Trigger/Content Warning: Sexual Assault
Madison’s latest “kind of” boyfriend dumped her on Monday. Madison had predicted he was going to drop her, and didn’t stop talking to all the other “kind of” boyfriends she had, just in case, but I could tell that she was hurt regardless. By Friday, we had decided to just call one another our dates for Valentine’s Day and go downtown to celebrate.
On the Lyft ride downtown, Madison and I talked about our respective jobs’ work gossip to make the driver think she was more sober than she really was. The three shots we took before leaving hit Madison much harder than mine had hit me, so she had to put in much more work than I did. She lamented that she’s the only competent one at her work. I sympathized with her by telling her how frustrated I was with my coworker Matt, who wasn’t pulling his weight whatsoever.
“How is it working with him? I mean… isn’t that uncomfortable?” Madison asked, lowering her voice. Madison had asked me this before, but I think she just couldn’t recall my previous answer after our three shots of tequila.
“It’s whatever, I’m tough. I’m more annoyed that he won’t do his work.” I shrugged. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it wasn’t a whole lie either. It was the only answer I could really give her in that context. I didn’t need my Lyft driver to know how I was doing emotionally after having to go back to work with the man that assaulted me four months earlier. I tried to just treat Matt like the rest of my coworkers and avoided bringing up that night every time I talked about him. It was the smallest thing I could do to try and get back to normal. Madison, probably already forgetting that she had asked the question, accepted my answer and started talking about something else until we got to the bar.
Bombay’s is the only bar downtown that does security checks before letting people in, and it’s the most popular bar for people looking for a traditional clubbing experience; so, they always have a line. That night the line was stretched almost halfway down the block and in front of us was a group of three guys and a girl. The whole group had obviously already been drinking, and the girl quickly became friends with Madison and I.
She asked us if Bombay’s was worth the line, where we got our outfits from, if we knew that we were so pretty, and all the other things that drunk girls talk to each other about. I took a backseat to the conversation; Madison and the new girl were on a similar level of intoxication that I hadn’t quite reached yet. The closer we got to the front of the security line, the more dread I felt about going into the club. Before I was assaulted, I loved going to clubs. I grew up going to small, ratty, punk shows and the dense crowds of other bodies felt comfortable to me. After I was assaulted, I was too hyper aware of how awful other human beings could be to be comfortable letting them that close to me; unless I was drunk, which I unfortunately wasn’t.
One of the three boys lit up a cigarette and I asked if I could bum one off of him. I usually didn’t smoke while I was still this sober, but my anxiety was getting the better of me and
I needed to calm down before we went inside. Madison started flirting with one of the other guys in the group; getting sloppy at a much quicker rate than usual.
“God, she is so drunk.” I muttered, exhaling smoke and trying to focus my breathing.
“Quincy is pretty drunk, too.” Cigarette boy responded, referencing the victim of Madison’s drunk advances, “He got fired earlier this week, he’s taking it pretty hard.”
“Really? That doesn’t seem super healthy.”
“Yeah, he was a realtor. I don’t really know why he got fired, but I’m not too surprised, he’s never taken anything too seriously.” He paused to take another drag, “He keeps handing girls his old business card to make them think he’s still a realtor, but if you go to the website he’s not on there anymore, it’s getting old really fast.”
“Huh, wild.” I said, trying to avoid the conversation.
“Quincy’s my brother, by the way, so I’m allowed to get tired of his shit.”
I nodded, and after a brief silence I asked “What’s your name, by the way?”
“I’m James.” He responded.
“I’m Jennifer. That’s my friend Madison up there.” There was more silence after that, both of us focusing on our cigarettes.
“Is this line actually worth it?” He asked. I shrugged.
“Depends on how drunk you are, depends on what scene you’re looking for.”
“You don’t seem to be looking for that kind of scene, are you even drunk?”
“A little bit, I could be drunker.” I replied, mentally counting the number of people separating us from the man that would pat us down to check for weapons.
“I don’t think this is a good bar if you need to be drunk to have fun.” I shrugged again. “It’s where Madison wants to go.”
“Figures, this is where Quincy wanted to go too.”
“Love that for us; just going where our drunk friends want to go.” I smiled at him, trying to make my sarcasm obvious. He smiled back and rolled his eyes.
Out of all the guys around me, James was easily the cutest. I was really bad at telling when guys are interested in me, but I had a feeling that James was by the way he kept trying to keep our conversation going. He wasn’t nearly as drunk as the rest of his group, and I decided that he would be a good guy to stick with for the rest of the night. Or, at least, as long as Madison was sticking with Quincy.
