Rush

When I don’t reply, he adds, “I want to apologize.” He’s smirking in the least apologetic way imaginable.

“It’s fine.”

Why did I say that? What he did to me is so far from fine that it’s on a whole other continent. I don’t want him to say sorry. I want him to turn back time and make it so I never met him.

“Nah, babe. It’s not fine. Come and have a drink with me.”

I shake my head. My legs are starting to tremble.

Weak. So fucking weak.

“Come and have a drink wiv me. I’m tryna do my best here. Meet me halfway.”

His nasal voice is grating even over the pounding of the music.

People are shoving behind me because we’re blocking the way through the bar, and I step aside. Striker catches hold of my arm and pulls me into a roped-off area. I recognize some of his bandmates and hangers on. One or two of them nod in greeting, but most of them ignore me. Striker puts a glass of champagne into my hand and picks up his own.

“I’m sorry darlin’. I really am. You know how the press twists things. The story got away from us. Say you forgive me.”

What complete bullshit. It was his story, exactly the way he told it. He seems to realize he’s not convincing me, because he looks deeply into my eyes. Or tries to, anyway. I keep my face averted from his. “Go on, say you forgive me. There’s stuff you don’t know about what happened that day. Let me explain, and I promise it will all make sense.”

To give myself some space, I step back and have a mouthful of champagne. “Explain what?”

Striker smiles again, and puts his hand over his heart. “I feel terrible. I’m so sorry you got caught up in all that shit.”

“Sorry you feel bad” doesn’t sound like much of an apology to me.

Of all the hazing that they subjected me to, Striker’s was the most bizarre. He kept trying to make me take coke with him and I didn’t want to. He kept at it and I threatened to quit. It wasn’t just the drugs. After a week, I’d had enough. I didn’t realize how personally he’d take it. I shudder at the memory of how his face changed, as if he’d been possessed by a demon. His little toy was fighting back and he didn’t like it.

I tried to leave and he grabbed my arm. I put my hand on his shoulder to push him away, and he fell to the ground, screaming like I’d stuck him with a hot poker. It went on and on, Striker laying on the ground writhing with his eyes screwed up tight and screaming at the top of his lungs. It was grotesque, like something out of a nightmare. It scared me how extreme he was being for no reason that I could see. Everyone was watching. The band. The assistants. The film crew for the video and the dancers. I quit on the spot and ran out of there.

The next day, I was all over the internet.

He smiles wider and wider the longer he goes on non-apologizing, waffling about his reputation and the way the press loves to drag him. To listen to him tell it, he came worse off than me in what happened eight months ago. I can’t bear to look at him while he makes this mockery of an apology. To prevent myself from bursting into tears, I keep sipping my champagne and looking everywhere but at him.

Striker starts to repeat himself and his voice is like nails on a chalkboard. I put my champagne down. “Just leave it, okay? It doesn’t matter.”

I grab my bag and flee before I have to hear one more word out of his lying mouth. I shouldn’t even have stopped to listen to anything he had to say, but I suppose I had a flicker of hope that he might actually be sorry, or that there really was something that I didn’t know.

The club is like a maze, and I fight through hundreds of people in various rooms, trying to find my way back to the dancefloor. I pass a ladies’ restroom that doesn’t have a queue and go and lock myself in a stall. My legs can’t stop shaking. I feel it all over again, the humiliation of being so totally and publicly and destroyed.

I should never have come here. I’ll find Jasminta and say goodbye.

As I come out of the restrooms, I realize I don’t know which direction I came from. I think from the left, so I head right. That doesn’t seem right after a dozen or so yards, so I turn back. A clammy feeling ripples up my body. What time is it, anyway? I fumble with my bag and draw my phone out of my purse, but my vision is blurry and I can’t read the screen.