Becca Ritchie - Addicted for Now

“Loren,” Rose starts.

“Stop,” I say, placing my hands on my head, these thoughts swarming me in a tidal wave, the guilt so unbearable on my chest. “You should hate me,” I tell her. “I deserve that.” I nod. “I broke your sister.” My face contorts in pain, a hot tear escaping. I want to punch something. To go run until my heart stops, until the breath just leaves me cold and dry.

No one says a thing. They wait for me to collect my bearings.

My breathing slows, and I rub my face. When I drop my hands, I say softly, “I wish I could take it all back.” I want to reverse time. To walk Lily right out of my house, down the street and to her own bedroom door. I would tell her that it’s okay if her mother doesn’t love her because her sisters do. And she doesn’t need to avoid her house by being in mine—that she shouldn’t keep searching for love in sex because it will only leave her empty and miserable.

I should have told her all of these things, but I didn’t know any of them back then. And I was too goddamn drunk to care.

“It’s not your fault,” Rose says. “You were a kid. We all were.”

“And you have a shitty fucking father,” Ryke adds.

“And no mother,” Daisy says.

“And you were an alcoholic,” Connor concludes.

It’s like they’re my conscience, and yet, they’re only my friends. For the first time, I have them, and I feel tears build at the words that I never thought I’d hear.

It’s not your fault. Yeah, I’m getting there. I can believe it one day, I think.

I have weathered the most painful answer. I can manage any others now.

I look to Daisy.

“Next question.”

A full week has passed. And I haven’t left Ryke’s apartment. School is an afterthought, even though my last test is in a few days. I’ll just show up and pass and then be back to my reclusive state before finals begin. I have no intention of seeing my parents, and if Lo and Ryke would let me, I’d be a hermit for the rest of my life.

But Ryke is not the kind of person who coddles, and Lo refuses to enable me anymore. So they have awarded me a seven day “grace period.” Or what they like to call “the time it takes to get my shit together to face my parents.” It may have taken God seven days to create the world, but I think I may need more time to screw my head on right. I am not Christ-like. When I mentioned this to Lo, he told me I could have an extra sympathy day. I think he said that word on purpose—sympathy. I crinkled my nose and decided to take the seven days instead.

I’m on Day Seven. Judgment Day. The one where I’ll have to face my mom and dad.

The majority of the camera crews remain at our house in Princeton or the one in Villanova. Rose and Daisy have been staying at Connor’s since the cameras are sparse around his neighborhood. Plus he has more room at his bachelor pad.

My parents have opted to stay silent when it comes to the media. They paid their lawyers a hefty sum just to utter the words “no comment.” There will be a press conference at some point, especially since Fizzle and Hale Co. stock have dropped considerably.

After home-visits and lengthy phone calls with Dr. Banning, we agreed that I need to read and watch what’s being said about me. Her words were, “Don’t internalize your feelings when you hear what people are saying. If they upset you then let it out.” She also told me to make light of every painful situation—to uncover a silver lining and humor in all the bad. Anything to soften the gut-wrenching blows.

I sit on the leather couch and perform my usual morning ritual. Turn on the television to the morning news and flip open my laptop to the gossipy, tabloid websites.

“We still don’t have an official statement from Lily Calloway or her family,” the news anchor says. “But we have a psychologist here today to talk about sex addiction and the dangers.” Boo. I spend hours in therapy; I do not want to listen to this. I mute the TV and focus on the computer.

I type my name into the search engine. Various articles titled Sex Addict pop up. One even says, Sex Addict or Slut? And there’s a lengthy debate on whether sex addiction is truly an addiction or whether I’m a whore in disguise. I stay away from that one.

Dr. Banning says that the more I hear and see the two words, the more I’ll become desensitized to them.

It hasn’t happened yet.

I shudder when I click into a new site. Daughter of Soda Mogul Sleeps with Soccer Team. I close out quickly and enter another webpage.

Lily Calloway Reviewed by Princeton after Allegations of Hiring Male Prostitutes.

Apparently being a frequent client of an escort service doesn’t bode well in a university’s eyes. I’m trying not to worry about it until after I talk to my parents. Tackle one issue at a time.

I make the mistake of logging onto Twitter and typing in my name. How do I make light of someone saying my vagina must be stretched and ugly? I haven’t checked lately, but I don’t think it looks that bad.

Besides, who stares at that body part and thinks, wow, that’s the most beautiful vagina I’ve ever seen? Likewise, penises are not all that pretty. I may enjoy them, but I’m not about to snap a picture and decorate my wall. Eyes are beautiful. Sex parts are functional.

My fingers click away and land on Tumblr—my bane. I’m about to search for Lily Calloway, but I hesitate above the keyboard. And on impulse I type in something bad.

Sex gifs.

The magic words open Pandora’s Box, and animated “moving” pictures cascade in an infinite scroll. Girls and guys are tangled lustfully, some positions sexier than others. And a few images are pure close-ups of naughty bits. I shouldn’t be thumbing through anything pornographic, but I begin to relax at the familiar routine.

I hover on a black and white picture with pretty shadows. The girl’s mouth forms a perfect “O” as a cock thrusts inside of her. I can’t believe it’s been two whole weeks since I’ve had sex. I try to remind myself that I lasted ninety days without Lo, no sex in sight. But that feels different than this.

