47
I barely slept that night. I was frantic that I would never see him again – and I chastised myself endlessly for even caring.
But Derek was good as his word. He came by the next day at four o’clock sharp.
When he showed up, he was his old self, laughing and teasing and grinning. Shanna was there, and she told him all about how she’d covered for me. Derek joked with her about it, though he never mentioned shocking the living daylights out of me with the whole coming over to have Shanna ‘rock his world’ incident.
I was thankful for that, at least.
Derek and I went and played pool at the student center. The entire time we kept up an easy banter back and forth. He had an incredible way of putting me at ease; it was like the previous night had never happened.
But of course, it had. And we both knew it.
I wanted to say, Aren’t we going to talk about last night?
But I was afraid to talk about it.
And I was even more afraid to hear him say, What’s there to talk about?
So I just let sleeping dogs lie.
He flirted with me a little, but not nearly as much as he could have. There were no double entendres about how I handled the cue stick or the billiard balls. And even though he instructed me on how to shoot better, he didn’t take the opportunity to get behind me and press his body against mine, to fold his arms over mine, the way you see in the movies. He kept a respectful distance the entire time.
I kind of wished he hadn’t.
48
There was one extraordinary thing that happened that night, though.
We were sitting on park benches outside the Student Center, eating soft-serve ice cream cones from the café. Since the student movie theater was right there, we got to talking about Eastern Promises again – and from there it turned into what kind of movies we liked.
“You probably like movies where they blow stuff up reeeaaal goooood,” I said with a hick accent.
“What’s wrong with that?” he asked defensively.
“It’s such a guy thing.”
“Well, I’m a guy.”
“So I’ve heard.”
He probably could have followed that up with all sorts of naughty comments… but he didn’t.
“Just because I like action movies doesn’t mean I don’t like emotional shit, too,” he said.
“Emotional shit,” I said, nodding mockingly. “That’s exactly what I think when I choose a movie: ‘I want to watch some emotional shit tonight.’”
He laughed. “You know what I mean.”
“Mmmmmm mm, us chicks loooove that emotional shit.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“So, what kind of ‘emotional shit’ do you like, then, Mr. ‘I’m in touch with my feminine side’?”
“I’m not going to tell you now,” he said in fake indignation.
“Why? You get embarrassed when you cry during Steel Magnolias?”
“Okay, A, I don’t cry. And B, if I did cry, it sure as hell wouldn’t be during Steel Magnolias.”
“What about Field of Dreams? Every guy I’ve ever met says they cry during the end.”
Derek looked down at his ice cream cone and gave a secret, grudging little smile, like he’d been caught and didn’t want to acknowledge it.
“Ohhhhhh – you do, you do!”
“NO – I mist up a little. Maybe.”
“‘Cause you’re Mr. Tough Guy, huh,” I nodded in fake sympathy.
“Whatever. That wasn’t the one I was thinking of.”
I pulled back and exaggerated my surprise. “Ohhhh – so you have one in particular!”
“No,” he said tersely, but with a suppressed grin.
“What is it?”
“I’m not going to tell you.”
“Tell me.”
“No.”
“Telllll meeeee...”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
“Pleeeeeaaaase?”
“No.”
“Why not?” I asked, a little hurt.
“You’ll make fun of me.”
“I won’t make fun of you.”
He looked at me from underneath his eyebrows like Give me a BREAK. “You’ve been doing nothing but making fun of me for the last five minutes.”
“It hasn’t been five minutes,” I teased him, then relented. “Okay, I promise, I won’t make fun of you.”
“Yes you will.”
“No I won’t! God, don’t you trust me by now?”
“I know you now. That’s why I don’t trust you.”
Ouch.
But it was still a little funny.
“Are you talking about the boyfriend thing?” I asked, not sure whether to be incensed or to laugh. “Because I am going to kill you for – ”
He spoke hurriedly, as though to shut me up about Kevin.
“Dumbo. Dumbo makes me cry.”
I fell silent and just looked at him as he quite conspicuously stared at his ice cream cone instead of me.
“You want to make fun of me soooo bad right now,” he said, grinning – but not looking up from his ice cream. “I can feel it.”
I laughed. “You deserve it for that ‘trust me’ crack.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“What is it about Dumbo that makes you cry?” I asked… and I tried to hold back, but I couldn’t, I just couldn’t. “Is it because his ears are so big, and so are yours?”
