TW: This chapter includes mention of drug misuse.

Despite a foggy brain and hazy eyes, it was easy to see that the person standing in my room was not Pablo.

In his place stood a woman. A tiny little woman, probably the smallest one I’d ever seen, and gifted with mesmerizing beauty. Her frail body was delicately wrapped in the ethereal folds of her baby-blue dress. Her shiny skin was the color of copper, and her long, silky black hair was tied back into a sleek ponytail, with not a single frizz sticking out.

She turned to me and gasped. She took a step back, moving so lightly and delicately that it seemed as if she was floating. And she was tiny. So tiny. Like a fairy.

“I’m so fucking high,” I whispered to myself.

Her sparkly brown eyes opened wide, and she smiled timidly, revealing her slightly crooked teeth. I smiled back at her. Her presence was soothing, and her aura was warm. And most importantly, she wasn’t Pablo.

Or maybe she was. In which case, I was very high.

“Hello,” she said in a soft, high-pitched voice.

“Hi...” I breathed. “Are you real?”

She tilted her head to the side, and her brows curved into a confused frown.

“Am I the only person who can see you?” I asked.

“What?”

“Is that a weird question?” I answered, biting my lip.

The girl shrugged, and her mouth twisted in an awkward grin. “Well, it’s the first time someone has asked me that.”

I nodded, as if I understood what was going on, although I really didn’t. “So people can’t usually see you?”

“...No,” she answered hesitantly.

“No, people can’t see you or no, people actually do see you?”

“I think people usually see me,” she said, and pinched her lips.

“You think?” I whined, “This is so damn confusing.”

She smiled shyly, and took a discrete step back.

“So you’re real?” I asked again.

“Yes.”

“Real, as in, human?”

“Uh-uh,” she said, nodding softly.

“Who are you?” I enquired with a high-pitched voice and a very furrowed brow.

“The maid,” she replied.

Despite her warm and kind smile, she looked very uncomfortable. Which wasn’t surprising, given that I was standing in front of her, soaking wet from the shower, tripping on acid, and most of all, fully naked.

“Right,” I babbled as I held my breath, “I’ll just go back in there. See ya’ around.”

She mouthed out a polite ‘Okay’, and I slowly backed up away from her and into the bathroom.

I quietly shut the door and turned off the stream of hot water that was still roaring in the shower. I stared in disbelief at my reflection in the mirror. She was just as horrified and embarrassed as I was.

This wasn’t a moment of my life that I’d think of again in a few years while I’m lying in bed trying to sleep. This was worse. This was the moment of my life that would completely stop me from getting any sleep for the whole decade to come.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” I cried, holding my head in my hands.

I slumped against the cold wall, as my shaky hands clutched the satin bathrobe I’d found rolled up in a ball on the floor. I waited, watching the tiles dance around on the walls, listening to the maid shuffling around on the other side of the door. The feeling of deep shame seared deep into my cheeks and my chest. What the fuck was wrong with me?

It wasn’t long before the maid left. Although from where I sat–curled up under the sink, with my head buried between my knees, and the maid’s discombobulated expression etched into my eyelids–minutes felt like hours.

I cursed Pablo under my breath. Him and his fucking drugs. Fun experience, my ass. It was fun for the first few minutes, but quickly, and not unlike my holiday here, it had turned into a very bad trip.

I told myself that I’d never trust or listen to Pablo ever again. Even though I had been telling myself the exact same thing since the second I’d met him. Even though I knew the next time he’d catch me in a moment of vulnerability, he’d smile and say the right thing, and I’d make the same mistake, all over again.

Long after I had heard the front door shut and lock, I snuck back into the bedroom, tightly wrapped in my satin robe. The maid was gone, and I was alone, so I crawled over to the bed she’d made and rolled myself up in the sheets, twisting and writhing in pain and shame.

I was tired, I was confused, and I still wasn’t sober. I could hear the clock ticking, despite having pulled its batteries out myself. I could hear my starved stomach screaming at me, yet the mere thought of food made me retch. I could feel each one of my pores sizzling from the scalding hot water of the shower. And it seemed that every time I turned around to look at it, the lamp in the corner inched a little closer to me.