The inside of Bombay’s was as packed as an amusement park in the middle of summer. Trying to walk from one point in the bar to any other was a mission, and if you wanted to go somewhere else that choice was a commitment. Madison and Quincy immediately went to the bar, where Quincy was going to order Madison whatever she wanted. My anxiety was getting worse by the second, so I turned to James and asked if he wanted to get a drink, too.
“No, I think I’m gonna leave. The Whiskey Bar up the street is much more relaxed.” He looked around uneasily, “You’re more than welcome to come with me.”
“What about your brother? Your friends? You’re just going to leave them?”
“Yeah, they’re adults. They’ll be fine.” He said matter of factly. I thought about leaving with James, but I knew I couldn’t leave Madison. She was an adult, and she wasn’t technically my responsibility, but I’d worry about her all night if I left her at Bombay’s by herself. If I told her I wanted to leave, she’d insist on staying; not because she’s selfish, but because this is normally where we have the most fun. I tried not to let her know how anxious this place made me feel, I didn’t want her to have less of a good time because I’m sensitive now.
I patted James on the shoulder and turned to find Madison at the bar, letting him know my choice. I found Madison with two mixed drinks and a beer bottle in her hands.
“Here, I need you to take one of these.” She ordered, handing me one of the mixed drinks. “Can you believe I already scammed this man out of three drinks?”
“Madison, I’m sad.”
“No, don’t be sad! Look, I scammed THREE drinks out of this man!”
“Yes, but I’m sad because James left and now you have someone and I don’t.”
“Men are so dumb. Look, drink that drink and we’ll go find you another man.” Finding men was always just that simple for Madison. She didn’t have to go through the same potential threat assessment that I did when I met someone new. Still, I knew that the drink would calm me down and I could at least have some fun, so I linked arms with Madison and we downed the mixed drinks together like a newly married couple.
On the dance floor, finally buzzing enough to ignore how anxious all the people were making me, Madison and Quincy made a spectacle of how much they were attracted to each other. She had her back to his front, and kept twisting the upper half of her body to make out with him. I kept trying to grab Madison’s hands so she would dance with me for a little bit, but she refused to let her hips ever disconnect from Quincy’s. Soon, I felt someone come up behind me and start mirroring how Madison and Quincy were dancing. A random hand on my hip made me start to turn, but Madison stopped me.
“Jennifer, he’s cute! Just keep dancing with him and get some free drinks,” she said. I knew she was wrong, but I didn’t want to go back to dancing awkwardly by myself. So, I let what was happening keep happening. Madison’s drink started hitting her hard and she kept falling on to me, pushing me closer and closer to the stranger behind me. I guess he couldn’t tell that I was backing it up on him because of my drunk friend’s clumsiness, and instead took it as a sign of my interest.
He moved his hand from my hip down to my inner thigh, then swiftly up my dress. My whole body tensing, I grabbed his hand and moved it back to my hip, back above my clothes, but he was no longer content with just that, so he moved his hand back up my dress.
“Madison, I have to go to the bathroom right now.” I shouted over the music, grabbing her and starting to walk towards the bathroom.
I heard the man shout behind me, asking where I was going, but I ignored him and relied on the dense crowd to seperate us. Quincy clung to Madison as we made our way to the
bathroom. Madison insisted on stopping at the bar to get more shots, which Quincy happily obliged.
Every muscle in my body was screaming at me to get out of that bar; to go anywhere else, anywhere that I could keep myself safe, anywhere that men couldn’t use the cover of a crowd to touch me. Quincy ordered three tequila shots, and I told Madison I had to leave. She begged me not to go, but refused to leave with me.
I told her she had her phone, and I had my phone, and we’d find each other when she was ready to go, but I had to get out of there right that second. I kissed her cheek and started pushing my way through the crowd to the exit.
The second the cold night air hit my face I felt relief. I leaned on a wall outside of Bombay’s and wrapped my arms around myself, focusing on my breath and longing for another cigarette. All the spots on my body that the stranger on the dance floor had touched me felt raised and red, like his fingertips were red coils from a stove top.
The burns I felt on my body interlaced with the ones left on me from Matt, which went from being flat scars under the surface of my skin to raised and inflamed once again. I felt the unwanted caresses of men all over me again, thinking about how stupid I was to be drinking again after what Matt did when I was drunk. If I could have shed my skin on the spot, I would have. Tears welled up behind my eyes but I knew I couldn’t cry out on the public sidewalk like that, so I pulled out my phone to distract myself.
I had a text from Madison: U good?
I responded and told her that I was fine, but I didn’t want to come back in.
Okay, shape u need. Josh bought me tee shots.
I responded with a question mark. I was pretty sure she meant Quincy bought her ‘tee’ shots; Josh was the name of the guy who dumped her on Monday. I sure hoped he didn’t show up to Bombay’s and start buying her shots.
