Tell Me What to Do, I Messed up on You

"Jacket, or no jacket?" I asked Jimmy and Kenny, who were both sprawled on the couch in the hall watching reruns.

Kennedy simply raised his eyebrows and whistled, "Damn, girl. You look smokin'," he teased.

I was wearing a sequined one-shoulder dress and black pumps, I decided to leave my wavy hair down because for once it seemed to be doing something right. As for makeup, I played it simple and settled for a nude lip, a bit of shimmer on my eyes and minimal foundation. I never really went partying much, but when I did I liked to really get down and dance, so I didn't want to wear a whole lot of makeup.

I smiled, "I do what I can, Kenny. Jimmy?"

"Hmm...I'd go with no jacket, it'll be hot in the club and you don't wanna have to carry that shit around," he replied, his face breaking out into a bit of a worried expression, akin to that a mother would have for her daughter's first day of school.

"Gosh, can both of y'all just calm down?" I said, trying to ease them up as I threw the jacket into my room on the bed. "It's gonna be fine," I continued, sitting down on the couch between them.

Jimmy turned the T.V. off and looked at me seriously. "Look, if you need me to come pick you up halfway, you know I'll be up watching infomercials so don't think twice, alright?"

I nodded, "Thanks, love, but I think I'll be fine. It's just a bunch of us going to the club, a little bit of drinking, a little bit of dancing...what could go wrong?"

Both him and Kenny raised their eyebrows, and I knew each of them was coming up with a million possibilities of what they thought could go wrong. I knew Jimmy was worried because he had walked me through the grief of the breakup as well as Anna's passing, so he knew how torn I was about this group of people, well, one of them at least. Whereas, Kennedy was probably worried because he knew that with me and John things tended to escalate from zero to hundred in the matter of seconds.

"Jimmy, I can handle this. I promise. I wouldn't go if I didn't feel that I could, you know that," I said, cutting the conversation short. I was starting to get anxious myself after all this buildup and didn't really want to continue this talk.

I hugged Jim and me and Kennedy walked out of the apartment, I locked the door behind us. Me and Kennedy linked arms and walked together for a couple of blocks, where we met up with the rest of the guys.

This time around, they were way nicer to me than they had been initially. Jared even put his arm around me and walked with me to the club. We had a really nice conversation, and it was so easy and relaxed that it reminded me of how we used to be.

"So, how come you named it Eos?" he asked, they all seemed so curious about my store and I could feel the rest of the boys listening in, though they were a couple of steps behind us.

"Well, according to Greek mythology, Eos is the goddess of dawn. She opens the gates of heaven and makes the sun rise...for some reason I thought that was really pretty, so it stuck," I answered.

Jared nodded, "That's awesome, dude. Though I bet it's a lotta work!"

I laughed, "Hell yeah, I mean there are nights I sit in the back room and work into the morning. Stephanie and Chloe, these girls that work in the store, literally suspect that I'm on crack."

"So, you probably don't have the time to date, huh?" he asked, lightly. Although right after he said the words, he realized that John was about a foot away from us.

Still, I didn't want to make the situation awkward, so I just answered him honestly, "Nah, not really. Though Chloe and Jimmy are so annoying about it, they keep making profiles for me on dating websites and it's like the beginning of a really bad romantic comedy cause I keep going on these awkward blind dates."

The guys burst out laughing from behind me. Garrett called out, "What was the worst one you've been on?"

"Hmm, let's see," I thought, rummaging through the seven or eight dates I had been on. "Oh! Yeah, how could I forget, there was this one guy who had the whole upper row of his teeth knocked out in a bar fight and so he wore dentures. They gave him a lisp and he was spitting on me the entire night. By the end of it, there was so much of his saliva on me that I could have run DNA tests on the guy."

The guys were literally in stitches laughing. Pat clapped me on the shoulder and joked, "Aw, who's a lonely little lady?"

