The Art of Being a F*ck Up - Chapter 29: Chapter 29

Just outside my window there are birds singing, peaceful, serene, stupidly unaware that there is no cause for joy when they wake me up. So much of last night is lost, vanished from my mind in a flood of alcohol and missing minutes, but there are still parts that remain. I remember Bill, and Jonah, and I remember why it feels like my head might split in two right now, even though that's not even the worst of it. I had thought what I did to my fiancé—robbing him of his one shot—was the worst thing I could possibly do. I've been hating myself for days because of it, but even that starts to pale when I remember just one more thing from last night.
Maddy.
It's all my fault, the same as everything else, why do I always have to be so fucking stupid? I got careless with her, I didn't see what was happening right under my nose this whole time, and I definitely didn't make it any better by kissing her. That part's a little fuzzy though, and I start to reinvent it, to explain it away or make it not so bad, I tell myself that I didn't kiss her—she kissed me. That makes it okay, right? Well, not okay, but then at least I'm not the one to blame. I'm not really sure what happened after either, but I would've pushed her off, I would've apologized and told her to go home. I wouldn't have betrayed the man I love in the worst way possible. Again.
There was a time where I got so good at lying that I was even able to convince myself to believe those little white lies, and I've almost fooled myself again, but then I hear it. A quiet hum, indistinct almost, one I might just as easily miss if I wasn't so aware now, frozen in a gripped panic as the blankets shift around me. My mind struggles to explain this one away and I can't quite fool myself, but I slowly start to roll over anyway to see just how my night of heavy drinking ended.
"Fuck!" I exclaim quietly, an involuntary squeak that swells up from my throat. When I see Maddy laying in bed beside me I think I might break down in tears all over again. How did she get here? How did I? Even worse than having to wonder what happened is knowing that I haven't the slightest goddamn clue—I can't remember a single thing about last night after that kiss. I mean I know she's pretty, I've always thought that, but I swear to god I'm not attracted to her like that, how would I have even got it up to have sex with her? Watching her in horrifying revelation, sleeping peacefully with her hair in a tangled mess all around her head, I'm reminded that I've managed before.
In a hushed panic I recoil violently, practically falling out of the bed and pushing myself across the floor, all the way until my back is pressed up against the dresser. What am I going to say to her when she wakes up? Does she have any regrets about what we did—if we actually did anything? I'm still trying to find a way to get out of this, but too many of the worst thoughts flood my imagination. What happens now, and were we safe? I don't even have any condoms, it's not like me and Jonah use them. Jonah! How am I ever supposed to explain this? If he finds out it'll be the end—the end of us, and the end of the goddamn world.
All that drinking I did finally comes back for revenge when my stomach heaves uncomfortably, and I scramble to my feet to make a break for the bathroom. I barely fall to my knees in time over the toilet, throwing up what little I have left in me. My whole body shakes and I know none of this is from drinking, but I still wait until I'm sure the worst of it's passed before I get up and go to wipe my mouth at the sink. I still can't stand my reflection in the mirror, but I finally notice the pair of shorts I'm wearing under the same baggy tee from yesterday.
I don't remember putting them on, and if I woke up wearing them then maybe I didn't do anything with Maddy after all. It's a sad and desperate excuse, but it's all I've got. After having puked up my guts I'm still all kinds of panicked, but I try my best to calm down, to think about it sensibly—pragmatically, as Jonah would. I have to talk to Maddy, no matter how much I hate the thought, I need to feel her out to see what all we did. She's smart, sure, and I'm hoping she's smart enough to know that whatever might've happened doesn't mean anything, no matter how small.
When I finally find the courage to leave the bathroom, I'm further mortified to see Devin knocking at my bedroom door. There's no telling how long he's been there, but just the idea that he might wake Maddy when I'm not ready propels me down the hallway to yank him back by the shoulder. He can't know about any of this, best friend or not he's never been the best at realizing when to keep his mouth shut, especially now with how close he's gotten with Grace and even Jonah.
"Whoa, are you okay? It sounded like you fell out of bed, but holy shit, you look rough. What happened to you last night?" Devin asks the million dollar question. It seems like maybe he's already a little suspicious—and why wouldn't he be, he's seen just how shifty I've been with Jonah the past couple days.
"No, it's cool, I think I just drank too much." I force a smile, an ingenuine reaction that feels almost painful spread across my lips. But what's the alternative?