Where r u
I responded that I was outside. The bubble that told me she was typing popped up and then disappeared three different times, but no more messages came from Madison. I stared up at the pitch black sky and tried to dissociate from my body.
Memories from the night that Matt assaulted me kept flashing in and out of my consciousness, and I tried my best to just let them pass without focusing on them too much. I started to look around for anyone smoking, knowing that the routine of inhaling and exhaling nicotine would help me regain control of myself. The only people outside smoking were men, though, and I decided I’d rather digress into a full blown panic attack than interact with any more of them that night.
“Yay! There she is! I missed you!” I heard Madison shout, seeing me as she exited the bar. Quincy was holding one of her arms, but she still walked like the sidewalk was the deck of a ship in uneasy seas. At no point were her legs completely upright, she just went from various degrees of bent knee until she found her destination in my arms.
“Wow, look at you! You ready to go home?” I welcomed her like a toddler.
“Josh bought me three shots of tequila and I took all of them back to back to back to back like a bad bitch.” She whispered in my ear.
“Josh? You mean Quincy?”
Madison started laughing. “Yes! Quincy! Quincy bought me shots!”
“Okay, I think it’s time to go home, Maddy.” I smiled at her, happy that even though she wasn’t making the best decisions, at least she was happy.
“Yes, I think so too. Quincy is gonna come with us too.”
I lost my smile and walked Madison over to a nearby bus stop bench. Once she was sitting, I squatted down and looked her in the eyes.
“Madison, this man is not coming home with you. You are not fucking this man tonight, do you understand me?”
Madison nodded, obviously not understanding me. Quincy took a seat next to Madison and started whispering in her ear.
“He’s so nice to me, though. He loves me,” she insisted.
“He doesn’t know you, Madison. He’s staying here and we’re going home.”
“You don’t understand, I’m in love with her. I am so attracted to her,” Quincy interjected.
“That’s so great for you two; I don’t give a shit. I’m taking my friend home.”
“Jennifer! Why are you being like this? We’re in love! You can’t be like this with us because you’re upset that you didn’t find anyone tonight. Don’t be bitter,” Quincy shouted.
“Shut the fuck up dude; stop talking to me. Madison, let’s go home.”
“Okay yeah let’s go home; Quincy can come with us,” Madison replied.
“No. He cannot.” I kept my tone even, but stern.
Madison looked me up and down and whispered something to Quincy. She turned to face me directly and held my face in her hands.
“I love you. You’re doing this because you love me, and I love you so much that I want to fucking kill Matt. Fuck Matt; everytime I see him I want to just kick him in the balls and kill him because he hurt you,” she started losing her train of thought and trailed off.
“I love you too. That’s why I’m going to take you home.”
“And he’s going home with us and he’ll just sleep on the couch.”
“Yeah I’ll just sleep on the couch!” Quincy piped up again.
“If you two are really in love, you’ll still be in love tomorrow and you can just see him then.” I said, fighting the fruitless battle of reasoning with drunk people.
“I don’t even want to go home, let’s keep going out.” Madison said, trying to stand up.
“Madison, you can’t even walk, let’s just go home,” I pleaded with her. Instead of listening, she started running. Quincy jumped up from the bench and caught up with her as she crossed into an intersection.
“Yeah baby, let’s run away from that bitter bitch,” he yelled as they giggled together. They crossed the street, with me only four feet behind them, walking briskly. I refused to run after her, because I knew she wasn’t going to last long upright. Soon after crossing the street, Madison hip checked a planter and fell into it before rolling onto the sidewalk, still giggling.
Quincy helped her up and tried to continue going up the street. He was drunk too, but he could walk and he was so much stronger than her. I ran to catch up.
“Get the fuck off of her right now,” I shouted, wrapping my arm under her armpit and shifting her dead weight from his body to mine.
“I’m just trying to help.”
“I don’t fucking care, get the fuck away from her. Madison, let’s go sit down.” The store front behind us had a window ledge large enough to be a seat, where I led Madison, with Quincy following behind. Once they sat down, Madison started making out with Quincy again, until her slow sliding descent off of her seat and onto the floor prevented their mouths from meeting. I pulled her back up onto her seat and fixed her skirt. Quincy reached for her face to continue their spit swap fest.
“That’s enough. Get off of her,” I told him while Madison started mumbling incoherently.
“You know, I’m not a bad guy. You don’t even know me. If you knew me you’d know I’m a really good guy. I’m just really attracted to your friend and you have to be okay with that.”
“Well, I’m not. Now stop fucking talking to me. We’re going home.” I opened the Lyft app on my phone and started typing in Madison’s address.
“Jennifer, I hate Matt so much. I love you so much and I hate what he did to you. I wish he was here right now because I would beat his ass. You know we’re going to jump him for you. We really are. I love Josh, though, and-”
“His name isn’t Josh you drunk bitch.”
