You were looking for a new apartment. You hate looking for a new apartment. Your friend was being flaky. Didn’t show up to a showing with you, didn’t even know if she was going to stay in the city. She was close with one of your regulars at the bar you two worked at and there happened to be a unit being remodeled in his building right below him. He offered you a viewing of his place to get a feel for the layout. You were supposed to see it after work one day when your friend gets too drunk during her shift to make it to the showing. You don’t have his number so you can’t contact him. He finds you on Facebook and messages you. He was disappointed, she had told him to make dinner for you two and he bought all this stuff. You apologize like crazy and say you’ll make it up to him.

Oh yeah? How’s that? 😉

Bros really know how to turn nothing into something. He’s hot and sort of douchey so you decide to roll with it. He gives you specific instructions. A time and a place. Specific clothing he wants you to wear.  Finally put some use to the hundreds of dollars of lingerie just sitting in your closet. You’re pretty sure things like this don’t happen in real life. You were fresh off work when he texted you to come over so you told him you were just in jeans and t-shirt. He said he needed you anyway.

He was one of those. That guy. With his blonde hair and his baby blue eyes. And those dimples. Oh god those dimples. It should be illegal to have such adorable dimples. Clean shaven, except when he was swamped at work, which was pretty much always. It hurt you, the day you had to write him up for being late to work…again. Your GM made you do it. It was a Sunday. Everyone knows there are no rules on Sundays. But you and your GM had a falling out. You two actually hate each other now. And this guy is his friend too, his roommate. But you had to do it. He’s not happy with you, but that’s expected. It’s so hard to be mad at him. Those dimples. You keep looking at them. They’re just so aggressive. You feel really awful so you treat him to a Sunday Funday after your shifts end at 4pm. He tells you how mad he is at you. You remind him that it’s just for show and that no one will ever check those files.

He delivers your keys to you at work the next day. You were in the basement making buckets of margarita mix.

“Yo McPhee, KOBE!”

You started working at a bar when you were 20. You actually just had your six year anniversary last week. It worked great with your school schedule and it wasn’t bad money. You had only been there for six months until you were promoted to manager. By then your coworkers had become your family. To this day some of them are your best friends. You were in the world’s most amazing relationship the whole time. You and him were in love and you told each other this not even two months in. When his classes started to conflict with his job you took on more hours at the bar. He was studying corporate law. You two planned on getting engaged after graduation and plan the wedding while he was getting his JD. So you took care of his half of the bills and he got angry. Angry that you spent too much time at work. Angry that he wasn’t the provider of the relationship. Mostly just angry when he would run out of weed. One day he told you that you felt more like a roommate and not like his girlfriend. You confided in your GM. You two were good friends and he was also going through a rough patch in his relationship. You two would stay up drinking and talking about it until 6am sometimes. This really didn’t help your relationship but he was the only person that seemed to understand. Soon after the fighting started. You two had never fought before until now. He dumped you every weekend while he was drunk and apologized the next morning with “I’m sorry baby you know I don’t mean it I love you.” After the eighth weekend in a row you told him you couldn’t do it anymore. You ended it. Four years down the drain. Your life was over. And you didn’t know who else to turn to.

You were wandering aimlessly from failed house party to failed house party on night one of halloween. Halloween is a week-long event in college. The first party was dead, the next ran out of beer. Shame, you were just starting to get used to the taste of it. You give up and start to head back to the dorm. Walking back you and your friend stop by an alright-looking house to warm up. Of course it’s almost November and you’re not wearing a jacket. The house belongs to a brand new fraternity so there’s actually a lot of people there. You don’t know what’s in the jungle juice but it’s glow-in-the-dark so you grab some before heading out. When you walk outside you see a boy wearing a tiny cowboy hat shotgun a beer. You recognize him, he lives just a few rooms down from you. You introduce yourself to him and a few more floormates and ask if you can walk back to the dorm with them. You get back and hang out with them down the hall. Your RA is hammered wearing a mullet wig and talking in a hillbilly accent. After talking, you and the boy in the tiny cowboy hat realize you both like zombie movies. You two go back to your room to watch Dawn of the Dead.

You didn’t know anyone at school, but that’s the reason you went away. You needed a fresh start, a whole new chance to be the girl you envied in high school. The effortlessly cool girl that everyone loved. You came here for another reason too: a boy. Of course it’s a boy, you’re still years away from becoming emotionally jaded. He was yours when you agreed to move out of state of he’s not anymore.

Your dormmate is a partier, something you don’t know you have the gene for yet. She knows a lot of people, older guys not living in the dorms. You go with her to their apartment to play beer pong. Beer still tastes like warm stale urine to you so you stick with vodka shots. Not the good kind. He was your beer pong partner that night and had an exam in the morning but that didn’t stop him from inviting himself over to your dorm. It seems strange that he can just walk into a freshman dorm no questions asked. You later see yourself referred to as “his kryptonite” on Facebook after that night.

You were the quiet girl that sat next to the charming star athlete. Football captain, class clown. The kind of guy that yells “FREE BIRD” at any concert. You never said much. School was school. You got your good grades and went home.

There was an assignment. A project every senior has to do. Tell your story. The whole story. The depression, the eating disorder, all the reasons you’ve been the quiet girl in class. The next day he sat down next to you and said hi for the first time. He apologized.

I didn’t realize the things guys say to girls affect them like that. I’m sorry.

