in my life. While those forces were continuously gaining distance towards the line, I was straddling it, my hands being pulled on either side by people who were looking for the real Adrienne Mathers. The side that contained Angeline, Oliver, Bradley, and Eli were on the verge of winning. My toes were curled in the sand, desperate to find something to cling to so that I didn’t completely lose myself.

The thing that I didn’t realize, though, is that sometimes, you have to lose yourself in order to be found. And maybe I wasn’t destined to live my life entirely at the hands of alcohol and my mind so zoned out that I couldn’t keep track of faces, but for the moment, I was.

After having helped Ci sneak out to meet Milo and the upcoming final step to making sure that the entire nation was completely convinced that they were broken up, I was left to figure out what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life. I hadn’t realized it quite yet, but things were already slowly beginning to fall apart.

It started a few nights after Ci’s birthday, on Wednesday, when Eli and I were supposed to be having our first “official” date. I hadn’t been able to get in touch with him for a few days because my phone was still unaccounted for. However, thanks to a splurge with my father’s credit card on a new phone and my surprisingly good memory, I had finally been able to contact with him earlier this morning.

I had asked him if he wanted to talk about why he had barged out, but he had completely brushed over it, telling me that we were still on for dinner. Eli had avoided the word date and when I tempted him with a little something something to get him to tell me what he was thinking, he only chuckled uncomfortably and promised me that we’d meet at seven at the restaurant.

So, there I was, sitting by myself at a table draped in a white tablecloth. A clear vase sat in the middle, one yellow and one pink flower sticking out from the top. Wine glasses sat on either side of the vase, while a silver bucketful of ice and an impressive bottle of some expensive wine that I really didn’t care about also sat on the table. White plates sat in front of each of the seats, dark blue napkins professionally folded in the center. Sparkling silverware sat on either side of the plates and a basket of bread sat near a dish of butter.

I gnawed on my lip for a moment, my eyes flicking up to the door as it opened. I sighed when a man walked through the door, his blonde hair falling into his face as a smile overwhelmed his face. I watched as he brushed past the podium, eyes falling on a pretty blonde who was looking up at him expectantly. I looked away in a mixture of disappointment and jealousy, turning my gaze back to the table.

I don’t know what I had been expecting of this night, but I can honestly say that I didn’t expect Eli to be late. It was already fifteen minutes past the time that we had agreed to meet. I was beginning to believe that he wasn’t coming.

I didn’t want to think that because it honestly hurt too much. I mean, I knew what Eli was like. It didn’t take a lot for me to figure out what he was like, especially because of the number of times that I passed by Eli’s apartment door only to hear a girlish giggle or a scream from the other side. I had seen a number of girls walking down the hallway with that ‘I just got laid’ look on their face, some of them even giggling to themselves as they glanced back at the door. Not to mention the two different girls I had seen coming out of Eli’s room in just his shirt.

I couldn’t deny the fact that I was jealous of this parade of girls. I had been so from the very beginning. But, I wasn’t jealous of them anymore. I had gotten to see the side of Eli that they hadn’t in the darkness of those few hours that they were in his presence.