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starting as I said this and continued as I told
Chris, “I was too busy having what might be the best orgasm ever on
the fucking dance floor, of a fucking club, to fucking stop to ask,
about his fucking business.” Each ‘fuck’ elicited a sweeping motion
from my hands.
    “ Fuck, girl,” was all Chris
could say.
    “ I’m not sure I even want to
go back inside,” I told her.
    “ What?” Chris’ eyes bugged
out.
    “ I don’t know. I’m trippin’.
Can we just bail and go home?” I pled with her.
    “ You know I would do
anything for you—“
    “ And I you,” I
interjected.
    “ But make sure you are one
hundred percent positive you don’t want to go back in there. If I
just nutted to some Wale on the dance floor, I would be up in there
huntin’ mutha fucka down. You sure you wanna just bounce? Take two
seconds and at least think about it, cuz you can’t be yellin’ at me
tomorrow sayin’ I shoulda made you go back in.”
    I felt a war inside me, my body pulling me
back in while my mind was desperate to get out of there and be
alone with my thoughts. I needed to sink into my head and process
what just happened, how he found me, how he remembered me from
Checks. Hell, I needed to figure out why I let him touch me at all.
I usually avoided physical contact with anyone outside of my tight
circle. Working in a tight space with a bunch of guys took me time
to get used to since it was inevitable we were going to bump each
other on a Friday night. Eventually, I adapted and they knew not to
touch me in any other way. I sure as hell never let a man I didn’t
know lay hands on me. Why did I just let this man touch me in the
most intimate way possible? In a public place nonetheless?
    “ Nah girl. I gotta go. I
promise not to hold it against you. This one is on me. There’s no
way I can go back in there.” As promised, Chris acquiesced and
drove me home.

Chapter 3
     
    Over the next few weeks my head was at
capacity. Between volunteering at the center, my classes, work, and
the giant hottie situation, I was in mental overload. It was times
like this I relished living alone. I often joked that I didn’t
cohabitate well. It was the truth though. It wasn’t just the quiet
I liked in order to sort my head out each day that I loved. It was
being able to be fully inside my head, not having to listen to
someone, process what they were saying, and then come up with a
response. My apartment was my haven where I could putz from room to
room lost in thought. I did a lot of that in those weeks after my
run in with giant hottie. Chris and I had been “exploring”
different bars and clubs the past few Saturdays. OK, let’s keep it
real. We weren’t exploring. I was avoiding.
    Growing up I never had my own space. My
mother talked nonstop and yelled when I didn’t listen. When she
wasn’t yapping my ear off, she was raiding my room for drugs and
paraphernalia. She raised a smart girl though, so I got creative in
my hiding places as well as moving them around frequently. It
wasn’t so much that about the drugs, it was about control. My
mother wanted control over me and my sister. When she didn’t get
it, she used her words to make us feel worthless. For me, her
favorite way was to compare me to my sister. She thought this would
get me to work harder to please her like my sister, as well as turn
us against each other.
    My sister followed the rules. She did
everything my parents asked and more. It became her mission to
please them. It was never enough, though. She got a full
scholarship to college out of state, and hauled ass out of my
parents’ house the day after graduation. She left scarred like me.
Our scars were different, but they originated from the same place.
We both desperately needed control to feel safe. Control was like
gold in our household. Whoever had the most was the winner in some
sick twisted game my mother played with out minds. I think the
distance was my sister’s way of attempting to reign in some