“I’m goin’ to get c-cleaned up,” I stammered, trying to hold back the tears I wanted to shed.
“No.” Damien frowned. “Please, we have to talk about this. What I mean is—”
“I don’t think anythin’ you have to say will make me feel better.” I cut him off, trying my hardest to keep my emotions in check.
“Alannah—”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s fucking not,” he countered. “I knew this was a bad idea. Just look at how upset you are! This is why I’ve tried to stay away from you. You’re a good girl, and I knew you’d let your emotions take centre stage. This was a mistake!”
His words were the truth, and I think that was why they pained me so much.
“You were right. This was a mistake, but I’ve made it.” I swallowed. “And I’ll learn from it, too.”
Damien reached for me, but I moved farther away from him and headed towards the door I assumed led to a bathroom.
“I don’t want to speak to you anymore, Damien,” I said as I opened the door. “Just … Just go away. Please.”
I never wanted to speak to him again.
“Lana.”
“Alannah,” I said, my hold on the door handle tightening. “Me name is Alannah.”
I entered the bathroom, closed the door behind me, and locked it. Numbly, I relieved myself and cleaned up as best as I could with small pieces of tissue paper. The evidence of blood reconfirmed that Damien had just taken my virginity, and it brought a bitter taste to my mouth. Instead of leaving the bathroom, I leaned my back against the wall and slid down it until my behind hit the floor.
I wasn’t sure how long I sat there, but it was long enough for the tears that flowed from my eyes and splashed onto my cheeks to dry. Between my thighs felt strange—like a sweet tenderness I couldn’t shake. I thought I heard raised voices, and when I heard a knock on the door, I flinched.
“Lana?” I heard my name being softly spoken. “It’s me. Can I come in?”
Bronagh.
I stood, moved over to the door, unlocked it, and then sat on the closed lid of the toilet. Bronagh entered the bathroom and quickly closed and locked the door behind her. She kicked off her heels, bent down to her knees, and then reached forward and engulfed me in a tight hug. When I put my arms around her, I released a pain-laced sob.
At that moment, I was both hurt and mortified. I realised I had thrown myself at Damien like I had no shame, and now, shame was all that filled me. I couldn’t begin to form the words to tell Bronagh how forward I behaved for fear that she would judge me, so I kept my mouth shut.
“It’s goin’ to be okay, Lana. You’re strong and won’t let an annoyin’ American prick get you down, right?”
I managed a snort as I pulled back from our hug. I grabbed some tissue to wipe the snot running from my nose. I was a mess, and I knew I looked as bad as I felt.
“Ye’know somethin’?” I sniffled. “I know Nico is your fella, but I thought he was the prick and Damien was the nice one. I was so wrong. Nico is honest and has always been ’imself whether you like ’im or hate ’im. Damien, though ... he is like a snake in human form. I hate ’im.”
I couldn’t fault Damien for being upfront before we had sex, but the lies he spewed during and the bullshit shit excuse he had for saying them afterward angered me.
“If it makes you feel better,” Bronagh interjected. “Dominic really is a prick, I had a huge fight with ’im before I came in ’ere.”
I started laughing through my tears, but I frowned when Bronagh sat down on her behind and winced at the contact. It was a reminder that she was no longer a virgin either, but her first time had been magical, while mine had the magic sucked from me ten seconds after ending.
“I just realised we both lost our virginity tonight to the twins.”
“Well ... at least we can be sore and hate them together.”
I was still upset—that didn’t even begin to cover it—but I laughed at Bronagh’s joke, and the carefree sound helped a tiny bit. Even with my friend by my side making me laugh, I couldn’t help but feel like a layer of stone had just sealed itself over my heart. I silently vowed that I would never willingly put myself in a situation where I would feel pain like this again.
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
I called Bronagh’s name when the silence surrounding us was snatched away, and a loud thumping noise could be heard from outside. I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew Damien had left the room with the door open and fled down the corridor and back into the club. Getting as far away from me as he possibly could.
The fucking coward.
Bronagh looked at me when I spoke.
“Yeah?”
“Are you ready to go back outside?” I quizzed. “I can hear ‘RAMPAGE’ bein’ cheered now that they’ve stopped the music for the fight.”
Things were a blur of activity as Bronagh jumped to her feet, put her heels back on, and pulled me out of the room and back down the corridor to the club. Bodies of all shapes and sizes crowded around the platform where Nico and another fighter stood. I couldn’t concentrate with the noise and sea of people surrounding me, so when Bronagh broke through the crowd to reach Nico after he won the fight, I stayed just long enough to hug her when she returned to my side. The second she became solely focused on Nico, I slipped away from her and headed out of the club.
When I got outside, no one was around, not even the bouncers who had granted us entrance to the club hours before. I was glad to have a moment’s solitude so I could try to wrap my head around what happened. I sat on the curb and fought off a fresh batch of tears.
This is a disaster.
There was never going to be a ‘Damien and Alannah’ in the way I wanted, and he made sure of that. No, we made damn sure of that. He took my virginity, but I was the eejit who practically begged him to take it. For that, I had no one to blame but myself ... and my godforsaken hormones.
Damien pursued our intimacy with no illusions or lies coated in pretty words—until he got what he wanted. Beforehand, he said he didn’t want a relationship, he just wanted sex, and for me to feel so broken over him keeping his word was foolish. In the back of my mind, I’d silently hoped that once we had sex, Damien would want to be with me. If that wasn’t the dumbest misconception filling the heads of teenage girls around the world, then I didn’t know what was.
The pain in my chest was nothing like I had ever felt before, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I needed Bronagh. I needed my friend. I heard a noise behind me, and I wasn’t sure why, but because I thought of Bronagh, I just assumed it would be her. I wanted to look around, but a sudden case of dizziness struck me, and I had trouble remaining upright. Just when I thought my head and vision were clearing, I felt a hard knock on the back of my head like someone had hit me, and it was followed by my body falling backwards.
It didn’t hurt, and the first thing I thought of was that if someone hadn’t hit me then I was passing out because I had drunk alcohol for the first time. I figured my emotional roller coaster had pushed my body into stress-out mode, and as a result, my mind just switched off. I was glad of it. I was glad when I found myself facing darkness because, at the current moment, darkness was a more welcoming sight than the thought of Damien Slater. But I wasn’t granted that peace. Before I completely lost consciousness, the last thing I heard was his words.
It’s not that I can’t keep you, Lana; it’s that I don’t want to.