Chapter 1 - Kate Roy

The first look at lost lesbian college dropout Kate

“I'm miss autonomy, miss nowhere

I'm at the bottom of me

Miss androgyny, miss don't care

What I've done to me”  

--  ‘Miss Nothing‘ The Pretty Reckless

“How do you tell someone ‘I want to be your drunk mistake’?” Not exactly the kind of sentence you want to blurt out into silence. Especially not after a lukewarm glass of energy drink mixed with blue curacao and who knows what else is gone and you’re just playing with the glass to keep the anxiety at bay. It tasted good and made the heart race and that’s all that mattered. It makes you want to be the kind of trainwreck that the edgy teens write about in their fantasies: wild and carefree with a cigarette hanging off your lips. The ripped denim outside of a rock club, probably in the fifth fight of the week with your best friend with benefits and it was only Wednesday. The fake metal on that collar oxidized months ago staining your neck green under the bite marks. At least they were hidden under tattoos.

S**t, there goes my train of thought.

“Kate. Hun you really need to get some sleep.” Jay’s arm wraps around my shoulders and pulls me against his chest. He’s warm and built like a linebacker. His hair hung almost to his shoulder now on one side bleeding into vibrant red, the bare side of his head sporting piercings of all sorts; enough metal to be a Transportation Security nightmare. I’d hate to see the guy try to get an MRI. He was too sweet. Too understanding. He would listen to me ramble on and on about nothing and everything and when it seemed like no one else in the world would understand the things that went on in my brain, he just knew. Knew what to say, knew how to make me feel like less of an alien.

“Yeah. I know it.” I try to blow it off but he knows he’s right. The last thing I needed was that caffeinated cocktail.

“C’mon. I’ll walk you back.”

“You don’t need to Jason, I got this.” He reaches out to catch me just as a couple of jocks stumble out of the local speakeasy yelling football statistics. Mufasa could have used a hand like that.

The Port is a dark, timeless atmosphere. Early spring meant the tourists were just around the corner but for now it was the mass of local college students keeping the historic district alive. The wildebeests stampeding down the cobblestone toward the only burger joint open past last call. Expensive but the perfect place to people watch after the nightclub let out and all the girls who didn’t think their footwear come stumbling over each other whining after their boyfriends.

Jay’s arm is still around me as our breath puffs like cigarette smoke in the cool night. It’s the only thing that keeps all five foot flat, one hundred and two (maybe five) pounds of me from shivering. How that scruffy bear was ever born to be feminine I’ll never understand. Mother nature bungled that one for sure. He looks way better with a chinstrap and goatee. We round the corner onto the main street, Jay muttering to himself as he read off the street signs. City hall is lit up in an almost eerie glow beside us, bright red spotlights on spotless white marble a scene out of a Halloween special.

“Just down High St. Another block or so.”

“All these buildings look alike.” he puffed.

“Which of us is the smoker?” I teased. “I told you I could get back fine on my own.”

“I’m parked like, three streets over from your place.” He was a southern gentleman, not about to let a friend walk home alone. The city boy in backwater’s version of metropolitan. A city of fifty thousand with bountiful flora was nothing to a guy who grew up near the concrete jungles. Hundreds of thousands crammed into s****y houses five feet apart from one another, reading on the square foot of lawn outside the apartment of his mom’s latest infatuation settled across the street from a building with boarded up windows. I was lucky my hometown had its own gas station.

For all the differences between Jason and I, we couldn’t be more similar. Birds of a feather flocked together and that was doubly true of traumatized queers in an age seeing a rise in neo-fascism. I dug through my pocket for my keyring, hopping up the steps to the front of the building. Jason smiled from the bottom, tucking his hands in the pocket of a jacket with way too many zippers.

“Catch you on the flipside, Kit-Kat?”

“Yeah. Thanks for catching up with me.” There was something about his presence that put me at ease. No matter what was going on I could vomit words and thoughts at him and Jay would just nod, taking it all in. Cheapest therapist ever.

“Answer your phone more often and you might see more of me. I’m always here for an intervention.” He grinned and I scratched the back of my neck.

“Heh.. yeah. Social media, got ya.”

Once I was inside the main building I flipped to another key on the ring and let myself into the apartment. It was a bizarre layout, one long hallway with rooms branching off either side and mine being at the very end. Kicking off my shoes at the door I waddled into the kitchen to sniff around and see what to scavenge. I wasn’t usually very hungry and Jason had offered to get me a heaping basket of mozzarella sticks but the alcohol was hitting hard and the hunger was starting to gnaw at my insides.

Throwing some leftover fettuccine alfredo in the microwave I sat down on a cooler off to the side and thumbed through the recent status updates. Idly clicking through ones I couldn’t care less about before going to the top of the list again.

>Jason Amatore posted at 12:55AM<

[Had a great night out with @Kate Roy!! Time to crash and do it all over again!]

With pasta soon in hand I made my way back down the long hall to the bare bones sublet I called my residence. A guitar in one corner with a mattress on the floor in the other. The closet’s hanging bar had long since broken leaving most of my clothes a pile on the floor or folded in totes. Throwing my jacket onto the pile I sat cross-legged on the bed and flicked on a video app. Some stand-up comedy never hurt anyone, especially as the post-alcohol depression started to kick in. The alfredo was perfectly creamy and sat in my stomach like a warm hug. With the comedian on one end and the fullness of the meal I could almost forget how quiet and lonesome the room was.

Once the pasta was gone and the bowl set aside I laid back on the bed and tucked around a body pillow. Though the comedian had a crack of a smile on my face now and again the heaviness still outweighed any sense of inebriated humor I might find in their act. To think that some people had so much of their life put together and here I was, a twenty-four year old woman with two jobs, no partner, no place I’d call ‘home’ and nothing but a pile of clothes to my name. Twelve year old geniuses were out changing the world and here I was wondering if it was worth even getting into pajamas to go to bed. In the end, I decided it wasn’t. Jeans served me just as well at rest as they did during the day.

Maybe tomorrow would be a better day.

Maybe.