“I’m going nuts,” I breathed, and rushed to the door.

I swore I heard something behind me drag against the wooden floor. I dared to peek around the corner of the wall. The lamp stood on its side of the bedroom, but its wonky shade was swinging back and forth. As if it was saluting me. No, taunting me. Staring at me. The fucking lamp was following me.

I threw myself against the locked door, slamming it repeatedly with the palms of my hands.

“Pablo!” I screamed. “How do I stop this?!”

It was nerve-racking. Oppressing. Absolutely traumatizing. I could hardly breathe. It felt as if at any second, the fucking lamp would creep around the corner and start chasing me around the room, its metal legs clanging across the wooden floors, and its twisted shade bobbling around like a marionette’s head.

I banged on the door, harder and harder, faster and faster, but no one answered. No one walked in. Pablo wasn’t coming. I was hyperventilating. I was losing it. I was alone. I was dying.

“Pablo!” I yelled again, kneeling down to claw at the crack between the door and the floor, through which bled a faint white light.

My own voice sounded as if it was fading away, turning into an inaudible whisper. I dragged myself away from the door. I clung to the edge of the vanity and pulled myself back onto my feet. But all I could see around me was a red light, like an alarm, flashing to the rhythm of my slowing pulse.

“I’m going to die,” I repeated to myself in a desperate whisper.

I felt hot. Sweaty. Overwhelmed. Out of breath. I opened my robe and grabbed onto the left side of my chest. I tried to feel for a heartbeat. Nothing. Not a sound. Not a thud.

I started to count, to control my breath. One, two, three, four, exhale. One, two, three, four, inhale. I managed to calm it, to bring it down until I couldn’t even feel the air coming out of my own mouth. My hand still grabbed on tight to my heart, but l still couldn’t feel any beat.

“Hey Gordita,” said his voice, “Did you call me?”

Exhale. I turned around, and almost fell over backward with relief. Pablo stood in the doorway, with his hands in his pockets, his light blue shirt half-open and hanging loosely down his left shoulder, and a wide grin on his face.

“What’s wrong with your tit?” he asked.

“It’s in the way,” I answered, out of breath. “I’m looking for a heartbeat.”

He arched an eyebrow and let out a laugh. “Are you okay?”

“No,” I sighed. “I think I might be dead.”

“You look alive to me,” he chuckled nervously.

“Okay... But can you check?” I whispered, looking at him with worried eyes. “I can’t feel my heartbeat.”

Pablo smiled, nodded, and took a steady step forward. But his second step wasn’t so self-assured. His gaze ran back and forth between my eyes and my chest. And behind his calm facade, his cheeks started to turn red. His hand almost trembled as he slowly lifted it up. His fingers lingered only a few inches away from my bare skin.

My heart started racing hard enough for me to feel it beating again. I opened my mouth, ready to protest, to tell him it was okay, I was fine, I didn’t need him, and to please get his dirty hands off of my breasts.

But instead, he grabbed my hand, and pressed two fingers on the inside of my wrist. A few seconds passed by, and we both stood still and quiet.

“You have a pulse. You’re fine,” he told me with a nervous cough and a gentle, yet awkward pat on my elbow.

“Okay,” I answered softly, and maybe a little out of breath. “Thank you.”

With his mouth hanging half open and his gleaming eyes, Pablo looked just as flustered as I was. We stared at each other for a while, in silence, motionless. Although it seemed that every second that passed, we seemed to lean in closer to each other. Painfully slowly. Almost endlessly. His lips were pouting. His eyes were closing. But I was just not ready to kiss the Beast.

“Hey,” I stuttered as the words slipped out of my mouth, a foolish attempt to change subjects. “Wanna know when else I thought I died?”

“Huh?” he said, a little taken aback. “When?”

“When you shot me. I thought I was dead.”

“Why?” he asked.

“It just felt so real,” I answered. “I thought I could feel my own blood run down my forehead.”

“Oh, that might have been my fault,” he snickered proudly. “Remember the kid in the back, the one with the sponge? He splashed your friends with some water so they’d think they’d been splattered by chunks of your brain. My idea. I’m a master of special effects.”

I stared at him in disbelief, shaking my head. Pablo was truly the world’s biggest psychopath.

