Free Wasted by Suzy Spencer Page A

horribly.
    She didn’t hesitate, though, to talk to Mike White about her sex life.
     
     
    Anita Morales’s girlfriend Rosie Rulle roomed with Hartwell, White, and Lyons at a time when Rosie and Anita fought often; Anita and Rosie were in the middle of a breakup. Regina Hartwell had no qualms about calling the police to settle those arguments, and she had no qualms about sleeping with Rulle.
    Rulle believed Anita was cheating on her with a girl with whom Regina was obsessed. Rulle told Regina, and Regina believed her.
    “How could you do this to me?” Hartwell yelled at Morales.
    “But I didn’t. I’m not. Regina it’s not true. Rosie’s lying.”
    But Hartwell refused to buy Morales’s constant protestations. She threatened Anita with a baseball bat.
    “Regina, I swear. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
    Regina backed off. Instead, she took Rosie to a nightclub, bought cocaine, and fed it to Rosie. They drank, snorted, got stoned out of their minds, and had sex together.
    The next day, Rulle was bruised up. Hartwell was scratched up, fingernails dug into her back. White didn’t want to know anymore. Morales had no choice.
    “I slept with Rosie,” Regina told Anita, her voice cold and hard, her eyes hot with anger.
    The blow to Anita was as strong as a baseball bat. Rosie Rulle and Anita broke up for good.
    Regina was finished with Rulle. She apologized to Anita.
    Regina Hartwell was drugged and didn’t know what she was doing. She wouldn’t have done that if she hadn’t been coked up, Anita rationalized. Her rationalizations flowed like her protestations had earlier. Although Morales forgave Hartwell, she never forgot the betrayal.
    Regina knew she never forgot, even though Anita had forgiven her. It bonded them even tighter.
     
     
    Regina, however, still didn’t feel bonded to her father and still hadn’t forgiven his betrayal to her and her mother, the betrayal of marrying another woman. Regina still didn’t feel like she belonged with Mark Hartwell’s current family, so she continued creating her own family in Austin, Texas. She and Ynema Mangum spent Thanksgiving and Christmas together.
    Christmas was just the two of them at Regina’s house. It was a Christmas that Mangum would always remember. Unlike Hartwell, she was used to huge family gatherings, so that Christmas seemed special and sweet with just the two of them placing presents under the tree for each other. They gave each other clothes and laughed when they found that one of their presents to each other was the same—huge, Odie slippers.
     
     
    But not all times were so joyous. Ynema Mangum got a new girlfriend named Kathy Steng, who didn’t like Regina. Regina didn’t like Steng either, however she wasn’t going to let that get her down. Instead, Hartwell fed off of Steng’s disdain for her and tried to aggravate her. “Hey, let’s do girls’ night out. Sorry, Kathy. Just girls. Just us girls.”
    Kathy jumped at the bait. She and Regina fought, with Ynema caught in the middle. “I don’t want to choose. Hey, it’s not fair. I don’t want to choose between my best friend and my girlfriend,” Ynema said.
    Mangum decided she wanted to break it off with Steng, but each time she tried, Steng threatened her—she threatened to commit suicide and she threatened to “out” Ynema at work.
    Then Mangum began to have an affair, hoping that that would cause Kathy to let her go. Kathy just complained to Regina about Ynema’s cheating ways. She struck Regina in that vulnerable spot, that place in her heart that so desperately wanted and needed to be wanted and needed. Kathy Steng needed her.
    Kathy and Regina began to bond, and Regina let Ynema know that she didn’t think Ynema was doing the right thing by Kathy.
    With that, Ynema Mangum began to feel that Regina Hartwell wasn’t on her side anymore, and they started sliding their separate ways.
    Besides, Hartwell was doing a lot of Ecstasy. She talked about it a lot and didn’t