(For the record, his ears were absolutely perfect.)
He busted out laughing and pointed at me in righteous indignation. “SEE? I knew it, I knew it – ”
I was giggling and pulling at his arm as he leaned away from me. “I’m kidding, I’m kiiiiiidding, come ONNN – I’ll be good, I promise – what about Dumbo makes you cry?”
He was quiet for a second and then looked back down at his ice cream cone. “It’s one scene.”
And right then, just like that, I knew exactly what he was thinking.
We both said it at the same time:
“The scene with his mother.”
He nodded excitedly as our eyes met. “When she’s in the cage, and he goes up to her late at night – ”
“But she’s locked up inside the cage and can’t see him.”
“And she takes him in her trunk,” he said, getting choked up…
…but so was I. “And she rocks him back and forth.”
“And then when he has to go, their trunks are the last thing to touch.”
“And as he walks away all alone, she waves to him through the bars in the window.”
Suddenly I couldn’t help myself.
I started to cry.
The memory of it – and my own issues with my mother, and with loving and being loved – were too strong.
I wiped my cheeks with my hand and then laughed a little through my tears.
“Now you can make fun of me,” I sniffled.
“I’m not going to make fun of you,” he said quietly.
Then he put an arm around me and pulled me to his side.
I melted into him and rested my head on his shoulder.
He leaned his head against mine and held me like that, side by side, my body shaking a little as I cried.
We stayed that way for at least two minutes, him holding me silently until my tears ran their course.
Looking back, that was when I knew – when I knew, deep down, that I had fallen in love with him…
…and that I loved him, too.
With all my heart.
Even though I still tried to deny it.
49
Nothing happened that night. I think we both knew we had gotten dangerously close to the fire. He walked me back to my dorm room and hugged me good night, and then he walked back home alone to get ready for his job.
I didn’t invite him up, and he didn’t ask. I offered to drive him home, but he declined.
That was probably for the best. My emotions were too raw, too vulnerable. If he had tried to kiss me, I would have given in, completely and with abandon.
And if he’d come up… and if Shanna hadn’t been in the room… I’m not sure what would have happened.
So I was glad he hadn’t come up to the room.
Even so, I ached deep inside until hours later, when I finally fell asleep.
50
Exams approached fast. I tried to study as much as possible, but Derek was a constant distraction – and one I hungered for. He stopped by every day, and I could never say no. He didn’t try to kiss me, he didn’t try to do anything… but just being with him was enough to make me lightheaded. I waited for that knock every day like a starving prisoner waits for his daily rations… and it was like a seven-course meal with a bottle of champagne when I heard it and opened the door to his gorgeous smile.
Finally, though, it all came crashing down.
He stopped by one evening later than usual, after 8 o’clock. “Good news – I got the next three nights off from work.”
I groaned. I knew he’d done it for me – I was leaving for home after finals – but the fear of God (and of a C in my classes) had finally crept into me. I had a three-hour exam in English the next morning, with half devoted to multiple choice, and half to an essay on an unknown topic.
“I can’t do anything tonight… I have to study for my test tomorrow.”
He frowned. “How long?”
“Late.”
“You want some company?”
I gave him a sideways look. “You want to hang out while I study.”
He shrugged. “Sure. I can quiz you off your notes.”
“You’re not going to help me study, you’re going to distract me.”
He held up his fingers in a ‘V’ sign. “Scout’s honor.”
“You were never a boy scout,” I scoffed.
“Yes I was,” he said as he shook his head ‘no.’
I laughed, then looked back at the empty room…
…and my bed, where my pages and pages of notes were scattered.
Shanna had gone to the computer lab to write a last-minute term paper, so I was alone.
Well… I had been.
Not anymore.
Don’t do it! Tell him no, tell him NO –
“Uh… sure… come on in,” I said as nonchalantly as I could. “If you want.”
51
It started off innocently enough. I brewed us some fresh coffee, and he actually did read through my notes and quiz me on them.
That lasted about three hours. Mind you, it was three hours punctuated by a lot of breaks – chatting, laughter, more coffee. I probably got in an hour and a half of real studying.
That was actually a pretty big accomplishment, considering I was sitting on a bed next to the hottest guy I’d ever seen in my life.
But around midnight, the caffeine just wasn’t doing its job anymore. I kept yawning repeatedly. By that time we were sitting cross-legged on the bed, facing each other.
“I didn’t know I was so boring,” Derek joked.
