Elena shivered on the sidewalk as she waited for Xavi to come and pick her up. Her fingers grasped for purchase on her arms as she wrapped them around herself, teeth chattering as the cold night air ghosted across her bare skin. At the beginning of the night, her ego had been bolstered as she looked at her reflection in the mirror, Dahlia and Elodie doing everything they could to hype her up and help her believe that maybe she did look good in the tiny top and shorts combo that the latter had provided for her. She’d been allowed to wear her own Docs as a comfort, but everything else about the outfit was trademark Elodie Moreau.
Now, trembling outside an apartment building she never wanted to visit again, she yearned for the comfort of her own t-shirts and jeans, forever covered in cat hair. Anything that would remind her of what it was like to be Elena Flores and not this strange, unfamiliar girl whose reflection stared back at her from a darkened shop window.
She leaned forwards, as if expecting to see a huge change in the stricken girl that looked back. She was still the same height and weight and still had the same brown eyes and dark hair. The only apparent difference was that the mascara that Dahlia had dutifully applied for her earlier had smudged in the bags underneath her eyes. She reached up with her fingers and tried to wipe it away, sniffing a little.
Was she really expecting to look so completely different? Hadn’t she been the person who had spent so long in high school reassuring her friends that virginity was a social construct and that they weren’t losing anything if they slept with someone? Perhaps she’d mainly been trying to convince herself that it wasn’t some monumental life event that deserved documentation, only because she watched as each of her friends came into class one morning, rosy-cheeked and smiling like they had a secret, giggling with girls who weren’t Elena because she wouldn’t understand. She hadn’t been invited to this exclusive club yet.
Even after graduating high school, enrolling in and subsequently dropping out of college, and eventually finding her place in her apartment with the girls and Kip, she had yet to enter the club. She’d told herself she didn’t care, and she really had meant it. It wasn’t such a big deal that she hadn’t had sex yet, not when she was so completely fulfilled in all other walks of life, right?
Then NYE had happened and she’d shared her second kiss with Xavi, which had been far more eye-opening than the first. She knew that nothing was ever going to happen between her and her best friend. Xavi was a casual guy and Elena, with her anxiety and intensity, resolutely was not. So she’d let Elodie convince her that maybe she could find what she was looking for with someone else. She’d met Brent at the Valentine’s Day speed dating mixer at A Novel Idea, and had gotten his number and said yes when he’d asked her on a date and had been forced to ask herself, wait, was it really that easy? She hadn’t realised that was all she had to do in order to get a boyfriend.
He’d been nice. Not as nice as Xavi, but who was? He’d laughed at her jokes, taken an interest in her drawings, and even though he’d stared at her blankly whenever she brought up a social issue that was being covered in the latest edition of Spectre, she’d been forgiving of that because the voice in her head telling her to just go with it, this is what you want, had been so much louder.
Now, here she was. Standing alone on an empty sidewalk at two in the morning, a novice member of the club she’d heard so much about since she was as young as a high school freshman.
She wondered if it had felt like this for everyone else. How could this feeling be what everyone chased? What people fought over, begged for, chased down someone in an airport in the penultimate scene of a movie for? There had been no pleasure for Elena, just a vague discomfort, an experience that tried to keep her grounded in her body while all the while she wanted to flee her own skin, all to be followed by a wave of cold humiliation when Brent eventually pulled out and collapsed on the bed beside her and said, “Can you make sure to give the door a proper tug on the way out? The lock catches sometimes.”
Dahlia and Elodie were still out, and she wasn’t sure she could face them and their questions just yet. The mere idea of calling Arturo was enough to send a fresh wave of tears spilling from her eyes. No matter how much she wanted her big brother there right now, she couldn’t tell him about this. Eventually, after sitting for too long on the stoop of Brent’s apartment building, she’d pulled out her phone and text Xavi with the address, asking if he could pick her up with a promise to buy him as much junk food as he wanted as an apology for waking him up.
Sitting back down on the stoop, she shivered again, rubbing at her arms to try and warm them up as best as she could. Despite herself, she glanced up towards the window of Brent’s apartment. The lights were off; he was probably already asleep.
Before a fresh wave of nausea could reach her, the glow of two headlights washed over her and she squinted, bringing a hand up to shield her eyes. Recognising Xavi’s car, she stood up, slinging her bag strap over her shoulder and stepping forward just as he was getting out.
“Hi,” she said, giving him a watery smile.