Blackout_ Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget - Sarah Hepola

about it.
But in college, what I knew best about my body was which parts other people liked. My boobs
were like tractor beams on my chest, and I enjoyed being the source of awe and admiration, so I liked
to flash my brights once in a while. Plus, I liked that my rack moved attention away from my thighs
and my ass. My genetic curse: short, Irish, potato-picking peasant thighs. Not the long, elegant gams of
those girls in jean cutoffs, one pencil leg over the other. My skirts came to the knee.
And I kept my giant flannel shirt tied around my small waist, so that it covered my lower half. A
casual kind of camouflage. It’s a little hot in here, I think I’ll just completely block your view of my
ass.
Alcohol helped. Oh my God, it helped. Behind my fortress of empty beer cans, I was safe from
fear and judgment. Alcohol loosened my hips, and pried open my fists, and after years of anxious
hem-tugging, the freedom was incredible. It felt good to pee in alleyways, letting my bare feet sit
there in the splash. It felt good to face-plant in a patch of grass or on the plush gray carpet of our
apartment. It felt good to jump up on the couch and whip the flannel shirt from around my waist and
lasso it over my head.
Booze gave me permission to do and be whatever I wanted. So much of my life had been an
endless loop of: “Where do you want to go to dinner?” / “I don’t know, where do you want to go to
dinner?” But if I poured some of that gasoline in my tank, I was all mouth. I want Taco Bell now. I
want cigarettes now. I want Mateo now. And the crazy thing about finally asking for what you
wanted is that sometimes—oftentimes—you got it.
Did I think Mateo and I were going to get serious? Oh, please. I knew better than that. Which is to
say: Yes, I wanted that, but I kept my teenage longing in check. I knew we weren’t “dating,” whatever
that meant (a word from an earlier era, like “going steady” or “getting pinned”). We didn’t even have
the phrase “hooking up” then. It was just, you know, something. Mateo and I had something. Until it
was nothing again.
The night after we had sex, Mateo showed up at my door. I was wearing striped flannel pajamas
that swallowed me. Hangover clothes, a wearable blanket. I sat cross-legged on the couch as Mateo
paced in front of the fish tank. He kept tugging on his poof of curly hair. He needed to say something,
and he wasn’t sure how to say it, but it needed to be said. OK, here it is: There was this other girl. A
girl we both knew. A Winona Ryder type, with Bambi eyes and Converse sneakers. He and the other
girl might be kinda-sorta seeing each other at the moment. And he wanted me to know that I was so
great, and last night was so great, but the thing is. The problem is.
“I get it,” I told him. “I totally understand.”
“You do?” And he looked so grateful, and I was so happy to see him so happy. The easy extension
of my hand at this moment punctured ten kinds of awkwardness between us, and I could feel the old
rapport of the dressing room again. Everything was cool.
After he left, I called Anna, and I burst into tears.
I STARTED HANGING out with a guy named Dave. He was one of the many male friends I never slept
with, and I couldn’t tell if this was a tribute to our closeness or evidence of my supreme
unfuckability. I loved being close to men and counseling them through their ill-advised one-night
stands and teetering romances, but part of me wondered: Why not me? Am I just not hot enough for