And then of course my mind shifts toward him. “Go away!” I mutter and begin to sing the lyrics to drown out the unwelcome thoughts.
“Maybe I’m just crazy; maybe I’m a fool….”
I sing the words on autopilot, my thoughts scattered and loneliness setting in. It’s been six months since Rick and I called it quits. Six months since I walked in on him in bed with another woman naked and moaning after being with him for a year. The player who swore he’d changed just for me obviously hadn’t. So I took his key off my ring, then walked away from his apartment with a promise to never be that girl again.
After working so hard at my relationship with him and it ending the same way that my previous two relationships had, I vowed to revisit my undergrad days of casual dating where it’s fun and uncomplicated. Sex without strings, without happily-ever-afters. To never date a player again.
So now I ask myself: Why have I been fine for the past six months, not a day spent moping since my ego was bruised yet again and I swore off men, but now I’m sitting here wanting a guy to keep me company? And a complete player nonetheless.
The song switches and of course it’s a Bent song. The irony. The person behind the voice on the radio is the reason I’m feeling this way when I don’t want to be. He’s irritated me enough to get under my skin and that takes a lot to do.
Rylee’s words sift through my mind. I need to have some wild, reckless sex. The funny thing is I have been, so why do I feel so unsatisfied? Just as quickly the answer hits me—because it’s sex without emotion. It’s akin to having the ice cream to make a sundae and then realizing you don’t have any toppings, cherries, or hot fudge. You eat the ice cream nonetheless, but you aren’t fully satisfied.
My phone rings and I welcome the distraction from my pathetic thoughts that compare sex to sundaes. Yes, I’m in desperate need of help. Or an intervention.
“Hey, Layla!” I greet my oldest and dearest friend.
“I need to get drunk,” she groans.
“And I need to get laid,” I confess. Then I toss my pen on my open book next to me, thinking that maybe the physicality will clear my head from thoughts of a particular rock star.
“Well shit, that sounds like the perfect combination to me.” She sighs, my ever-ready partner in crime.
“True.”
“But I’ll stick to the drunk part…. Last time I wasn’t too successful at the getting laid thing. I’m no good at it. I was with Sean way too long to remember how to play this game.”
“Lay, you played the game just fine … but I think you scared the shit out of the guy you determined was your fun for the night.” I laugh as I recall the look on the poor guy’s face.
“You think it was too much?”
“Telling the guy your vagina needed a hug and could his penis provide it? Yeah. Just a tad much.” She starts laughing with me because the deadpan expression she had when she asked the question was so damn hilarious.
“I was drunk. And horny. Can’t fault a girl for trying.” I love her and her take no prisoners attitude.
“It was one for the record books,” I confess.
“So let’s try again tonight. I promise I’ll be on my best behavior this time around. Let’s go find some hot guys and have a fun-night-stand.”
“I’m just, ugh …” I laugh. “It sounds so easy, but it’s always more complicated than that.”
“Like what? The hangover or the walk of shame the morning after?” she asks.
“Both. Remembering names, that awkward moment when you randomly see each other on campus … Shit, I’ll take the hangover and get myself off to avoid all of that. After Rick the Prick,” I say with a sigh, “I’m done for a while.”
“Yeah that’s funny. I think I heard that before him and the guy before him,” she teases with nothing but the truth. “Besides, never date a guy with a name that rhymes with prick or dick. There’s just something wrong with that…. It’s like you’re just asking for him to be one or something.”
“It makes dirty talk easy though in case you forget his name in the heat of the moment,” I explain, knowing from experience.
Her contagious laugh fills the line—the one that gets me every time. “So you in? Wanna go drink away our sorrows?”
“Sorrows? Since you can’t say happiness without saying penis, I’m assuming it has to do with a man…. What’s going on with you?” I ask, immediately concerned although I think she’s handling her breakup rather well considering the length of time she and Sean dated.
“Ugh! I had my first help session today, and I already want to stab my eyes out from giving the same explanation over and over,” she says, referring to her question-and-answer session for students who need help grasping the concepts in the main lecture. But then again, I don’t understand what a TA session has to do with a man.
“We were probably just as bad when that was us.”
“I know! But add to that Sean stopped by to make sure that I was okay—like he really cares—and all I really wanted to do was knee him in the nuts.”
“Well,” I muse, finally getting to the heart of her trouble. “At least you’re progressing from wanting to cry over him to wanting to inflict the pain he deserves for dumping you.”
“I know,” she says, then the line falls silent for a moment. I know she’s trying to sound strong, like their breakup hasn’t hurt her deeply, so I give her the silence to regain the fraudulent resolve in her voice. She sighs, her sadness palpable. “So see, we need to go out and have a drink. Celebrate us not being whiny first years and maybe have another three or four to make us forget the fact that we both need to get good and laid.”