“The girls must be traumatized,” I breathed.

I’m traumatized, I thought to myself.

A single tear rolled down my cheek. He wrapped his fingers around mine, and softly stroked my hand with his thumb.

“I can’t undo what I did, Gordita,” he whispered. “But believe me, if I could have done things another way, I would. You’re right to hate me. I would too, if I were you. But I feel, had we met in a different way...”

I burst into tears, interrupting his heartfelt tirade. Rather than rolling his eyes and patting me on the back, like people usually did when I broke apart in front of them, he wrapped me in his arms. My face snuggled into his neck, nested in his warm, soft skin.

“I don’t hate you,” I answered softly.

His embrace tightened a little as I spoke, and I stayed a while, breathing in the smell of his perfume, letting him gently run his fingers through my hair.

Although I wished I could have stayed huddled against him for a little while longer, I pulled myself away from him. He was still my kidnapper, after all, and all this affection was making things weird.

He was my captor and I couldn’t love him. Despite his handsome face, which my sparkling eyes would devour every time he looked at me. Despite the inebriating of his cologne, the warm touch of his skin, and the chills his deep voice sent down my spine when he spoke. Despite the fact that the little care he had for me was much more than anyone else had given me in years.

Without breaking eye contact, Pablo grabbed the edges of my bathrobe and quickly pulled them shut, just as one would shut their kitchen curtains to get the sun out of their eyes.

“Gordita, having a staring contest while your tits are out is usually considered cheating,” he said with a grin.

I felt a shame so red-hot that my face could have melted off. I stomped over to the bed, eager to fall asleep and end this night, or perhaps smother myself with a pillow and forget about this life altogether.

“Jesus Christ, this is a nightmare,” I cried, burying myself in the covers.

“Depends from whose point of view,” shrugged Pablo as he sat on the edge of the bed.

“Go away, you creep,” I hissed, kicking him away from me.

“Don’t shoot the messenger, Gordita,” he laughed, holding on to the mattress. “I wanted to tell you, I just didn’t know how to bring it up.”

“Don’t lie to me, you perv,” I shouted, grabbing a pillow to smack it in his face.

“Seriously, I would have told you first thing when I walked into the room–but you know, you were more concerned about dying and all that,” he grinned, lifting his arms up to protect his pretty face.

“Right, and now I’m dying of embarrassment,” I groaned, hiding under the sheets.

“It’s okay, I’ve done worse things under the influence.”

“You don’t get it,” I complained, rolling my eyes. “This isn’t even the worst thing I’ve done tonight.”

“What happened?” he asked, as he laid down by my side.

“I met the maid.”

“Was she nice?”

“I was tripping balls,” I sighed. “Thought she was a fairy. I asked her if she was real, but the worst part is, I was naked. Like, fully exposed. She probably thinks I’m a sex offender or something.”

Pablo laughed out loud, and rolled over closer to me.

“Wow. So now you have a new story to tell if someone asks about the most embarrassing moment of your life,” he chuckled. “Impressive, honestly. I’d say you beat the Jungle Jew.”

“Great,” I groaned sarcastically. “Exactly what I needed.”

He was so close to me, I could feel where the mattress started to curve under his weight.

“You should sleep, Gordita,” he said softly.

“I can’t,” I answered. “I’m still high. My mind starts racing the second I close my eyes. It’s horrible.”

“Do you want me to stay the night?” he asked, leaning on his elbow.

I shivered as he laid his hand on top of the cover, and caressed me from my shoulder down to my waist. He’s still your captor, don’t fall for him, repeated the little voice in my head.

“They’ll be waiting for you down at the party,” I said.

“They won’t notice I’m gone,” he grinned.

His warm breath brushed down the side of my neck, and all my hairs stood up on end.

“Sure,” I whispered. “You can stay.”

I should have felt ashamed of falling for a man who cared so little about me. I shouldn’t have forgiven him for the unforgivable things he did. I shouldn’t have fallen for the man who’d taken everything away from me, and given him everything he wanted.

But the girl who fell asleep in Pablo’s arms was happier than Sarah Kennedy could have ever been.

Kerning

Bad Trip

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