“You’re not. Chaucer is,” I said, and yawned again. “How come you’re so wide-eyed and bushy-tailed?”
“You forget, I usually work till 3 in the morning.”
“Oh yeah…”
“You should go to sleep and get up and study in the morning.”
I shook my head. “I am not a morning person. I’ll be useless if I try to do that. I have to stay up as late as I can.”
“You want to stay awake?”
“Yeah, of course,” I said, and yawned again.
“Okay… I’ll keep you awake,” he said softly, and leaned in to kiss me.
It took me completely by surprise.
Maybe it was that he’d kept things decidedly platonic ever since our conversation in the parking lot.
Maybe it was that I’d been lulled into a sense of false security.
Maybe it was because I was so tired.
All I know is that I jerked back a little – just an inch or two, and stared at him in shock.
He didn’t stop. He just leaned in a little farther.
And this time… I didn’t move.
I just stayed there and let him kiss me.
His lips touched mine so softly that it was a surprise. He brushed them against me like a caress, testing me. When I didn’t pull away or say ‘stop,’ he closed his eyes and began to kiss me harder – but not much. It was more like a gentle, soft pressure… his full, sensual lips against mine.
My heart stopped – and then began to pound in my chest.
But I closed my eyes and kissed him back.
It was like a dream… like a slow, sensual state of half-waking. He gave me smaller, tinier kisses on my top lip… my bottom lip… the corners of my mouth... and then pressed his lips fully against mine once again.
I was aware of the tiniest things: the warmth and softness of his lips. The taste of mint on his breath. The smell of soap and a slight hint of aftershave.
He put his hand lightly to my jaw, and I could feel his calloused fingers brush against my neck and the curve of my chin, and then gently cup my face.
I felt the tip of his tongue slip between my lips – just a soft, slow, wet, sensual pressure… and I knew what he wanted, what he was asking for.
And I gave it to him.
I opened my mouth and let him inside me.
He took his time, his tongue as gentle as his first tentative kiss. At first it was slow… wet and hot and soft… and gradually I began to match him, moving my tongue across his, feeling the wetness and tasting the mint on his breath. He used his lips to catch at my tongue, pulling gently on me, his own tongue retreating, inviting me into his mouth… and I did. I kissed him deeply but softly… slow and gentle, like I was hypnotized.
And then he pulled away.
We were only a few inches apart when we opened our eyes at the same time.
I stared into those emerald green jewels, and they twinkled in merriment.
“So… is that going to keep you awake?” he whispered mischievously.
Later, I wondered why my inner voices weren’t screaming in horror – Don’t do this! Remember Kevin! – but I think it was that he’d caught me by surprise. And once I started kissing him, my brain turned to melted ice cream. Awash in sweet deliciousness, with no coherent thoughts at all.
And my body… God, I had never been that turned on before in my life.
Whenever I’d kissed Kevin before, I usually remained semi-detached, kind of like, Oh, this is a nice experience.
Kissing Derek was like time standing still, nothing but pure sensation and animal instinct, nothing existing but overwhelming sensuality.
My brain had pretty much short-circuited.
The rest of me hadn’t, though. My breasts ached to be touched, and my panties were soaked. I usually didn’t get this wet until halfway through sex… and Derek had done it to me with two minutes of kissing.
Okay, to be honest… it had probably only taken him ten seconds. I just didn’t notice how wet I was until we stopped.
I said my brain had short-circuited. As it booted back up, there was only one thought in my mind:
That wasn’t what I expected.
I had thought he would be rough and brutish… that he would kiss hard and fast and violently. That had excited me, but also scared me.
But this… this had been like slipping bit by bit into a deliciously warm bath. Toes, feet, calves, knees, thighs… and beyond.
Sensual. Gradual. Gentle.
“What are you thinking?” he asked, searching my eyes.
I said the only thing that I could think of.
“You kiss like a girl,” I whispered.
He looked surprised – and then he laughed. “You’ve kissed a girl?”
I have never, ever kissed a girl in my life.
I blushed fire-engine red. “NO – I just meant – ”
“Okay,” he interrupted with a whisper, “this time I’ll kiss you like a man.”
And he leaned in and kissed me again.
Ohhhhhhhhh sweet God almighty.
He started off soft and gentle again, but that only lasted for a couple of seconds. Then his intensity began to ramp up, the pressure building, and I felt his tongue again, pressing, entering me, and I let it, and his lips were pressing harder against mine, his passion building, and mine rising to match his.