"You got plastered? Seriously? I really could've used your help with your boy. How did this become my responsibility?" My hardheaded best friend continues to make a nuisance of himself, recounting all the ways his virtual date had been ruined by Jonah's moping. It's hell having to listen to him rant, to hear him complain about the most anal things when I would literally give anything to go back and be the one in his place.
"Don't worry about it, man. I'll give him a call in a bit so you can have today all to yourself." It's scary how well I'm able to play it off, how clear I sound and how confident I can pretend to be. But I'm working in overdrive, flushed with adrenaline in a situation that is absolutely life or death.
"It's too late now, fucker. I won't be able to hang out with Grace again until next week."
"I'm sorry, Dev. I just got caught up, what do you want me to say?" I hold my hands out to either side in concession. We're so close, I can tell he's almost about to give up and grumble off somewhere else, but he just has to stay to get in one more cheap shot.
"Well you can start by admitting you're a dick. What the fuck did you get caught up in that's more important than Jonah?" He's only half-teasing, probably expecting that I'll engage in our usual banter, but I'm not sure how to lie my way out of this one. I could, normally, if I didn't have this goddamn albatross hanging around my neck, but it hits just a little too close to home and I wait too long to answer his question. The deer in the headlights look smeared dumbly across my face surely doesn't go unnoticed either, but right before he can dig any deeper the universe sends him the answer he hadn't been expecting.
"What's going on out here? Brent?" The door creaks open slowly to reveal a rarely unkempt Maddy, holding up a hand to shield her eyes from the brighter light out in the hall. My world is ending but it has one final hurrah designed to fuck me over—and not in the way I like. She stares at Devin and then at me, and I stare at her and then at Devin. His dumbfounded stare just bounces between the both of us while some unformed thought trickles out of his mouth in an incoherent sentence.
"Holy mother of fuck," he finally manages, "what did you do?"
"It's not what you think, we didn't do anything." Backed into a corner, I'm out of options. "I wouldn't, you know that. Not with her."
"Excuse me?" Maddy remarks with an intonation that lands somewhere between betrayal and hurt. It's a familiar tone for her, "I'm standing right here, are you serious?"
"Stop." My response is far darker than I intend when I snap at her, and I can tell she's not the only one thrown. Yet I can't bring myself to care about that, to care about her feelings when the only thing on my mind is Jonah. I plead with Devin, "I need you to swear you won't say anything about this, please. I need you to have my back!"
"That's so messed up, man. Are you two, like," the words escape him yet again, and he can't process fast enough to keep pace. Instead he repeats himself with even more revulsion, "what did you do, Brent?"
"Wouldn't you like to know, perv." Maddy butts back in with a sneer. Her vitriol does little for once when he can only stand there aghast, and despite my attempts to reason with him he eventually decides that it's too much. Without uttering another sound he turns and starts for the stairs while I call out and try to stop him, terrified of what he might do. Maddy grabs my arm though, and before I can think I pull away quickly like the touch is physically repulsive. Still, she carries on as if she doesn't realize, "don't worry about him, let him go."
"He could ruin everything!" I nearly shout, reeling myself back in when it hits me that she doesn't give a shit. Maybe it's true she has always been smart, but seeing here her right now I can tell she's not thinking like the fierce animal I know she can be—she's thinking like a woman scorned, like a girl who has been burned one too many times. That makes her far less rational. I rush back into my room, looking for my pants, "just leave, Maddy."
"Don't you think we should talk about this?" She follows me back in, calmer than I had thought she might be. But then, I guess it's not her world falling apart.
"There's nothing to talk about, whatever we did or didn't do, it was a mistake. I shouldn't have let it happen—I should have never agreed to let you tutor me in the first place."
"That's a bit of an overreaction. I get that maybe this is all a little confusing for you, but you were the one who kissed me—don't get it twisted." To think so much blood could be squeezed from such a tiny stone, but she finds a way to blow it all out of proportion, to make it into more than it actually is. As if that's not already bad enough, she does her damndest to make it even worse. "We should talk about it."
"I was drunk, and upset. And lonely." After I've pulled on all my clothes I stand to face her, gutted. I know we've been trying to move passed all the bad stuff from our past, and yeah things were getting better, but what good would talking about it do? Does she really think it meant something, that there was ever a chance of us dating again? The notion makes me so much crueler than I need to be, "and you? You were there. I'm in love with Jonah, that's never going to change, you were just convenient."
