Page 38 of Dirty Chorus

The second I stepped through the door, Mom grabbed me by the ear, tossing me to my room. The door slammed so hard, the entire house rattled.

Acid swims in my stomach, my mouth waters. My palms become clammy at the thought of this week being excruciatingly awful. There’s no way in hell I’m telling her I’m hanging out with Noah. If she even finds out I’m slightly into a guy with tattoos and a love for guitars she's going to go ape shit. I sit in silence, watching Mom’s mouth move, her muscles in her throat straining with the words, her eyebrows crunched so hard together those lines will be stuck there forever.

I’m fairly sure at this point my face is turning pale and green. I need a trash can, a toilet, anything, and fast. My eyes dart around the room, and the bin is right by my door. I cup my mouth, making a break for it and hurling straight into it. I fall to my knees, cradling the trash can like it’s my favorite teddy bear, and lean against the wall.

“You were out drinking, huh?” Mom continues to interrogate me as if I committed murder. I wish this hangover had kicked in earlier, and maybe I would have been able to fight off the dreadful headache. “And what the hell is that?” She pulls my hair away from my neck.

I swat her hand away and yell back, “Yes! Yes! I have a fucking hickey!”

“Who the hell are you hooking up with?”

Noah in the church bathroom. I heave into the trash bin again. There’s nothing in my stomach, just bile and remnants of the whiteclaws I devoured. “He was nice to me.” My lips curl under my teeth, and I pound my head against the wall.

“Yeah, well, Brody was nice to you, too. I’m not going to deal with your bawling on the phone again. You would constantly call Brody when he didn’t give you the time of day. Remember that? Remember me taking your phone for a straight week?”

I slam the back of my head into the wall, blinking my eyes a million times to wash those memories away. Our first month of dating, I couldn’t sit still. Brody had a way of sweet-talking me, telling me I was the perfect girl in the entire world for him. We were going to run away together. That I was the only one who understood him. Then he’d go dead silent. I’d see the Instagram stories of parties he went to. I’d call. He’d ignore me. I texted. He didn’t even read them. My voicemail messages would be a blubbery, slobbery mess, begging him to tell me he wasn’t with someone else. But he was.

“Charlotte!”

“He’s nothing like Brody!”

“I don’t care if you're almost nineteen years old. You're still a child, and you're still living under my roof! Whoever this guy is, if he’s keeping you out this late, you’re not seeing him again.”

“Just get out of my room!” Now I’m hitching a sob. Gosh, she makes me feel like a complete idiot for even existing. Ryder can have the loudest, grossest sex in the next room, but I can’t even see a boy. “Get out!” I stomp my feet and bang my head against the wall, and slobber coats my lips. “Out!”

“You’re not leaving this house tonight! Understand?” She’s firm with me, with her eyebrows scrunched together.

“Can Payton come over?”

“Oh, for the love of God, Charlie!”

“Please! I’ll stay home!”

“If it will make you stop crying! Now go clean yourself up.” She points to the bedroom door. I pick myself up and carry my trash bin filled with vomit to the bathroom.

It’s such an odd, looming feeling, crying and dumping my vomit into the toilet, and flushing it. Then I’m on my knees rinsing out the bin in the bathtub, making sure all the little gunky pieces go down the drain. My cheeks burn by the time I stop crying.

I took a longer shower than needed and ended up sitting on the bathtub floor. Steam builds up fast, and I’m surrounded by it swirling around me. Boiling hot water runs down my back as I take the loofah and lather myself with strawberry body wash. A tiny ache in my chest wishes the warm, spicy and slightly sweet scent of Noah would stay with me a bit longer, but it’s gone.

Brody: Hey baby. I miss you.

Charlie: I’m not falling for this.

Brody: Do you think your brother scares me? You’re playing Roulette whether you want to or not.

Charlie: You're insane. You realize that, right?

Brody: You can just take me back. Let me fuck you in my bed whenever I want.

Charlie: I’m not sleeping with you. We aren’t together anymore. Now leave me alone.

Brody: Make me, because you’re always going to be mine.

I stop responding to him and turn my phone over on the nightstand. I grasp one of my pink fluffy fur pillows, clinging to it to my chest as my bedroom door opens. My mother wears a silky black dress, with red hooker heels screaming Fuck me hard, and her hair runs down her shoulders in tight black curls.

“Hey, I’m going out.” Her eyes point out into the hallway. “My date is here to pick me up.”

“Okay,” I mumble into my pillow, tapping my feet onto my cold sheets.