He scooted his whole body closer to mine. Suddenly his arms were around me, lifting my ass up from the bed slightly, and pulling me against him. I felt the hardness of his muscles against my curves – his muscular chest against my breasts, his massive arms encircling me. His hands, so big and strong, clutched at my ass and then moved up my spine. He carefully lowered me onto my back, his hands supporting me, his body pressing against mine, as we sank down together onto the bed.
By this point I was out of my mind with desire.
When they talk about electricity, about a kiss being electric?
They’re not kidding.
It was like a soft, warm, gentle current moved from his body to mine – and grew more powerful and insistent by the second.
As he lowered me onto my back, he rearranged his body so that he was on top of me, his weight bearing down on me, and it felt so good and so right and I wanted him to be pressed into me completely, hard against me, hard inside me.
I lifted my arms up and circled them around his neck, and I opened up my legs.
Even with both of our jeans between us, I could feel his cock, stiff and hard and hot as sun-warmed stone, pressing against my thigh, then pressing between my legs.
I moaned into his lips, and he redoubled the power of his kiss, taking my breath away as he entered my mouth and swirled his tongue around mine. He braced his weight with his left arm as his right hand moved from my back to my face, tracing lightly down my neck, then past my collarbone to my chest, his fingers brushing against my breast, then circling it, cupping it, squeezing it sooooo good. I moved my hands down to his ass – GOD how I’d been longing to touch it – and I felt the powerful globes of his cheeks under my hands. I clutched at them, kneaded them, pulled his pelvis against me, arching my hips against his, the hardness of his cock pressing through both our jeans and against my *, sending thrills of pleasure through my whole body. I was so hot down there, so wet, and I ached to feel him inside me –
And then I heard the scrape of a key in the lock.
52
My eyes snapped open, and panic and guilt blasted through me.
What the F*ck are you doing, Kaitlyn?!
I pushed Derek off me with a jolt of adrenaline so powerful it took us both by surprise. He toppled backwards onto his ass, a look of shock on his face. I scrambled upright and snatched up a bunch of crinkled notes, then stared at them with an intensity people usually reserve for notices of foreclosure and bad medical reports.
Except I don’t think most people in that situation have faces red as a tomato and hot as a coal.
The door swung open and Shanna entered, groaning as she dumped her backpack on the floor. “OH MY GOD, my paper’s finally done and emailed and I want a drink so BAD – ”
She stopped in her tracks, her mouth open, as she actually looked into the room for the first time. What she saw was Derek on my bed, sprawled out on his ass and propping himself up with his hands, and me completely ignoring him as I stared intently at a fistful of paper. Oh, and my face probably looked sunburned.
“…uhhhhh…” Shanna said, her face still frozen in shock.
My eyes flickered up, then darted back to my clenched handful of notes. “We’re just studying,” I said loudly, my voice verging on hysteria.
The appropriate line in Shakespeare is The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
Shanna was still too shocked to make fun of the situation.
That came later, after she’d recovered her wits.
But for now, she was entirely helpful and solicitous.
“…okaaaay…” She pointed back towards the hallway. “I could go get a drink at a bar and come back in, like, an hour – or two – ”
“Why?!” I asked, my voice getting even louder and more frenetic. “We’re just studying!”
The guilt pounding inside me was overwhelming.
For the first time since Derek had kissed me, I was thinking of Kevin… and my mother… and my father… and what a shitty, horrible, f*cked-up girlfriend and human being I was.
“I should probably go,” Derek said.
I looked over at him. He seemed slightly amused and absolutely calm. Like we really had been studying, but now he was bored and it was getting late.
Not at all like your average guy who was about to score and then got stomped on the one-yard-line.
In the back of my mind, I imagined how Kevin would have acted in the same situation.
‘Pissed-off,’ ‘irritable,’ and ‘self-conscious’ were the top contenders.
When I looked at Derek, though, he gave me a smile and a wink as he slid off the bed. “Study hard, okay?”
Unfortunately, when he stood up, his erection was pretty damn obvious. It was kind of cocked (pun intended) off-center from the zipper, and strained against the front of his jeans.
Although I’d certainly felt it pressing against me, this was the first time I’d actually seen it. Or at least its outline.
It wasn’t porno humongous or anything, but it was… a pretty big bulge.