After my addiction went public, Lo wavered on having sex with me. And he chose not to feed any compulsions that he thought would arise. He believes I’ll turn into a wild, sex-crazed monster. Those are actually my words, but when I said them, he never denied it. Sex has been a coping mechanism, the tool that I use to deal with tough situations. And for the first time, I have to confront a hard-hitting issue without a boost of my natural high.

It’s not like we haven’t done things. We just haven’t done it. He fingered me the other day, and last night, he let me give him a blow job. So that was nice.

I sigh. I am desperately envious of a two-dimensional girl’s orgasm, worthy of fireworks and sparklers and red velvet cake.

Suddenly, the lock to the front door clicks, and since Ryke’s apartment resembles a flat (the living room connected to the kitchen) I have a direct view of anyone who walks towards the couch. I quickly shutdown Tumblr and log onto Hollywoodharlots.net, a site that has been incredibly gossipy about my addiction. They even snapped a blurry photo of Daisy exiting Connor’s apartment and captioned the pic: Younger Sister of Lily Calloway: Future Sex Addict?

It makes my stomach churn.

“She wasn’t hitting on you,” Lo says as the door swings open.

“Are you sure?” Ryke asks. He shuts the door and pockets his keys. “She looked like she knew where she was going.”

“She was definitely lost.”

Both shirtless with only running shorts, sweat glistens their toned bodies. Morning runs relax Lo, and all week I have been searching for my anxiety-reducing activity. But those funny positions in yoga revert my mind to sex, and meditation causes me to fantasize. So I started looking at porn again, but I’ve been economical about my usage. I won’t get carried away this time.

Lo plops down on the couch beside me, his eyes flickering to my computer screen. “You read anything interesting?”

“Besides the fact that I’ve officially screwed up my sisters’ lives…”

“Rose and Daisy can handle it,” Lo reminds me. But the whole point of pretending to be in a fake relationship for three years, of keeping this giant secret, was to avoid all of this from happening. I never wanted to hurt anyone.

“I re-watched the SNL skit,” I admit. “I think I found it funnier the second time around.” On Saturday, a comedian impersonated me. She drank so many cans of Fizz that she acted drunk and stumbled into a brothel. A few humorous quips later and I sufficiently turned into a caricature.

“You have to admit, the comedian nailed your hair perfectly,” Ryke says with a grin.

“Yeah, but she gave me a terrible accent.” I don’t have a regional dialect, but she layered on a thick, obnoxious Philly drawl. I’ve also zeroed-in on the least offending thing about the entire skit.

“To her credit, she’s probably never heard you speak.”

“Whose side are you on?” I ask him, but I already know the answer. If anyone has been making it easier to make light of the situation, it’s Ryke and Lo.

“I think your first press release should be in that accent,” Lo tells me. “How funny would it be if everyone thinks you actually speak like that?”

I smile. It would be a good prank.

Lo leans over to grab my computer. “Let me see this for a second,” he says.

My guard rises and fear spikes. I grip the console as if I’m trying to protect a fairy kingdom from goblin invasion. “What? Why?”

He edges back a little bit, eyes narrowed with skepticism. “I want to see if my dad had a press conference yet.” It must be hard to stay silent towards his father throughout all of this, but it’s probably best that they’re not on speaking terms. Jonathan Hale has always been Lo’s trigger to drink.

“Uh…I can check.” I type quickly into the search engine. It’s not that I have anything incriminating on here, but I fear random pop-ups from a porn site that I visited yesterday. When the time is right, I plan on telling Lo that I’ve found a way to be a healthy porn-watcher. Definitely not now, though.

“No,” I tell Lo after a couple minutes. “He hasn’t even released a statement.” Same as my parents. I wonder if they’re both waiting to speak to their children first.

And right as I turn, the computer leaves my hands. Lo sets the device on the coffee table. My heart slows down when his lips touch mine, and then it speeds up again when his hands dip to my waist. I lose myself to the way his tongue slides into my mouth and the way he sucks on my bottom lip. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Ryke entering the living room and bending in front of my computer.

Oh no.

I’ve been tricked!

I pull back abruptly, my bottom lip caught between Lo’s teeth. I tug away and jump off the couch, charging for my laptop before Ryke can. But Lo grabs me by the hips and throws me over his shoulder. Oh man.

“Hey!” I yell, lifting my body off of Lo by pressing my hand on his back. “That’s mine.” Ryke doesn’t seem to care. He takes the laptop casually and sits back against the couch. “Lo, put me down!”

He pats my ass. “You don’t like it up here?”

“Are you taking me to the bedroom?” I ask, rethinking my dislike of hanging upside down. If it ends with me on a bed and having crazy sex, then I wouldn’t complain.

“No, love.”

“I can give you head,” I offer.

“I’m still in the room, Lily,” Ryke reminds me, his eyes on my computer screen. I flush only a little. I have become terrifyingly more comfortable mentioning sex around Ryke.

“You don’t care, do you?” I ask Ryke, egging him on a bit. He has my computer after all.

“I care,” Lo replies instead. “It’s almost noon.”

“That’s why they call it a nooner.”

“No, Lil.”

I clench my teeth, hating that I’m making him say the word no over and over. I should be better like I was in Cancun. But ever since the leak, I feel like I’ve regressed a little. I just…need to figure out how to return to where I was, but finding that path proves harder every day.

Ryke taps the keyboard, the clicking incessant while his eyes dance around the screen. “I don’t really understand why you’re so fucking obsessed with blow jobs anyway. You’re a sex addict. What the hell do they do for you?”