Objectify Me: A Fireworks Novella (The Fireworks Novellas) by Bibi Rizer Page A

Charlotte at the club and the things that happened to those girls in the warehouse got mixed up in my head. I’m trying to untangle them, like a big messed up ball of yarn that a cat got into. But my brain doesn’t seem to be working right. The checkered floor of the police station hallway blurs in front of me.
    Charlotte’s beautiful round breasts. Valentina’s bony ribcage. Charlotte’s soft lips. Valentina’s haunted eyes. Charlotte’s warm, inviting pussy…
    How many men raped Valentina before we found her?
    I pressed my hand over my mouth to stifle a sob. These people are busy. No one needs to deal with a grown man losing his shit in a cop-shop waiting room.
    “Hey, Leev. I brought you a coffee.”
    Omar holds the cup out, tentatively, the way you might offer food to a wild animal. I try to quell the shaking hand as I take the cup and sip the lukewarm coffee gratefully. Across from me, Buck has nodded off, his head resting on his balled-up hoodie.
    He and Omar left the party before we even got there, stumbling along the highway until local troopers picked them up. It turns out the cops were already on the way when we called them. As I predicted, Omar got raked over the coals a bit, but in the end, no one got charged. Buck and Omar swore up and down they never touched the girls apart from to take that damn selfie that started all this. I believe them. There’s no reason to think they’d be any less grossed out by the whole thing than I was, once they saw what was really happening.
    Three spoiled, upper middle class, West Coast boys walk away scott free again. Big surprise there.
    “Where’s Charlotte?” I ask.
    “Who?”
    “Charlotte. The girl. The other girl I was with.”
    Omar shrugs. “I don’t think I met her.”
    Last I saw Charlotte, she was holding Valentina’s hand and helping her open up to the interpreter as someone tugged me away. To do something. Sign some forms, maybe? I wonder what I signed.
    “I called your mom,” Omar says. “She freaked.”
    Sounds about right. I turn my free hand to look at my watch and dimly register searing pain shooting up my arm and across my ribs. Not sure what that means. Probably should get it checked out. But I get distracted by my watch. It’s nearly eleven in the morning. We’ve been here for four hours. Maybe Charlotte went home.
    “Bro, you don’t look so good,” Omar says.
    “I’m just tired. When are they going to let us go?”
    “I think they’re double-checking with some of the girls that we weren’t, you know, customers.”
    And here I thought they trusted our honest faces. I lean down and try to rest my head on my hands, but I’m shaking so much, all that does is rattle my brain even more. So I sit back and take another sip of coffee, but it tastes like armpit and smells even worse. It takes me three tries to set the cup down on the side table without spilling it.
    “Where’s Charlotte?”
    “Dude. You asked that already.”
    I press my lips together. Better to not speak if speaking is going to reveal to the world how much I’m obviously falling apart.
    Charlotte’s beautiful neck. Valentina’s pitiful, hoarse weeping.
    I shake my head, making my shoulder spasm and my vision blur even more. I’d close my eyes, but that makes the room spin. I’m starting to feel like I’m missing a key piece of the puzzle. That sense of having forgotten something washes over me again. Maybe it’s just that I’m tired. Or hungry. Or thirsty. I can’t even tell.
    It’s as though I’m not in my body anymore.
    Maybe I just need to piss.
    Next thing I know, I’m standing, swaying a little, but staying upright. Omar looks at me, alarmed.
    “Gotta piss,” I say.
    I focus on the restroom sign to keep from falling over on the way there. When I get inside the door, I duck into a stall straightaway, lowering the toilet lid and sitting down. On top of the million things that are making me feel terrible right now is the possibility that Charlotte has