Shanna saw it immediately. Her gaze dropped below his waist briefly, and then she did a double-take – she tried to look back up at his face, but her gaze dropped back down again like she was drawn by a magnet and she just fixated on his crotch with a glassy, dreamy look in her eyes. She unconsciously shifted her weight onto one leg so that one hip was higher than the other, then crossed her left arm across her stomach and propped up her right elbow. The fingertips of her right hand found their way to her mouth, and she just kind of rested them on her lower lip as she continued to stare at Derek’s jeans, mesmerized.
It was a look that basically said, Ohhhhhh BABY, break me off a piece of THAT.
I couldn’t blame her – but it did piss me off.
“Shanna!” I snapped.
She jolted awake like somebody had zapped her with electrical wires. Her hands flew to her sides and she looked at me in panic, then her eyes pinballed back and forth between me and Derek.
Derek was grinning like the Cheshire cat.
I was scowling like the Red Queen. Which was appropriate, considering how badly I was still blushing.
“I really gotta go get that drink,” Shanna said, and half-turned –
“No, it’s cool, I’ve got to get to work,” Derek said.
I almost blurted out, No you don’t! but then I forgot that, hey, we’d… uh… been ‘studying,’ too.
“See you, Shanna,” he said as he walked across the room.
“…yeah…” she said dreamily. As he passed by, she turned to watch – first the front of his jeans, then the backside.
“SHANNA!” I yelled.
She turned around to look at me, guilty as a little kid who snuck downstairs before everybody else on Christmas morning. “I can totally go to a bar – all night if you want – ”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Kaitlyn,” Derek said, and I saw that he had – um, ‘straightened things out’ so that ‘things’ were hidden better in his jeans.
Then he winked at me.
“I enjoyed studying with you,” he grinned, and then he was gone.
53
As soon as Derek left, the fun really started.
“OH MY GOD what were you up to?!” Shanna squealed.
“Nothing,” I insisted. My blushing, which had started to die down, returned with a vengeance.
“OH MY GOD you were totally gonna bone him, weren’t you?!”
“NO!” I shouted, sick to my stomach.
But what I did was bad enough.
“Dude is packing some serious heat,” Shanna said, and turned her head back to the hallway as though she could see around the corner and down the hallway if she tried hard enough.
“Shanna – ”
“I mean, I’ve seen bigger, but not attached to a bod like that – ”
“Shanna – ”
“I mean, not outside of pornos, anyway – ”
“SHANNA, would you please stop talking about his thing?” I hissed.
“I’m not talking about his thing, I’m talking about his cock,” she said, relishing my discomfort.
“Then just stop talking, okay?”
She belly-flopped on her bed and then grinned at me like we were at a sleepover. “What’d you do with him?” she asked as she doubled her pillow under her chin to prop up her head.
“We studied.”
“Yeah, right,” she snorted. “If that’s studying, then I like to study every chance I get. What’d you do with him?”
“Nothing!”
She frowned and went all Sherlock Holmes on me. “You didn’t do it, obviously – nobody’s clothes were messed up, and you aren’t sweaty – ”
“We didn’t do anything.”
“Yeah, keep sayin’ that, maybe you’ll believe it. Did you let him get to third base?”
“We didn’t – ”
I paused, uncertain.
“…what’s third base?”
“Hands down pants or under your bra,” she said excitedly, kicking her legs in gleeful anticipation.
I gritted my teeth. “We didn’t do any– ”
“Second base? Did he feel you up?”
I involuntarily lowered my head the tiniest bit in shame.
“OH MY GOD!” she squealed. “Oh my God, oh my God – ”
Then she twisted the pillow in her hands and whispered, “Did you feel him up, too? …did you touch it?”
I put my face in my hands. I felt like I was going to die from embarrassment. “Shut up, please, just shut up – ”
“OH MY GOD, YOU TOUCHED HIS COCK?!”
I looked at her like I was going to kill her – and then heard a couple of giggles from the hallway. Two women were out in the hall staring at us, big smiles plastered on their faces.
I dashed off my bed and SLAMMED the door shut.
“That was rude,” Shanna muttered.
I stalked back to my roommate and jabbed my finger in her face. “LISTEN – we are NOT talking about this anymore – ”
“Ohhhhh, I’m gonna keep talking about it till you tell me what you did,” she said in a gleeful, bratty voice. “Every detail.”
I sank down on my bed and closed my eyes in defeat. “We… we kissed.”
