Free Record, Rewind by Ava Lore

have to pull it together, Cassie. This is getting sad.”
    I pouted miserably. “I thought we were friends.”
    “We are friends. I will, until my dying breath, swear up and down that you deserved to get laid by that Dorian guy—”
    “Damien.”
    “Like it matters. You deserved to get laid by that Damien guy but he didn’t know what a good thing he had in front of him so he let you slip through his fingers.”
    “Threw me away like trash,” I said.
    “Released you like a beautiful butterfly,” Dwayne countered. “But I am your friend, and I have to be real with you. You are overreacting.” He took a long swig of beer. “Nut up,” he added.
    He was right, of course. With a sigh I slowly sat up and rubbed my face. I wasn’t wearing any makeup and my hair was a mess. The couch was just a smidgen too short for me, so I tossed and turned in my sleep every night, leaving it gloriously mussed in the morning. It might have been beautiful post-sex hair, except I wouldn’t know what that looked like. Because I hadn’t had sex. And now maybe I never would. Because Damien was a jerk, and I hated him and now, if I ran into him and he asked me which direction he needed to go to pull his head out of his ass, I wouldn’t even tell him where he could buy a map.
    I still wanted to bone him, though. I mean, I’m not stupid .
    I stared at the carpet in front of me and tried to get my thoughts in order. Why was I so upset about this? Sex was sex. It would happen. I’d even find a guy who might actually like me to do it with.
    I had still, however, failed to seduce a man with a hard-on.
    The realization was demoralizing. In addition to failing in nearly every aspect of my life, including academically, professionally, financially and personally, I’d also failed at even the most basic task of getting a guy to sleep with me. I mean, seriously, isn’t that supposed to be easy for girls? Guys are always trying to sleep with you. Getting laid should have been as easy as falling down a flight of stairs.
    Figures I’d suck at even that.
    Groaning, I hauled myself to my feet, staggered a bit beneath the influence of one too many beers, and began to gather my things, which were strewn in a very neat heap at the foot of the sofa. Dwayne watched me from the kitchen.
    “Go get a shower, Cassie,” he said. “In your own apartment. You’ll feel better. Then you can come back for game night.”
    “’kay,” I muttered. Arms full of dirty laundry, I let myself out of his apartment and climbed the stairs up to mine. Opening the door I stumbled inside and dumped my clothes in the middle of the living room.
    Hey, it’s not like I was gonna have a guy over anytime soon, right?
    Stumbling a bit, I procured a glass of water from the kitchen, drank it all down, and migrated to my own couch. It was almost as comfortable as Dwayne’s, and when I sat down I was suddenly overtaken with the need to sleep. Just...sleep. And forget.
    *
    I slept for three minutes and was awoken by the sound of nuclear bombs falling on the city.
    SKKKRRREEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAEEEEEE—!
    “Holy shit!” Straight from dreamland, do not pass Go, I jumped to my feet at the terrible, booming, high-pitched grinding noise that was surely Manhattan going up in a mushroom cloud. My heart hammered in my throat and I looked wildly about my apartment.
    Any second now all the pictures are going to fall off the wall and then I’ll be vaporized, oh my god—
    “Testing? Testing? Can you hear me, Cassie?”
    At first the words, delivered over a loudspeaker, didn’t even register with me. I was too busy waiting to be zapped into my component molecules.
    When that failed to happen, I blinked and rubbed my hand over my eyes.
    What?
    “Cassie? Oh, Caaaaaaassssiiiiieeeeee...”
    I knew that voice. I’d know that voice anywhere. The only question was, why was that voice here, and why did it appear to be coming from outside my apartment window?
    These are questions to which a girl needs