“C’mere,” he said, grabbing my arm and taking me and a very loose Diana out into the hall. As I left, Liam was finally in sight and he shot me a questioning look.
Help, I mouthed.
One curt nod and he began peeling women off him, twenty feet or so behind me. And then I lost visual as I walked through the front entrance to the apartment and found myself slammed against the far wall of the hallway by Diana, her hips grinding into my thighs, mouth suddenly hot and loose on mine. The crush of her body, then Nico’s behind hers trapping me, my arms out like I was readying for a crucifixion.
Where the fuck was Liam? Diana’s mouth wouldn’t give me any kind of break, teeth biting my lips hard, tongue lolling and sloppy, saliva everywhere. I wasn’t being kissed; I was being slimed.
“It’s a Diana sandwich,” Nico shouted.
Liam appeared in the doorway and clapped a hand over his mouth, then threw his hands in the air. What the fuck? he mouthed.
“Diana!” I said, trying to protest, putting my arms on her shoulders to push, but Nico was rubbing her ass with his groin, legs apart, dry humping her.
I kept my eyes opened as Diana roto-rootered me and flailed with my arms in some sort of movement that I hoped communicated that I needed to be rescued.
And then:
“Sam?”
I turned my head as best I could toward the sound of my name, twisting inches, only to find Amy’s horrified face a few feet away, the dim light of the hall making her look like an angel, an aura around her.
Diana sensed something and pulled back, finally giving me a chance to take a much-needed deep breath and I stared, slack-jawed at Amy.
And then she ran.
“No! Come back! Amy! It’s not what you think!”
“Widdle gurfriend’s feewings hurt?” Diana said, coming in for another kiss.
Shoving hard, instinct kicked in. Off. “Get. Off. Me,” I shouted. Nico lost his footing as a hundred plus pounds of his own girlfriend came flying fast at him. Whatever force I used was enough to push them both back into the apartment’s entrance, Liam hopping out of the way just in time.
“No more Diana sandwich,” she pouted, her and Nico a flesh pile on the floor.
The thump of Amy’s footsteps stopped abruptly as a door opened and snapped shut. Outside by now, she was gone.
I took two steps toward the main door, then realized how I was dressed.
“Go,” Liam urged. “Go get her now, Sam. You need to figure this shit out now. I got this.”
“You sure?” Nico and Diana were now dry humping on the floor beneath us, apparently having let go of the sandwich idea.
Piecing my lines of velcro together, I worked to look as decent as possible. Liam tossed me my hat.
“Wha—?”
“It’s cold outside. You’ll need that.”
Sprinting down the hallway, I slammed the front door open and looked left and right down the street, the dim lampposts posh and elegant, but it was no use.
She was gone.
What had I done?
Amy
It’s not what you think, the text read.
Oh, Sam, I thought, you have got to be fucking kidding me. Is there some textbook that guys are handed that tells them exactly what they’re supposed to say when they have decided to fuck you over? I ignored it.
Bzzzzz! The next text. Please Amy, please talk to me.
Yeah, right.
Bzzzzz! Whatever you think you saw, it wasn’t what you think.
Really? I thought. My eyes are making up stories, imagine that! Hmm...who knew?
Bzzzzz! This one was from Darla: Where the hell are you?
I quickly typed back: At home.
What happened? You disappeared, she wrote back.
And then, bzzzzz! It was Sam. Please, Amy. I’m coming to your apartment. Please. I need to talk to you.
Caught Sam with another woman, was all I could type back as the tears began to cover the glass screen of my phone. I hit ‘send’ then realized I hadn’t sent that text to Darla. I’d sent it to Sam.
Fuck. The phone rang, Sam’s number. I let it dump to voicemail. The phone rang again, Sam’s number. Voicemail again.
If he really was on his way over here, he wouldn’t be able to get into the building without buzzing, and if he buzzed over and over, what would I do? I looked around my apartment. It had been a safe haven, my little place just a couple weeks ago, and now, it was a prison. Better to walk the streets at night and be free than let Sam incarcerate me with a set of lies. Four and a half years ago he’d gone to radio silence when I’d tried everything I could to reach him.
Payback’s a bitch.
I couldn’t go home. Couldn’t leave. Couldn’t stay.
What do you do when you have no options?
When there is no good choice?
You run.
Grabbing my coat, I made sure I had my keys, phone, and some cash, and locked up, the cold night wind all-too-familiar. I’d just been outside an hour ago.
Bzzzz.
The off button called my name, so I shut the damn thing off and proceeded to walk wherever I needed to go to erase this fucking night.
Haunted. For the next hour I was haunted by two memories: the conversation about the party, and seeing Sam in a threesome kiss.
“What are you doing tonight?” I had asked him. “Darla invited me to a party. You wanna come?”
A shadow had crossed his face and he pulled his hands back, it was like being stung. The absence of his touch was stronger than its presence. With half-lidded eyes he had met mine, and then quickly looked away. “I’m working,” he had said.
