Every Monday and Wednesday morning, I look forward to seeing Stephen’s shaggy hair, his navy sweater, his groggy eyes while we listen to the PHIL260 lecture. Even though class starts at an inhumane hour, we take avid notes and stay until the end to ask questions. Our professor always uses a student as an example in his lecture to help him explain some philosophical thought experiment. Stephen and I are keeping count of the number of times he uses one of us, and I’m winning. “I have five. I’m his favourite. You owe me a beer and that’s the end of it,” I say. “Uh, nope! He used me for the one about Plato and Aristotle. I have the notes, I know what’s up.” Then he cracks a smile and I let myself giggle — like someone who’s never heard of Aristotle or his mentor and only cares about how many times she can get a boy to smile.

Before I go on, there’s something you should know: I’m the Queen of Misfortune when it comes to anyone with a penis.

I get attached quickly. We start texting about nothing and soon it turns into an everyday occurrence.

Stephen:
remember to come to class genius
you’re making this bet too easy

Me:
I just saw the old man doing thai chi in the park again
he’s still got it

Stephen:
I’m getting jealous of this guy
he’s in better shape than I am and he’s like 65?

Me:
sounds about right
you better get practicing those thai chi moves asap

The mobile flirtation becomes the best part of my day. I wait with burning anticipation for that vibrating nudge in my back pocket, fumbling to check my phone and discover what clever one-liner will make me giggle that insufferable, stupid-girl giggle. Then I calculate the appropriate amount of time to wait before I can respond. Oh, the politics of texting.

When it happens, I don’t see it coming and it’s nothing like I had imagined in my bed at night. I had known quite well that it was risky for me to even think about the possibility, that I shouldn’t let myself get crazy. (Remember the Queen of Misfortune thing). I had become pretty good at shutting myself down before the crazy-girl inside me got out of hand. A guy like that would never go for a girl like me. You’re being embarrassing. There’s no way he likes you. Keep dreaming. But I won’t lie. I never said it out loud, but I let myself think about it.

It all happens on one of those nights that vibrates. A Saturday in the middle of November shouldn’t be anything special, but there’s an energy in the air. We need something crazy to happen after weeks of being cooped up academics. It’s a general feeling of Fuck it, let’s get drunk. My friends and I have been planning to go to some charity event at the grimy campus club. University students getting shitfaced in the name of a good cause. I know we’re going to be drinking cheap wine and rubbing up against anonymous sweaty bodies, so I have to get good and drunk. It’s the only kind of fun we know.

To put it in terms that I hope you understand, I proceed to get white girl wasted at the club with my friends. (If you’re not familiar with the term, I don’t want you to imagine some kind of endearing drunk girl dancing at the club and then calling a cab when she knows she’s had too much. I am a total fucking mess.) Three of us have a bottle of wine each and we stand in the middle of the dance floor, one hand in the air and the other holding the bottle to our lips. We take turns yelling unintelligible nonsense in each other’s ears and trying to sing the lyrics to whatever Top 40s hit is playing.

It’s total drunken chaos. I have one, two, three, five more drinks. We yell. We dance. We fall. What comes next is a blur.

Flashing lights. Neon yellow and red.
A text from Stephen. I’m on my way.
Spilled drinks. Sticky beer and whiskey.
Fresh air. Everything spins.
He’s walking towards us. His navy sweater.
Laughter. He’s standing so close to me.
His face on my face. Black.

When I wake up the next morning, I’m naked. I’m not in my own bed. I’m lying in a pool of urine. My legs are unshaven. Stephen is sleeping next to me. He’s in his boxers. A condom on the floor.

I immediately have to vomit. I can’t stand for fear of revealing my naked body, so I look around frantically and try to hold the liquid in my hands.

“Are you okay?” He stands up and hands me a garbage can. It seems like every last content of my body pours out of my mouth. I consider keeping my head buried in the black plastic bin until he leaves the room, or maybe just forever. The smell makes it impossible, so I eventually poke my head out and hope he’s already gone.

“Holy shit. Are you okay?” he asks. I stare at him in shock. “Don’t worry about it, this happens to the best of us.” This happens to the best of us. “I’ll give you a minute.”

I must look like a monster because he can’t run out of the room fast enough. I return the garbage can to its original spot, try to wipe the sheets, and retrieve my clothes from the various piles sprawled out across the room. I can’t find my sock. I run out to the washroom. I don’t look in the mirror. I wash my face and hands and go downstairs in a hurry. Stephen sees me leaving and speeds towards me.

“Wait — you’re leaving?” Are you kidding me? I am getting the fuck out of here as soon as I physically can so I can go walk in front of a bus. “Yeah. I’m so sorry. I’ll see ya.”

“It’s okay. Maybe I’ll see you at the library later, right?” What the hell is even happening right now. “Yeah, maybe. Bye.” After stumbling in the wrong direction for a minute, I finally remember where my house is and embark upon my Walk of Shame.

Let’s pause for a second. I am an unreliable narrator. Every time I’ve told this story, I’ve transformed it, veiled it in humour and made damn sure that no one could recall the details in the truth. I’ll leave it to you to pick out the inconsistencies. The truth is always more than a little fucked up.

When I get home, I burst into my roommate’s room and wake her up. “So, my worst nightmare literally just happened. Stephen is never going to talk to me again.” I’m laughing a kind of hysterical laugh.

“What happened?”

“I don’t remember much. I woke up totally naked next to the poor guy and immediately had to puke.”

“Oh my god!” She laughs.

“So after I puke in his garbage can, he continues to be so sweet to me. He left the room and let me get my stuff. And then I just cleaned everything as much as I could. The bed was wet and I definitely puked in it.”

“Did you have sex?”

I don’t hesitate. “No, no, definitely not. I’m sure I just was embarrassing and passed out.”

“That is classic. Thank God, though. He seems like a really nice guy.”

“Exactly. Oh my God, I forgot to tell you the best part! I couldn’t find my sock. I just had to leave it there. So now he’s just going to have one of my socks forever.” We laugh about that for a while.

When I tell someone else what happened, I change a few more things: Stephen would have never done anything to hurt me. He’s such a nice guy and he’s smart, too. There was no condom. I just puked and was embarrassed. It happens to the best of us. They say I shouldn’t worry about it. There are plenty of other guys out there.

I tell the story a few more times, to a high school friend, to some girls at a party when we’re taking turns sharing embarrassing stories. I often get the worried look. The one that says: You weren’t safe. You should tell someone. You were raped. Whenever that happens, I quickly take note of what detail of the story gets that reaction and make sure I take it out of the next version I tell. We all live in the reality we choose.

For the longest time, I can’t figure out if Stephen is a nice guy or a bad guy, if it was my fault for drinking too much, for waiting for his attention, for going home with him, for taking off my clothes, for putting myself in a position where I can’t remember what we did, for never asking him. I cry once, get tested, cry again and stop drinking for a while. I wonder if what’s-his-name remembers how it all went down.

All I know for certain is I’ll never get that sock back.

Ana Rodriguez Machado is a poet and non-fiction writer. Read her chapbook of poems: I Swallow Your Heart. Follow her on Twitter: @anarodmac. More: www.anaro.ca