Page 74 of Tell Me I'm Enough

“Iusedto be a heathen and in a lot of pain.”

“Okay, okay. I’m not trying to get you to drink or make bad choices. I’m just trying to get you to hang out and helpmemake better choices by being my DD.”

“Fine,” he says.

“Hell yeah! I mean…heaven yeah!”

“Shut up,” Erik and Bash say in unison, laughing.

“Hey, what if you meet your future wife at this party…all thanks to me?”

Bash rolls his eyes. “I don’t think she’ll be there.”

I tilt my head and give him a look. “Youneverknow.”

* * *

The house is already in full party mode when we pull up.

Bash parks a little down the street, kills the engine, and twists around to look at me. “I swear,” he says, pointing his finger at my chest, “if you puke in my car, I’m making you clean it with your tongue.”

“That sounds…unsanitary,” I reply, “but noted.”

“I’m also not an Uber, so I’m not bringing any girls back with you. You’ll have to find somewhere else to practice procreating.”

I don’t know why I don’t just tell him I don’t sleep around with any of these girls.

It just feels like…my image at this point, like it makes me less…lame. Not that he would even care. He doesn’t sleep around anymore either.

I just feel like it’s way past the point of telling people, because it doesn’t really matter. I don’t talk about my sex life with people.

I clap him on the shoulder. “Has anyone ever told you how fun you are?”

“Yeah, actually. A lot of girls from the past whose names I don’t remember.”

I point a finger at him. “Fun times, right?”

He shakes his head. “No, not really.”

I’m actually really glad to see how far he’s come this last year. Sometimes I get curious if this version of him is actually happier. The version that doesn’t need to be plastered all the time, the version that found some kind of strength for all the bad crap in God.

What does that even look and feel like?

It seems easier to drown it all out. His way scares me more. It brings everything to the forefront and forces you to deal with it head-on. I don’t really see the point in that method. It wouldn’t change anything for me. I can’t force my dad to love me, I can’t make my mom be undead, and I can’t erase all the girls who made me feel like I wasn’t enough. I’d rather just live in the delusion that I can paint that makes me feel like I’m not all those things they’ve made me feel like I was for so long. When I’m in the middle of a party, with all the attention on me…I’msomeone. When a girl’s hands are all over me…I’mthe one they want,I’mthe one they chase, and I’m not the one looking stupid in the end.

I don’t know…maybe it is all pointless, but at least it’s fun for now. I can deal with the deeper meaning behind that later in life.

It’s chaos inside…the kind I’m used to these days, the kind I like. People are everywhere, the music is louder than my thoughts, and kids are yelling, dancing, and doing shots in every corner of this place.

I’m quickly pulled away by some of the guys, and I get Bash to stick by me for a little while, proving to him that he can enjoy this with me, even sober. But eventually, after enough sloppygirls have asked him to do shots off their bodies or dance with them, he tells me he’s going to grab a Red Bull and sit down for a bit.

I’m right in the middle of a keg stand that Tank convinced me to do when I hear a couple of girls shouting my name, one of the voices sticking out—it’s all glittery, girly, and high-pitched. I lift my head to see exactly who I was hoping was attached to that voice—Simone. She puts her hands to her mouth and screams for me to chug. I finish and hop down, wiping my mouth before walking up to her, smiling.

“Hey, pretty girl.”

She smirks. “Someone’s drunk.”

I shrug and look around. “Isn’t that the point?”