I feel so hot and uncomfortable. This is the most unlikable feeling of all, what did I do to be in this position? It this God punishing me because of what I’m doing? Or maybe Jax finally found out and decided to punish me? Oh my god. I’m not ready for that.
I realized that the thing that I’m feeling is because of something liquid hot flowing on my chest. I want to see what it is because it’s making me uncomfortable.
Is it blood? Am I bleeding? If yes, why it doesn’t hurt? And why are they just standing there? They should get me to a hospital. I won’t dare to try lift my head to see what is it that bothering me because my head hurts and everything looks distorted, especially this person’s face above me.
“Why are you above me?” I mutter. I lifted my hand to try and touch his face but my eyes can’t balance my vision, the dizziness that I’m feeling also made it impossible for me to reach this person’s face.
“Alex!” I can hear someone’s voice shouting my friend’s name.
Why is everyone shouting? Have mercy on me and stop making this worse. My head hurts so much and the shouting’s making it worse. I actually think that I can feel my brain trembling.
“Alex, stop!” She laughs. Is it Denise? What is she doing here? And what’s funny? I don’t want to be left out incase what she’s laughing at will be our inside joke for weeks.
“Denise?” I ask weakly. Someone’s touching my hair again and it’s not Jax this time. I’m sure of it. I know his touch and this is not it.
Whoever this person is, they’re trying to shush me while saying that I should go back to sleep.
“It’s okay. Denise will clean you. Just go to sleep, I got you so nothing bad will happen to you.” It’s a him.
“Alex?” I’m keeping my guessing game since this person’s distorted.
“It’s Perry.” He said, still touching my hair. This man smells like a mix of alcohol and cigarettes. I hope no one’s smoking if we are in my apartment. They say that it’s bad for the walls and that the chemicals from the cigarette will stay in the area for hours. I might exhale it and that’s dangerous. I learned that being a second hand smoker is more dangerous than the smoker itself.
I reached to his cheeks. “Oh Perry, hi… Thank God for you.” I can see him smiling. What a beautiful smile. “What’s happening to me? Did someone stab me?”
“No, Jess. You’re just drunk but It’s not blood, Alex puked all over you.”
I was going to protest when Denise pulled me up, making something inside my head ring. “I have her.” She said. “Oh poor you. You smell bad.” She said. I can smell her, she’s the one who smells like cigarettes.

She laid me down the tub then made the water flow. “What happened?” I ask her. I tried to avoid speaking in front of her face where she can smell my breath, I don’t want her to think that I have a bad breath.
“We just had a very fun night.” She said briefly as she cleans me.
“We? Who’s we?”
“You, me, Perry and Alex.”
“Is it your birthday? or Perry? or Alex?”
She chuckles. “No. I visited you at work then Alex said that we should drink so here we are. You have cool friends by the way.”
She visited me at my work? Did I offer my apartment the be our hangout place too? “How’d we got here?”
“Well, we all have cars so—“
“No, I mean did I offer my apartment?” My soul’s finally coming back each time I ask her a question. I see her gently patting me with towel while trying to explain things.
“You’re so drunk, can’t even remember insisting that we drink here.” She chuckles.
Oh no. I remember now. I remember getting shy and excited when my boss told me that Denise is here, when she entered my office and when we kissed.
“We kissed?” I don’t know what alcohol we enjoyed but it’s making me lose half my memory from this morning.
“Don’t worry.” She smiles. “I’m not going to tell your boyfriend, so is Alex.”
“Alex?”
“He caught us but he said that we have nothing to worry about and that you know it.”
I didn’t say anything until after she cleans me and put me in my bed. Her genuine care that I felt while she's cleaning me is what's making me feel safe. That might be the reason why I let her hold me and take care of me even at some point that I caught a glimpse of Jax inside my head.
I never pushed her away. I don't even feel sick or disgusted by what I am doing. I mean I should, right? My mind's telling me that it's okay but something in me tells me that it's not. Its just my mind's bigger than that something.
“I feel like a bad person, Denise. I’m enjoying this, us.” Maybe she felt that this is going to be a long conversation when she sat down.
I do really feel like a bad person, but the part of my mind that is telling me that it is okay, feels more genuine enough for me to believe. I bet I got this from my Mom. Every bad attitude that I have I got from her. The good ones I got from my dad.
“What’s so bad if you’re just enjoying something?” She held my hand. “You’re enjoying this, right?”
I can see her eyes and I can hear what’s it saying. It’s wishing that I’ll say yes and just shut up. It’s begging me not to say no or else it’ll rain tears.
It’s amazing how many things our eyes can tell us, it’s amazing how true and genuine it is.
“I’m not enjoying something, Denise. I’m enjoying someone, I’m enjoying you.” I felt a sharp pain somewhere over my chest when I thought about Jax. I guess the soft part of me finally took over. “I am a cheater.” My words broke because of how true it is I just said.
“Do you think I care? Do you think your friends care?”
“I care.” I said almost shouting whispery.
“Do you?” She moves her hand to brush the hairs that’s overstepping on my face. She’s looking up and down, my lips to my eyes. “I know how you feel because I feel it too. So please just stop pushing me away. Nothing bad’s going to happen if we stay quiet.” She said.
Is she like this to others? Even when before Ocean died? Did she cheat?
My own thought left my mouth binded. I know that it’s not right to think something about her like that because what I’m doing is worse.
I pretended to be asleep until everyone’s out of my apartment. She’s right about me feeling it. I feel it so much that I can’t stay away from it, from her.
It’s happening again, just like what Happened between me and Kathy. It’s like everyone I met in this building, who I invited inside my apartment automatically build a relationship or a connection with me.
I just hope that Denise won’t end up like Kathy who was stabbed to death. I want to be able to be with them long enough to be honest. Long enough to make it worth it if I decided to leave Jax.