“What, like, once?” she asked, confused.
“No… for a couple of minutes.”
“Niiiice. Like, side by side? Or was he on top of you like you were going to f*ck?”
I opened my eyes and scowled at her. “Jesus, Shanna!”
“I just wanna know!”
I hesitated. When I answered, I looked away too quickly. “Side by side.”
She looked at me out of the corners of her eyes… then slowly broke into a grin. “No you weren’t… oh my God, he was totally on top of you! Was he grinding into you?”
“Please stop,” I whimpered, my hands clutching my hair as I bent over, nauseated.
“Did you feel his ass?”
I didn’t say anything… but I nodded.
Shanna squealed, then sighed.
“He has a great ass,” she said philosophically. Then her tone grew final and resolute. “You gotta do him.”
I lifted my head and glared at her. “I am not ‘doing’ him.”
“He’s got a face like a movie star, a bod like an underwear model, an incredible ass, and a big dick to boot. And he is totally in love with you. You have to f*ck him, Kaitlyn. It’s, like, a law of physics.”
“There is no law of physics about this!”
“Yes there is, it’s called… Shanna’s Law.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, it’s like, the hotter the dude, the greater inverse proportion to… your regret if you don’t do him… something like that.”
“That doesn’t even make sense.”
“I’m probably gonna fail physics anyway,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “But seriously, you already mentally popped the cherry; you should just go ahead and sleep with him.”
“I am not even talking about this anymore.”
“Well if you’re not going to do him for you, then do him for me, Kaitlyn!” she howled in mock pain. “Do him for meeee!”
I gave her the most withering look I had ever given anybody in my entire life.
She just shook her head in rueful amazement. “I don’t get you. You just made out with a hottie I’d give my left ovary to bang, and you’re acting like you ran over somebody’s dog. What’s your problem?”
“My problem is that I have a boyfriend!” I snapped.
Shanna reached over and pulled her phone out of her purse. “Lucky for you, that problem is easily solved.”
I stared at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Call him and say, ‘Yo, dude, I’m tradin’ up!’”
“I can’t do that!”
“Sure you can.”
“No I can’t!”
She lowered the phone. “Can I say something?”
“If I say ‘no,’ will it matter?”
She completely ignored me and sped right ahead. “I’m sure your ex – ”
“We’re back together again.”
“Which I’m sure will change in three weeks, if the last year is any indication.”
I shot daggers at her. “We’re going to be together after this week – we’re not going to break up anymore – ”
“Whatever. Look, I’m sure Kevin’s a good guy. I’m sure he’s got really great qualities. Maybe he’s super smart, and he’s got a great future, and he’s good to old ladies, and he does all sorts of charity work for orphans, but what I see is an insecure, jealous douche who makes you batshit crazy with his insecure, jealous whining. And when you call him on his bullshit he tries to control you by breaking up with you, and you come running right back to him every single time.”
Her words hit me like a punch in the gut.
Maybe because they rang true.
But even then, I didn’t believe them. I couldn’t believe them.
What she was describing wasn’t us. She didn’t know Kevin; she didn’t know me.
It still took me a long time to answer, though.
“…all couples have problems.”
“Yeah, but only f*cked-up couples have your problems.”
I wanted to tell Shanna that I was never going to be my mother. I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t going to do to Kevin what she’d done to my dad.
What she’d done to me.
But I’d never told anyone but Derek… and I didn’t want to tell anyone else but him.
What could I say?
I didn’t have anything to say.
My one huge reason, I couldn’t – wouldn’t – tell her.
I couldn’t win the argument by logic…
…so I lashed out instead.
“What do you know about relationships?” I raged. “You can’t even keep a man longer than three nights.”
Her face darkened. “There’s a difference between keeping a man and wanting to keep a man.”
“Too bad you haven’t figured out how to do either yet.”
The words didn’t make much sense, but the derision and contempt in my voice were plain as day.
Now it was Shanna’s turn to shoot daggers at me. “At least I have sense enough when a man disses me not to come running back and lick his shoes.”
“No, you just lick something else instead.”
She stood up, and for a second I thought she was going to hit me.
But she didn’t.
Not with her hand, anyway.
“At least I don’t tell some guy I love him and then f*ck around behind his back,” she said, and walked out of the room and slammed the door behind her.
I held it together for maybe ten more seconds.
Then I burst into tears.
She was right.