"Why are you acting like this? I'm not saying you have to break up with him or anything, but maybe we should—"
"Should what? This is so fucking wrong, don't you get that?"
"All I'm saying is this doesn't have to be, like, some big deal. It happened, and now we have to figure out what we're going to do about it."
"What's that even supposed to mean?" What options are there? There's only Jonah, there will only ever be Jonah. Except now she's here, complicating things, and I went too far with her and I don't know how I'm ever supposed to get back. Is that her point though? Does she somehow think they are the same now—her and Jonah? I reel in shock when her implications dawn on me. "Are you saying you want me to cheat on him? Seriously, you of all people?"
"No. That's not what I said, but don't you dare try to take the moral high ground now—it's not like you haven't done it before." Maddy says coldly, no longer an anomaly, no longer anything I recognize. I understand now that she's the one who has changed, it's her, she's twisted into some terrifying monstrosity, but I don't know how I couldn't see it before. "Look, maybe it's nothing, or maybe it's the reason I haven't been able to find anybody since we broke up, but we can't just ignore what happened last night. We owe it to each other to at least sit down and have a conversation about it. Or at least, you owe it to me."
"No, no I don't." I feel like I've woken up to some parallel universe, or like someone's taken my already shitty life and turned it on it's head. None of this seems real—her, what we did, what I did to Jonah—but she refuses to let me live in denial when she insists that I'm held accountable. I look at her for what she is—desperate, damaged, and worst of all dangerous—and feel nothing but disgust. "You're fucked up. Who did this to you?"
She doesn't respond, and instead she takes what I say and turns it into love, the same as with whatever happened last night. She says no, but if I wanted to, would she totally be fine with having an affair? All of it's so very wrong, but what makes it worse is that it's what she thinks she deserves, as if love is supposed to hurt or be hard, and I want to know why. Still she won't speak but she doesn't have to, because once I've stood still long enough to see her—really see her—I realize I've known all along.
I did this to her.
It was me.
I can't be around her anymore, not like this, so I shove passed her on my way out of the room, but she still calls after me. My first thought is to track down Devin, to talk it through, to win his silence, yet I can't find him. Though I tell myself not to worry I try to call him, and when that fails I try to call Jonah. I'm still unsure of what I'd say, but I need to hear his voice to remind me of what all these lies have been for, to feel better, to find my worth. When he fails to answer too I realize the path I've been walking has taken me to his dorm, but he's not home.
What if I'm too late? What if Devin has already told him everything? My mind is as susceptible to the worst scenarios as always, and I shut my phone off when Maddy won't stop trying to call me. All of this started with that stupid fucking accident last September, and ever since I've done whatever I can to run from it, to stave it off, to fight accepting the truth and consequences of losing the things that made me special. I made the wrong calls though, I only painted myself into this beautiful prison, and now that these lies have caught up with me I can't deny this ugly reality any longer.
But maybe it's not the reality that's ugly, maybe it's always just been me, and for the first time I truly think about letting go, about letting it all come crashing down to shatter around me. I can't control it, I'm all out of little white lies to tell, and the weight of the world which I've always carried has grown to be too much. So I drink. I go to the one place where I've never had to feel like a failure and just get hammered. My phone stays off and I drink until the bar won't serve me anymore, hoping against hope that I can forget for even a second all that I've done—or, when that doesn't work, that the end won't hurt so much.
Tonight proves to be a lot like the last, I lose all concept of time and I'm not totally aware of my faculties, but at this point I don't really care. Is there anything worse I could do? Now I really can't go home because even if Maddy's not waiting for me then I know Devin will be. Everybody probably knows by now, and picturing the agony on Jonah's face makes me want to die. With no other choice I stumble along, unwittingly walking a road I've walked a hundred times before. I wind up at the garage but it's very late and it's obviously locked, but I press my back up against the door and slide down to the ground.
I don't know how long I sit there like that, with no where else to go, but I suspect someone must have noticed because eventually a rickety old pickup pulls into the parking lot, and my dad gets out. I can't imagine what he must think to see me here, drunk, but it can't be any more of a surprise than when he tells me to get in. I'm not entirely sure why I listen, even when no one else will take me, but then I think back to Maddy and it all makes sense because, no matter who we are, who we have the audacity to try to be, we all accept the love we think we deserve.