Reality Can Be Harsher Than Fiction;

I binge, I fail.


T and I are on the phone, and it's mid-morning.
"Who was the last person that slept in your bed with you?" he asks, starting the new round of 20 questions.
"G." I answer back honestly. "Who was the last girl you were getting serious with before me?" I said airily, playing with a bright yellow rubber band. Sunshine is streaming through my window.
He thought for a minute and replied "Jackie". He took a deep breath and said "Who was the last person you kissed?".
I had no intention of lying to him. "G." I said.
"Wait, do you two have like some kind of history or something?" He says abruptly.
"You could say that." I say. I will not make an effort to hide anything. I will not lie to him. I will not be a shitty girlfriend. I will not-
"Didn't you guys hang out last weekend?" He says suspiciously.
"Yeah. He plays at the bar down the road sometimes." I say.
"Uhhh huh. So did you guys ever go out?" He breaths in quickly and clears his throat.
"Nope. So how's your sister?" I reply nonchalantly.
"Todays her birthday. I wish I could see her but my dad's an asshole and doesn't want me near the house." He laughs, no longer sounding worried.
"You're a menace to society." I laugh. The rubber band snaps.




Later after going through my excruciating body inspection in front of the mirror, I finally get into the shower. My phone starts ringing loudly.
"Hey I'm in the shower." I answer, my phone getting soaked.
"I need to come over. I can't be in my house right now." He says, his voice cutting like a knife through the phone.
"Uh, okay sure. Sounds lovely." I say, a nervous ball in the pit of my stomach.
"See you in three hours." He says and then hangs up.

I decide that I'm not going to kiss him, I'm not going to sleep in the same bed with him, and I'm going to tell him it's getting serious with my boyfriend. All of these manage to happen as the night unfolds.


After spending all night jumping from free outdoor concerts to smokey cafes featuring the latest addition to the indie band scene, we go home to begin downing alcohol.
I'm standing in the kitchen, watching him chug small a bottle of pure vodka through sleepy eyes when I realize that he's probably just as messed up as I am. Yet another thing T and G have in common. As I'm staring at him like some fucked up jungle cat, my stepdad comes crashing in through the front door screaming profanities at my mother who is following closely behind, glowing with anger. I watch both of them as if from behind a thick glass. I have once again receded behind the veil and back into myself. G just stands there, watching the show same as I am.

My stepdad flips a table, my mother walks off towards her room slamming doors behind her. My stepdad walks back into the kitchen to turn his anger onto me.
"This is all YOUR fault!" he screams. I giggle, I sway.
"Is that so?" I say smiling. Out of the corner of my eye, I see G. He is out of Vodka and opening a bottle of Jack Daniels. He is amused. My stepdad takes a step towards me and slaps the cup out of my hand. Mike's hard lemonade goes everywhere. "You're a fucking WHORE just like your WHORE mother. How does it feel to know you're bred from a stupid fucking WETBACK." He's so loud the house shakes. G slams the bottle down and bunches up the shirt around my stepdads neck. He shoves him into the wall behind him, and I can feel the vibration in the floorboards. "DON'T YOU FUCKING TALK TO HER LIKE THAT." He yells. I take a step backwards. My stepdad looks stunned. A moment of silence passes in the kitchen, and my mother flys out from the hallway, stomping on the ground with each step. G lets go of my stepdad and my mom stares my stepdad square in the face. "What the FUCK did you do NOW? You just HAAAAVE to piss of everyone, DON'T YOU? HAH! YOU'RE PATHETIC". G turns back towards me. My stepdad is set off again, and they go back to hurling ugly words at each other. G trys to tell them to stop, but his words are overrun. G grabs my hand and pulls me from the kitchen and into my messy room. I notice that all of my problems stem from the kitchen.

