November 17: Riley

Women are like chocolate. That’s what my dad always said. There is such a variety, so many flavors. Women are sweet, smooth, delicious pieces of perfection. They melt in your mouth; give you a major sugar rush. And like chocolate, it is nearly impossible to have just one. As a kid, I was addicted to chocolate. I ate every kind made: dark chocolate, milk chocolate, chocolate with peanuts or caramel or peanut butter. At the corner store near my house, the cashier would always give me chocolates. I hoarded the candy in my room and saved it for days when we didn’t have much to eat at the house. I ate so much chocolate that I became sick. I ended up with six rotten teeth and strict orders from my dentist. I haven’t had a piece of chocolate since I was eleven. But now I have a new addiction.

Women are rotting me from the inside out.

Evelyn is like a dark, Columbian chocolate my grandfather used to eat. It was rich, almost bitter, with hints of coffee and chili powder. It ignites the tongue and sparks new sensations. It is bold, unique. Much like Evelyn, the chocolate became my guilty pleasure. It was familiar, but exciting. Evelyn is dark, she is bold. She is like no other girl that I have ever met. And yet, she is still just a girl. And despite the fact that she can make me crazy with one swirl of her tongue- she is familiar.
Audrey is a cup of hot chocolate. She is warm and comfortable. She is tempting and decadent. She is that girl who seems like nothing special. But when you take that first sip of a hot milk chocolate, every single ounce of worry melts away. That is how I feel with Audrey. She makes me feel good, comfortable. She melts away at the ice beneath my soul and cradles every worry in her soft marshmallow innocence.
And then, there is Samantha. Samantha is the finest chocolate truffle. She appears hard on the outside, tough. But beneath the image she has been forced to embrace, she is just as smooth and easy as the rest of them. She is that fancy dessert that sits on the cart at a nice restaurant. The one your parents can’t afford, but you cannot stop eyeing. You crave it, your mouth waters for it. You dream of it. And then you sneak up on the cart while your parents aren’t paying attention. Just a taste, you promise yourself. Just a taste. But before you know it, you’ve devoured the entire dessert and your step-dad is busting your ass all the way to the car. And it was worth every bite.
These girls seemed to have collided all at once tonight. Images of their faces swirl through my head. Audrey, who is like a porcelain china doll. Her face is smooth like cream, soft with innocence. She is too perfect, untouchable. Evelyn, who is like an old, tattered rag doll that holds stitched memories and is stained from tears. Images of makeup streaming down her face cloud my head.
“You make me better,” she had assured me. And in return, I told her that I was finished. That what we had (whatever we had) was over.
And before I could even collect my thoughts, I was in bed next to Samantha- the perfect Barbie doll. The room was dark, but I could make out every angle of her face as we moved with each other. I can’t even remember how that happened. I try to keep my mind in that dark room, with Samantha’s hair tangled in my fingers and her lips on my neck.
But the room I am in now is not dark. And as my mind floats back to reality, I realize that I do not even know where I am. I open my eyes, but the lights are so bright that I immediately shut them again. Slowly, I let them adjust and come open. Finally my mind wraps around what is going on. I have tubes in my arm, a starched white blanket over me, and I can’t pick my head up. The room is way too bright and smells like old people.

I’m in a hospital bed.

“Hey,” a voice next to me mumbles.
I turn and see Crash slumped in a chair next to my bed. He rubs his eyes and checks his watch. His hair is a mess and his eyes are red. Has he been here the entire time? And what amount of time is that, exactly? So many questions flood my mind.
“What’s going on?” I manage. My mouth is almost too dry to speak.
“Where do you want me to start, dude?” Crash chuckles and hands me a cup of water.
“It’s been a long fucking night, that’s for sure.”
I take a long gulp from the paper cup. My mind spins and so does my stomach. I search my brain for my last memory of the night. All that I can think of is Audrey, then Evelyn and then Sam. So what the hell happened in between Samantha and the hospital?
Too much whiskey is what happened.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” It’s almost as though Crash can read my mind.
“Honestly?” I look at him. “Rolling around on a bed with Samantha.”
“West?” He raises his eyebrows.
“Shut up.”
He laughs. “No judgment, man. I guess you guys were doing your thing around the time the cops showed up.”
“Cops?” I take another sip of water.
“Yeah, dude.” He nods. “Lots of them. They found you upstairs in one of the bedrooms or something. Ambulance brought you over here.”
“Jesus.” I run my hands through my hair.
“Yeah, you missed a pretty big show,” Crash continues. “Apparently they had to pump your stomach and everything.”
“My mom is going to die.” I shake my head. “Where is she, anyways?”
“They can’t get ahold of anyone.” He shrugs. “I told the doctor I’d stay until someone came for you.”
This catches me by surprise. Crash, some kid I barely know, is sitting in a hard hospital chair waiting for someone from my family to show up. Everything is hitting so fast that I really do not know what to tackle first.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I tell him. “My mom will show up. I’m sure she’ll show up. What time is it, anyway?”
“It’s almost seven.” He folds his arms and slides down in the chair. “And don’t worry about it. Hospitals are creepy, man. I wouldn’t want to wake up in this room alone.”
A nurse comes into the room with a plastic bag full of a clear liquid and smiles with cherry-red lips. “Good morning, Mister Sutton.”
“Morning,” I mumble.
She puts the bag into a machine that is connected to my arm through several tubes and writes down a bunch of numbers on a chart. She turns to me and squeezes my arms, presses on my stomach.
“We’ve got to get you hydrated.” She smiles. “How are you feeling?”
“Like shit,” I say honestly.
She chuckles. “I’m not surprised. You kids are crazy these days. I can’t imagine it.”
“Where is my mom?”
She pats my back and sighs. “We were finally able to get in touch with her. She said she would be here as quickly as she can.”
“It’s a five-minute drive,” I sneer.
She leaves without saying anything else. I lay my head back down on the thin pillow and try to breathe in and out without vomiting.
“What happens now?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“Am I going to go to jail or anything? I broke at least five laws last night, I’m pretty sure. And the police around here hate me enough as it is. They’re probably loving this right now.”
Crash shakes his head. “I think they are more concerned with Brian and Anderson at this point. Manny, too.”
“Brian? Anderson?” I turn to him. “And what the hell does Manny have to do with anything?”
“Damn, dude.” Crash sighs. “You really did miss the entire show, didn’t you? There was a huge fight. Manny and his boys showed up, making trouble. You know how they are.”
“What did they want?”
Crash looks down in his lap.
“Hello?”
He looks back up at me. “They were looking for you.”