I turned around and stuck my tongue out at him, flicking his nose, and for a second there it felt just like high school. I could not help smiling to myself as we all entered the club.

Later that night

"Oh yeah, I know what you mean, Vito," I yelled into his ear over the music, as he clutched me closer to him with one hand.

I couldn't even remember what we were just talking about as I took another sip of my drink, a classic tequila sunrise. I could feel the bass of the music pumping within me and I had already lost track of how long we had been here, what I had done since getting here, and I sure as hell didn't know what would unfold in the next few hours.

Suddenly, out of the blue (literally, the "blue" since the club was lit with mostly blue and green lights) John showed up right in front of my face. For whatever reason, I felt Vito's hand slide off my waist really discreetly, and he told us he'd go get more drinks even though John and I both had fresh ones.

I just stood there staring in awe around me. I was getting into that stage of drunkness when everything was fascinating, and I was basically at the mercy of my attention deficit disorder. I almost forgot John was standing right there until he spoke up.

I looked at his face and cocked my head to the side. I could see his lips moving, but he would have to speak way louder in order for me to understand him. I made a gesture as if to say, "Speak up, I can't hear you."

He proceeded to get close to me in the same way Vito had, and he yelled into my ear, "I've really missed you, Rosie."

Maybe it was my numbness or maybe I was entirely pissed but I couldn't find an adequate response in me, so I just nodded overtly.

"I-I was kinda hoping we could go somewhere quiet and talk, Rose," he continued, but he had lost my attention again.

"What?" I yelled.

He rolled his eyes, grabbed me by the hands and pulled me with him. On the way out, he chugged his drink and me mine and we put the glasses down before we left the club. The sudden silence as we stepped out of the club was alarming.

"Wh-why is it so quiet? This is New York City, bitches! Make some noise!" I yelled.

John broke out in fits of laughter and tried to sedate me. "Sh, Rosie. Quiet down, it's almost four in the morning, most people are asleep..."

"But, it's supposed to be the city that never sleeps. They lied," I said, genuinely upset. I got really upset over small things when I was really drunk. Not to mention, it had been a year since I had really drank this much and my body wasn't acclimated to it anymore.

"Hey, Rose," he cooed, grabbing my face in his hands and kissing my forehead. "Come here," he pulled me closer.

"Where are we going, Johny?"

"I'll drop you home, and then go to the hotel,'' he replied.

Feeling the goosebumps rise on my hands and legs, he took off his sweatshirt and put it on me. It was almost as long as my dress and it looked as if I was wearing nothing but a jacket.

I giggled, "I look super slutty."

He shook his head, "No, you don't."

"B-but I do!" I yelled.

"Shh, okay. Whatever you say, dear," he said, pulling me along gently.

That was all I could remember as I woke up the next day, alone, my head pounding, and a lurch of vomit rising up my chest. I woke up just in time to hurl myself out of my bed, into my open bathroom and dropped down to my knees, my head perfectly perched and got sick for about fifteen minutes into the toilet. After that was done, I knew my hangover was essentially over. I started to strip down to nothing.

I turned on the shower on the hottest setting and got in. I closed my eyes and let the steam waft all around me and tried desperately to remember a bit more than those blurred five minutes. It was all in vain, I couldn't remember squat. Once I was done, I popped out of the shower, wiping my hair and body. Nothing felt better than a shower after a crazy night. I kept my hair up in a towel turban as I started to moisturize my legs. In a distance, I could hear the doorbell ring.

"Jimmy," I yelled, opening my bathroom door. "I'm in the bathroom, can you get it?"

I didn't hear his response, so I went outside quietly, checking his room, the hall and the kitchen. Neither him nor Kennedy were there. I looked at the clock, it read ten thirty. They had probably gone down to get breakfast or something, maybe they were back now. Thinking it had to be them, I didn't even check the peephole before opening the door wide open.