"Are you okay?" he says, grasping my hands in his and pulling me to his chest.
"Yeah I'm great. Sorry 'bout that. Tends to happen a lot here." I say slowly. I feel as if I've just ingested a bottle of pain medication. He nuzzles my neck, and I hear a crash and my mother screaming bloody murder. We're both out of my room and back into the kitchen like lightning. There's broken glass everywhere. "SHE TRIED TO FUCKING KILL ME!" My stepdad screams. "TOO BAD I DIDN'T SUCCEED YOU DUMB FUCK" My mother says. She is wielding glass cups, and hurling them at my stepdad, barely missing. Glass is lying in sheets on the floor.
G turns to me, holds my shoulders, looks me right in the eyes and says "Go back to your room." I see him take the cups from my mothers left hand before walking off to my room. I shut my door, and sit down on the bed. There's a feeling in my stomach. A tickle, a lurch. I go to the bathroom, drink down a glass of water and throw it up just to be throwing up. I look at myself in the mirror, still hate myself and so do it again. I rinse my mouth out, and go lie down in my room. I hear G telling my stepdad to let it go. I don't hear my mom and assume she left. My stepdad is yelling at G to tell my mother she's a dumbass. G tells him to stop being a pussy and comes into my room to find me buried underneath my blankets and pillows, attempting to hide from the world. He doesn't say anything but instead gets into bed with me and hugs me.

A few moments pass, and my stepdad suddenly bursts into my room screaming at me. He is telling me I'm a piece of shit. He is stubbing out a cigarette on the frame of my door. He is calling me fat. G groans and says "FUCKING STOP ALREADY." I feel the veil lift, and with this new found sense of being, I feel rage surging through my body. It's so thick I can taste it in my mouth. It tastes like rusted metal. I start laughing. Quietly at first. Then it becomes louder. A horrible, guttaral sound vibrating up from my throat. I am laughing manically. My stepdad is still yelling, but now not as loudly.
I jump from the bed and shove my face in my stepdad's. "SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP." I scream in a voice that doesn't seem my own. I grab him by the hair and pull him down to the ground. "IF YOU OPEN YOUR FUCKING MOUTH. ONE MORE GOD DAMN TIME. IM GOING TO SQUEEZE THE FUCKING LIFE. FROM YOUR JIZZ FILLED LUNGS. DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND ME?" I say, spitting each word into out like spoonfuls of rotten food. He is curled into a ball on the floor, and my mouth is right next to his ear. I am hitting him on the side of the face with my fist, while he screams "stop stop stop!". I feel a pair of hands pulling me off of him. G is holding down my arms to my sides and dragging me back into my room. He is on top of me and I am painfully aware of the fact that my hair is messed up. "ILL FUCKING KILL HIM, I swear to GOD I'll do it. I'll FUCKING KILL HIM, let him FUCKING PUSH ME, get off me, I'm fine, GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME I SAID I'M FINE." I am insane. My stepdad has left the floor near my room and is in his room, crying loudly, slamming things.

"Soph, calm down. Soph, STOP, SOPHIA PLEASE CALM DOWN." G pleads. I burst into tears and feel like a jackass. I am willing myself to stop, but instead my mind goes to what I ate that day. Maybe all of this wouldn't have happened if I had just put down the fork.

My mother passes by the room and coolly says "way too look like a psycho you immature fuck". She tosses her hair and goes into her room with my stepdad. G kicks the room door closed with his foot. We are still lying on the floor, and he is still gripping my hands tightly down. I stop crying. He looks at me and a gaze of pity and sadness sweeps across his blue eyes. He gets off me, and asks me if he hurt me. I say no, even though I know my wrists will be bruised.



We get into bed, and spend the night sitting in silence, holding onto each other tightly. I wonder how I'm going to explain all of this to T.


I wake up the next morning to twenty something text messages from T, and a shit load of voice mails. All of them are along the lines of "Where are you at, what the fuck are you doing with him, answer the god damn phone." When I finally call him, he is insane with jealously. I have to reassure him multiple times that G is just my friend and yes, I still love him, and no, I'm not breaking up with him. After arguing for a good half hour with T about what I was doing and explaining what happened last night, T tells me he feels horribly guilty and he doesn't know what he can do to make it up to me.

I get off the phone with him, and spend the rest of the day sleeping and making out with G. It's hard to stop after you've started, and I'm finally starting to feel guilty. G tells me that if anything like that happens again then I'd better call him so he can get his ass back up here. I apologize and thank him for not being a pussy. Most guys would've left, and I know it's not easy to find someone who's willing to cuss out your stepdad and stay to pick up your kitchen with you afterwards.


He left me in the late afternoon sitting on my back porch looking at the dark bruises on my wrists and arms. I spent the rest of the day binging and picking glass out of my feet.





XOXO Sophia Ruins <3