By the time Crash finishes the story of the night’s events, it’s all I can do not to vomit everywhere. I probably would, if there was anything left to heave. He tells the entire sequence of events, and with each point my skin gets hotter and hotter. Beads of sweat break out all over my forehead and cause my gown to stick to my back and chest.
According to Crash, Manny showed up last night looking for me. He busted into the house, pushing people out of the way and screaming for me. When Brian tried to get Manny and his friends to leave, Manny knocked him out with one hit.
“The house went crazy after that,” Crash says. “Manny pulled out a knife. Anderson tried to block him from going after Brian. The knife got him in his leg.”
“Fuck,” I mumble.
“Manny freaked out after that and left. I don’t think he actually wanted to stab anyone. The guy is dumb, but he’s not that dumb.”
“Is Anderson okay?”
“I think he’s in surgery,” Crash says. “Manny got him pretty good. We called the cops and by the time they showed up, almost everyone was gone.”
“Goddammit.” I punch the mattress several times. “So Brian gets knocked out and Anderson gets stabbed, all while I’m having sex with his girlfriend one floor up?”
Crash nods. “I guess it’s pretty messed up when you think about it.”
“Yeah,” I mutter. “Yeah it is.”
Millions of thoughts race through my head. I focus on remembering something, anything, after what happened with Samantha. And then it finally clicks.
Brian coming into the room, telling someone in the bathroom that the cops were coming. Samantha hurrying to get dressed. Me getting mad at her. How did all of this happen? Just below us, Puerto Ricans were wreaking havoc, lives were being changed, and people were being hurt. My mind cannot physically grasp everything that Crash is telling me.
“This is my fault.”
“It’s not,” Crash assures me. “Brian and Anderson were at the wrong place at the wrong time. Manny is a bastard, but he’ll get his. Karma is a bitch. And you didn’t do anything.”
“I did,” I insist. My mind trails back to school Friday morning. “Friday, Manny and his crew were hanging around the parking lot during lunch. I was smoking a cigarette, minding my own business.”
I pause for a second before continuing. “They started getting a little too close to my bike and I freaked out. I swear, they’re always fucking with me. He knows that’s my bike.”
“Yeah,” Crash mumbles.
“I was heading towards them when Manny picked his foot up like he was going to kick it. I sprinted and pushed him to the ground. I told him if he ever touched my bike,
I’d kill him.”
“He didn’t fight you right there?” Crash asks.
I shake my head. “Nah. He knows he can’t afford to get in anymore trouble at school. And neither can I. He just got up and stared at me. Then he mumbled something in Spanish and he and his boys left.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, it was so weird.” I nod. “I guess he was coming back to settle things last
night because he knew I would be there. But dammit, I didn’t mean for that to happen! I didn’t mean for him to pull out knives and shit.”
Tears fill my eyes and I scratch at them, forcing the tears to stay put. Crash remains silent in his chair, with his hands folded in his lap and his head down.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry.”


With a million thoughts crashing against each other in my head, my body collapses. My brain cannot hold everything I just heard, cannot possibly facilitate all of the reality that has just poured over me like hot water. My mind shuts down, and everything goes dark. Maybe if I stay asleep this will all go away. Perhaps I am already asleep and this is all just a horrible dream. But the gravity of the situation has brought me back down, and I know that dreaming isn’t possible.


I wouldn’t be that lucky.