“Whatever! Quincy! I love Quincy and I’m okay. He’s not going to hurt me.”
“You’re right, he’s not going to hurt you because I’m not going to give him the opportunity to. I’m taking you home.”
“Jennifer, not every guy you meet is going to be like Matt. Josh is a good guy. We’re in love; why are you trying to stop that because of Matt!”
“Yeah, I’m a really good guy,” Quincy confirmed.
“His name isn’t Josh you drunk bitch,” I repeated, trying to focus on the task at hand and reminding myself that she didn’t mean what she said. The two love birds kept working on convincing me that they were in love and the world would absolutely end if they did not end up in the same building tonight. I started doubting myself and considering the possibility of just giving in, given that I had truly tried my best and Madison couldn’t be mad at me the next day for just letting her do what she wanted.
The night I was assaulted I was drunk and heartbroken like Madison. The boy that I was sure was the great love of my life had told me point blank that he didn’t reciprocate my feelings earlier that week. I had gone on a few dates with Matt earlier in the year, and while I knew he wasn’t a good solution to my heartbreak, I knew that making out with him at our work party would at least make me feel better. There was no one there that insisted they take me home instead of letting him. No one intervened to ask if I was okay when I was black out drunk
making out with someone who was completely sober and much older than me. Everyone just let me do what I wanted. I wasn’t going to let Madison have the same experience.
“You need to leave right now. She’s drunk and you’re being a creep.” I told Quincy, who immediately started protesting, “I don’t give a fuck how you feel. You need to leave right now and get the fuck away from my drunk friend.”
“Jennifer, calm down!” Madison yelled, clutching Quincy closer to her. I thought of how badly I begged Matt to come home with me that night and how much I trusted his reputation as a good guy.
“No, you need to leave,” I repeated.
“I’m a good guy! I’m sorry no one loves you!” Quincy shouted.
It hurt, because I was pretty sure he was right. No one loving me didn’t mean that I couldn’t love Madison.
“You have until the count of 5 to start walking away,” I threatened.
Quincy protested, but much like a child, as I started counting up to five his resolve weakened. When I reached five he was standing, but not leaving, so I shoved him and reminded him that I wasn’t drunk like Madison or scared of what he might do in response.
He started walking towards the other bar that his friends were at, and Madison forgot about him the second he was out of eyesight. Our Lyft was five minutes away.
“Jennifer I have to pee.” She mumbled.
“You can pee at home, do you feel sick?” Madison shook her head in response. The Lyft almost didn’t want to take us because of how drunk Madison was, but the driver agreed to take us back to Madison’s apartment, on the condition that she wouldn’t throw up in his car.
Once in the car, Madison kept spitting on herself, trying to get the taste of the last three tequila shots out of her mouth. Our driver handed me a napkin that I held under her mouth, collecting the spit before it had a chance to get on her top, or, more importantly, the inside of the car. She started slumping over in the back seat further and further and every time I thought that she was almost asleep she spit into my hand a little bit more. Until, instead of spit, something much warmer and denser came out of her mouth, into my hand, up the sleeve of my long-sleeved dress, all over her legs, and the inside of our Lyft’s car.
I scrambled to roll down the window and shove Madison’s head out of it for her to finish vomiting. I held her head out of the window despite her cries that she was cold and needed to be let back in. I was finally feeling all of the frustration I had been suppressing throughout the night.
“No, you have to let everything out before you can come back in!” I shouted over the sound of the freeway wind coming through the window. She kept throwing up, but even when all of her physical sickness was out of her system, she had more to let out. Madison started screaming and wailing into the night. She sobbed with her whole chest and asked whoever she thought was listening to her why Josh didn’t love her. I was so over dealing with her actions, but my empathy returned as I thought how relatable she was at that moment. Her screams out of the window were her expressing her pain in its purest form, and every time she let her chest drop to let out another sob I felt mine dropping with her.
I let Madison back into the car and wrapped my arm around her. I was already covered in her vomit, so I didn’t let that stop me from cradling her for the rest of the ride. I stroked the parts of her hair not covered in sick until she finally fell asleep.
Our driver kept shouting and pointing out how ‘not cute’ she was, and that she needed to get her shit together, but I paid him no mind. There was nothing beautiful about the makeup running down her face and the tequila scented vomit that she had covered herself in, but there’s never anything beautiful about pain. She didn’t need to be reminded of that, she needed to be loved. She woke up only to start crying again, with no signs of potentially stopping until she fell asleep.
Our Lyft driver dropped us off in front of Madison’s apartment, and I spent the rest of the night caring for Madison the way I knew I should start caring for myself.
