“I don’t think so, Bea,” he says simply, and I hate the way my heart sinks into my stomach at his rejection, even as David’s lips twitch in amusement.
“But they might be up for it.” David nods behind me, and I spin around to find Lani, Elise, and Toni—a girl from David’s building we’ve all become friendly with—grinning with mischief.
I jump and squeal and hug them, positively thrilled by the surprise. I’ve seen Lani during class and lunch, and I’ve gotten to know Elise—who Lani is still staying with—pretty well, too. But none of us have gone out much since the weekend Liz was attacked, and I think we all need to blow off some steam.
“Come on!” Lani shouts to be heard over the music. I smirk as I catch Reeve’s eyes rake her from head to toe as she grabs my hand to take me exactly where I want to go. I toss a small, grateful smile over my shoulder at David, whose self-satisfaction is written all over his face.
“I can’t believe he got us in here!” Lani gushes. I don’t ask who she means. I don’t have to ask to know that David did this. He got my friends here. He gave me a night out doing my favorite thing with my girls.
“I didn’t know you were into dancing,” Toni says excitedly. “You should come to my contemporary dance class at the rec center. The instructor dances backup for Lady Gaga!”
Really? But I automatically dismiss the thought. It’s been years since I took any kind of dance class. Still, even as I tell Toni I’m not interested, I wonder if it’s true.
The dance floor is packed tight with strangers, who in any other circumstance would make my head spin and my stomach turn. But they’re not real. They’re just bodies, moving to the same beat that’s had me in its clutches since I walked through the doors.
So after a few minutes of trying to scream a conversation over the music, Lani, Elise, Toni, and I surrender to its power instead. My eyes close, my hips sway, and my feet move in rhythm with each song.
A half-naked girl with enormous, fake breasts and more collagen than human flesh in her Kylie-Jenner-lips comes around with candy-flavored shots every now and again, and we take turns buying rounds.
Freedom. It rushes through my veins and fills my chest. It’s utterly palpable, and even if I still wish David would come out here and experience it with me—share it with me—I’m still more grateful to him than he knows.
I turn to search through the blinking lights and tangle of undulating bodies to try and find David by the bar, but I don’t see him.
I consider asking the girls if any of them saw where he went, but they’re all dancing with guys, and I don’t want to interrupt. I scan the length of the bar, and even though it’s basically a mob scene, I know there’s no way I would miss that dark head of hair towering over the crowd. I scour the adjacent areas next, and I spot him just a minute later, off to the side where the booths are—the mostly empty booths—with a girl in a barely-there black dress. She’s practically on top of him, writhing her body in what can only very loosely be referred to as dancing, while David sways halfheartedly behind her.
So he does dance, after all.
He just doesn’t dance with me.
The way the girl barely catches the floor with each step leaves no mystery as to just how drunk she is, and though I’m far from sober myself, even I can tell she’s in no condition to consent to any kind of hookup. There aren’t many reasons a guy like David would suddenly start dancing, and I fiercely hope he isn’t planning to pick her up in that state. I don’t doubt the girl would jump at the chance to be with him if she was stone sober, too, but that’s not the point.
My stomach rolls. I want to believe I know David better than that. That he wouldn’t do something like that. But his vague irritation coupled with the bored look on his face makes it clear he isn’t in it for the dancing. In fact, he seems downright resentful at having to suffer through it at all. But it would explain his refusal to dance with me, since he only dances with girls he wants to fuck, apparently, and that certainly doesn’t include Cap’s little sister.
I glance back at Lani to see if she’s seeing what I am, but she’s still too caught up with her cute dancing partner to be aware of anything else.
David grabs the girl’s hips, like he’s trying to turn her to face him, but she ignores him, and seductively wiggles her ass against him instead. I still don’t see her face, and when her hand slips behind her to grope his thigh, a feeling too awful to name rushes violently through me, blurring my vision and clogging my throat. I can’t even describe what happens inside my chest. The effect isn’t unfamiliar when it comes to David, but it is sharper than I can ever remember, and I have no doubt that our current living arrangements—and sleeping arrangements—are the culprits. They seem to be convincing my subconscious that I have some kind of claim on him. And that’s a dangerous thing.
Because I don’t, no matter how much it might sometimes feel like I do—or, at least, like I should. But the reality is David owes me nothing—he never has. Unfortunately, reality has never made any of this any easier, or made witnessing him with girls cut any less.
And that’s the worst part. That I don’t actually have a right to these feelings. Not the brutal jealousy or the inexplicable sense of betrayal. Or of inadequacy—that one less inexplicable. They all start shouting inside me at once, an emotional mutiny staged by my own defective mind.
The vast room is suddenly too small, the dance floor so cramped it’s hard to breathe. I close my eyes as the impulse to flee fires from each synapse in my brain to every nerve in my body.
But I don’t.
Instead, I suck in a choppy gulp of air, and silently count the beats to the music the way Dr. Schall taught me when he first started treating me. It’s a coping method that had me skeptical at first—doubtful that something as elementary as counting could help—but as I subtly nod my head to keep time, letting the bass-line guide and soothe me, I manage to get my heart rate back in check. It isn’t always enough, but counting musical beats is only one in an arsenal of mental health tools and strategies I’ve spent the better part of three years of therapy cultivating, and coping has become almost second nature to me. And so has managing my demons.
Anxiety and depression aren’t like cancer. You don’t get to fight the good fight, and, if you’re lucky, beat the disease that tried to destroy you back into submission—or remission. My disease is ingrained not just into my body, but into me. Into the person I am, and everything I feel—everything I’ve ever felt, in some respect or another. And, for that matter, everything I will ever feel, until the day I die.
So how do you defeat demons that are a part of your very soul?
The simple answer—you don’t.
So, instead, I manage them. And it took a long time for me to learn how to do even that. My meds help, too, of course, but considering the time and work I’ve put into my recovery since the night I almost let those demons defeat me for good, I’d say I’ve earned enough of the damned credit for myself. Because the truth is it’s still a constant battle. They still whisper to me. They lurk in the shadows of my mind, lying in wait to exploit my weakest moments.
Moments like seeing the boy I’ve crushed on for years doing his own cocky-yet-detached version of some mating dance with some drunk stranger, who may very well end up sleeping in my bed tonight.
David’s bed, I silently correct myself.