Working. He and I had very different ideas of what working meant. Apparently, Sam though it meant having his throat tongue-fucked by some woman who was being groped by another dude at the same time. Don’t get me wrong; threesomes are great.
Just not with my Sam.
Late night Boston is filled with drunk college students, drunk middle-age couples who come into town for the chic restaurants and expensive shows, and the homeless beggars. The mix is intriguing, and I definitely stood out as an oddball: while you’d think there would be more girls roaming aimlessly, crying after being fucked over by their boyfriends on a weekend night, I appeared to be the only one.
If you asked me to recount that hour, I couldn’t. The convenience store clerk avoided eye contact as I sobbed my way through buying a candy bar. The chocolate and peanut butter tasted like sour copper in my mouth and I spat it out on the lawn of one of the colleges, leaves marring the perfectly manicured surface, a trash can every twenty feet a reminder of the insistence on order and cleanliness.
Pitching the rest of the candy, I tightened the buttons on my coat and just walked as the summer’s night turned a bitter cold that felt like a mirror of my heart.
And walked.
And walked, calves aching, boots tight against swollen feet. Each step felt like a scar on my heart, each tear like an exhale that pushed more of Sam out of my body and mind. If I could breathe enough and move enough maybe I could stay busy and not have to go still.
In stillness there lies madness.
Once I went back to my apartment and sat down I would have to face what Sam had done.
Had he been a liar all along and I’d never seen it? Been fucking other women behind my back and just played some part of an old flame with me, banging on my heart like it was a cymbal, something to poke for variety from the steady drumline?
Not one bit of this made sense. Sam’s silence four years ago. That mashup at the party. His declarations of innocence and protests now.
Who was Sam, really?
And who was I to be fooled again?
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Hey! Amy!” a voice called out from a car next to me, pulling in to a No Parking zone.
I screamed. “Who? What?” Heart climbing out of my chest, I looked over, legs nothing more than spaghetti with nerve endings, hoping I could attract attention if this person attacked.
“Amy,” the man said, the voice familiar. The window of the car zipped down and Liam’s face appeared. “What are you doing wandering the streets this time of night?”
Of all people.... “Hooking.”
He sputtered. “How much?”
“You can’t afford me.”
“That good?”
“You would know.”
Silence. Then a deep sigh. “Amy...”
“You have impeccable timing, Liam McCarthy. You know just when to proposition a girl when she’s hit rock bottom.”
A shadow covered his face as he startled and pulled back into the darkness of the car. “Ouch,” he whispered, the sound carrying over the sound of cars rushing by, the beeping of crosswalk signals, the distant, raucous roars of clusters of guys like Liam out on the town.
I’m sorry stuck in my throat, because it wasn’t fair. I’d wanted what he offered, too. Right now, though, I didn’t much care about anyone’s feelings. The world could fuck fuck fuckitty fuck off.
“You have claws!” declared a voice that made me groan. A giant puff of blonde frizz pocked out the back window.
“Darla, shut up.”
“I’m not texting your vagina, so you have no right to say that to me.”
“Texting her what?” Trevor. A stretch down and I peered in—the backseat held Trevor, Darla, and Joe.
“Get in the car. It’s freezing.” Darla’s hushed voice scraped against my eardrums. “I’ll explain later, honey,” she hissed to Trevor.
“Joe. Good to see you,” I remarked as I climbed in next to Liam. “How’s Penn?” The car’s warmth felt divine. My legs shook as they began to warm, and my feet cried out in gratitude for the break.
“About what you’d expect.”
“Are you all joyriding?”
“Not exactly,” Liam answered cryptically, driving like a man who knew exactly where he was going. And he did.
My apartment building loomed ahead. So why the whole gang?
“What’s going on?” I asked, craning to catch Darla’s eye. Joe’s hands were all over her, and the two murmured something involving the words “clit piercing” and “anal beads.” M’kay.
“We need to talk,” Liam said in a clipped tone.
“We, who?”
“We, everyone.”
Silence ballooned in the car like an animal’s corpse bloating in the sun.
“Is this an intervention?” I said uncomfortably. “Because let me tell you, of all the people in my family who needs one, you picked the wrong body.”
“It’s—” said Joe from the backseat, interrupting himself. “It’s just something you need to know.”
I pulled my phone out my coat like a dead animal I didn’t want to deal with. Powered it up and looked. Eleven messages from Sam. Six voicemails, three from tonight.
It’s not what you think.
I swear it’s not. Ask Liam.
I’m a stripper for bachelorette parties.
That woman was kissing me.
I didn’t want her.
I wanted you.
I am so, so sorry.
Please call or text back.
Please, Amy. I can’t lose you again.
Please.
And then:
I love you.
My hearing disappeared. The city lights brightened. My throat tightened and a cloak of dread covered me. Turning slowly, my eyes lasered in on Liam as my mouth formed the words, pushed out by the vibrations of my vocal cords, disbelief dripping from my tone.