Instead of the two boys I expected it to be, it was the one boy I least expected it to be. I suddenly felt very conscious of the fact that I was in nothing but two towels. Not to mention that I looked slightly goofy with my towel turban.

"Oh, John," I said, awkwardly clutching my towel, suddenly aware of how it could possibly fall any moment.

"Hey, Rosie. Can I-uh, come in?" he asked, uncertainly biting his lip.

I nodded, "Yeah, sure. Why don't you sit down? I'll just go change," I said, nonchalantly pointing towards the messy hall for him to sit in and myself going into my room and slamming the door.

For some reason I learned that my heart was pounding really obnoxiously as I took the towel off my body and threw it behind my bathroom door. I walked slowly towards my closet. No point in rushing, I thought, he waited four years, another couple of minutes won't be the end of either of us.

I decided on a simple black and white polka-dot sundress, but since it was cool in the house I threw an oversized white jumper over it. I went to the bathroom and decided, hell, why not blow-dry my hair too, no point catching a cold, right? Once that was done, I put two small pearl earrings in each of my ears and applied some lip balm.

After fiddling around mindlessly for another five minutes, I finally wrenched open my door and walked into the hall. As I walked in, I realized that Jimmy had probably been on an inspirational binge last night because there was glitter and sequins everywhere, not to mention about ten types of fabric and both the dress-forms were draped in at least three new outfits. I made a mental note to buy that boy some more dress-forms as I laughed at the tornado zone.

"Sorry about that, Jimmy was probably up all night designing," I said, as I spotted John lumped on the end of the couch. "Here, let's sit in my room," I offered.

He nodded and followed me into my room. There was a bed and a vanity with a chair and John looked at me with a puzzled expression as to where to sit. I curled up on the head of my bed and he finally decided to perch awkwardly on the foot of my bed. I didn't bother telling him he didn't have to do that, that he could swing his legs up and sit normally. Why should I? He was making this awkward for himself.

I cleared my throat, "So, what'd you have to say, John?'' I asked him, with clarity and resonance that astounded me.

Apparently, he was astounded too because he kept looking around my room instead of at me. After about five minutes of this, after I had already sent Kennedy a text saying: "John's here. It's beyond awkward. Save me!!!!" he decided to speak. What he said was not what I was expecting to hear after such a build-up.

"The map of the world...it's gone," he said.

"Yeah, well, you wanna go to all these places but then you come to New York and you realize it's just like taking a trip around the world. Plus, I lost the map in the move here," I replied.

He finally looked me straight in the eyes, and said, "Well, I'd still want to backpack around Europe with you, if you plan on it."

"Sure. I'll let you know if I do."

He sighed. He ran his hands through his hair like he did when he was frustrated with himself. The old me would have gone over, kissed him and soothingly told him to tell me what was on his mind. The new me kind of enjoyed seeing him squirm, but somehow I couldn't find it in me to be mean to the guy.

So I said, "John, please stop with the random side conversations. Let's have the one that you had on your mind so you can leave in peace."

He looked at me truly, honestly, for the first time since he arrived back in my life and said, "You've grown, Rosie. You've become everything I knew you would as a woman. I mean, I don't even know the details of your new life but even sitting here as an outsider I can tell that you've amounted to everything that you were meant to amount to. And maybe I have no right to be, but I am really, really proud of you. I mean, look at me. I'm aging by the minute, a supposedly grown man who still crawls back to his hometown and the comforts of what he knows...but you. You completely turned everything around for yourself, you...you made this, all of it all on your own and that's just so amazing. Inspiring. I just wanted to come here and tell you that."

I smiled at him politely, "Thanks, John. That means a lot."

He nodded and got up off the bed, slowly walking towards my bedroom door to leave. Right before he could, he turned around and said, "And I'm sorry. I'm sorry I ended up being that guy. The one who screwed you up and ruined everything. I'm sorry that's all we amounted to. If I had it my way, it wouldn't have been that way."

I smirked. "Oh, but you did have it your way, John. That was the problem."