His best friend had a crush on you. Was in love with you. He told you many times. You kept turning him down. He had a girlfriend and he was going away. When he moved to college he reached out to you, the athlete that apologized. He took you to dinner and a movie, then back to his parent’s basement. Neither of you told his best friend.

He was the first. First kiss. First relationship. First everything. Late night dates at Denny’s, 3am “I can’t stop thinking about you” texts. He’s the reason you cry when Stevie Wonder comes on. He’s also still in love with his ex. She was the one for him, it was never you. And when she wanted him back, he left. He left your happy world and moved back to hers. It was much darker there. He started drinking. Doing drugs. You watched him turn into a shell of his former self. He catered to her like an eager puppy with Stockholm Syndrome despite being hurt over and over again. He came back to you, after she discarded him again. Broken. Empty, Never sober. It was always after midnight. It was well after midnight when he called you to come outside. Him and his friend had a bottle of vodka. When you woke up the next morning there were grass burns on your arms and blood in your panties.

chicago

You were already tracing your fingers over his collarbone when you woke up. Or came to, whatever. You don’t know the exact words. The hangover has left your brain a little hazy.

You were thinking about someone else’s collarbone. The guy you put your whole life on pause for. He’s with his girlfriend now so you don’t exist to him again until Monday. He texted you “I want to feel you cum” last weekend. You contemplate how to politely tell someone that their boyfriend texted you “I want to feel you cum” last weekend, but this guy has too many naked pictures of you to use as revenge if you fuck up his relationship. One of which he requested yesterday, a few hours before his girlfriend arrived. You feel almost relieved that he chose her over you but you still can’t let it go. He was it for you. You met him and thought, this is it. There’s no one else. You had been closed off for years, hurt from your last relationship, until he came into your life. He brought all the feelings back. All the vulnerability, excitement. It didn’t matter that he was 2000 miles away, you were ready to commit your life to him.

Then the day came he needed to talk. Talk about him seeing someone long-distance. Someone that wasn’t you. You tell yourself she won the battle but you’ll win the war. That when shit goes down, you’ll always be the one there. That no matter what, he’ll always be in your life in whatever capacity you need him to be. That feeling lasted about two days. You knew what capacity you needed him. And he couldn’t do that. Then the crying happened. Thirty-six hours of you bawling in bed, thinking about how he chose her over you. How you put yourself out there, put all the time in, was going to sacrifice everything. And for what?

You eventually have to suck it up and go to work soon. There’s nothing that red lipstick and a pre-shift white wine can’t fix. He made a comment about your red lipstick, the boy you’re currently pretending is someone else.

I like the dark lipstick. Girls don’t really wear that much these days.

It was a busy night at work, you don’t remember why though. You were trying to get through your shift without completely losing it. You’ve exchanged harmless flirtatious comments with this guy before but that’s not new to you. You weren’t voted “Biggest Flirt” at your spot in college for nothing. Today did seem a little different though.

The night goes on and you and your coworkers slowly clock out and gather for your post-shift drinks. You find yourself talking to him. If you didn’t know any better, you’d say you and him were hitting it off. His girlfriend that works for the same company would say otherwise but she’s not here. You are. He usually never sticks around for shift drinks. Naturally, your coworkers are ordering shot after shot for everyone. They’re degenerates just like you.

The next thing you know you’re at a 4am bar with some of them. He’s not there. But then he is. You both mingle with the crowd while giving each other the side-eye. The look. THAT look. Everyone else is leaving now and it’s just you two left.

You wake up naked at his place the next morning. You’re wrapped in a plaid blanket on his couch. Drunk-You couldn’t remember which room was his after going to the bathroom post-hookup so you stayed there. You make your way back to his room, plaid blanket and all, and start to put your clothes on. He wakes up. In that cute sleepy voice all boys seem to have, he says

That’s a good look for you.

You check your phone. It’s almost 9am. You have just enough time for your traditional walk of shame latte before you need to get your life together and go into work again. It’s Saturday so of course you’re working a double. He’ll be there for the night shift.

He’s cut early. You’re still working. He talks to a girl close to your station for a while before he pulls you over and says

“Kelly, have I ever introduced you to my girlfriend?”

You shake her hand and say its so great to finally meet her.

thursday, january 1st 2015

12:31am: Our new years resolution of only one rumple a night = fucked.

12:32am: GODFUCKINGDAMNIT

12:35am: Jeff asks me to switch flannel shirts with him. I tell him he can’t handle my flannel.

12:51am: Whole bottle of 337 –> Rumplemintz –> Talking in my manager’s accent

[Start Sam’s handwriting]

1:01am: Random guy I don’t know is tapping me across the bar with one of those selfie sticks

1:02am: I drank my 4th glass of wine in 41 minutes. I will not go to Thai’s. I will not go to Thai’s. I will not.

1:04am: Kelly goes on a rampage against the Backstreet Boys

[End Sam’s handwriting]

1:12am: Sam doesn’t know Tai’s is spelled without an H. “I thought it was like the country!”

1:17am: Sam adopts a rumplemintz and raises it and loves it as if it were her own

1:19am: My body is a garbage dump

1:36am: “Suck my dick my good friends because this is happening”

tuesday, december 30th 2014

12:42am: #COOLTHEJETSTHEREHOMESLICE

12:45am: Alyssa and I have had no Rumplemintz tonight and we will keep it that way

12:59am: We decided bottles of Natty are a better idea #TheHumpty

1:10am: It’s called Instabang and it’s 100% totally free #MelvinWouldHaveThis