He thrust into her a bunch of times. “I love you,” he whispered into her ear. She moaned because it felt so good, and replied breathlessly: “I suck.”
I suck. “A bunch of times”? Even if that’s technically how sexual intercourse works, you’d think I could do a little better than that. The forum is pretty desperate for a sex scene, so I’m trying to give them what they want, but it isn’t happening. Normally I don’t even have to delete a sentence and try again. To be honest, I don’t feel like writing—I haven’t for a while now, actually—but they’re kind of my only friends besides Ruth and Avery now. Both of whom have called a few times, but I put a kibosh on my phone after my dad left a few apologetic messages. I don’t feel ready to pick up and talk to anybody just yet.
Okay, let’s go.
He thrust into her hard, but not so hard that it seemed like he had an anger problem or anything, just the normal amount of hard. It felt good. It felt great, actually!
He thrust into her a few times, and it felt like how that feels for people who have had sex.
He thrust(ed?)
Forget “thrust”; it’s gross. And “into her” used to confuse me in the fourth grade when I was sneaking Dawn’s Jodi Picoult novels, because it kind of seems like a weird metaphor. Right? “He is inside her” doesn’t sound literal; it sounds like some kind of strange aphorism for “He lives inside of her heart, forever” or something.
He climbed on top of her and moved around, like one does.
Maybe I’m not good at writing anymore. Wouldn’t that be funny? Yes and no!
“That feels really great,” she said.
“I’m so glad, thanks,” he said.
“No, thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome?”
Wait, why am I—why is she, I mean—thanking him? He’s not helping her build an IKEA cabinet. You don’t thank people for having sex with you, I don’t think, unless maybe you’re disfigured or seven hundred years old or something.
“This feels really good!” she said.
“For me, also!”
Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, this is bad.
Delete all.
I trudge toward Ruth’s house with a copy of my dad’s book. I’m giving her mine—something tells me it deserves about as much valuable real estate on the bookshelf in my room as Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi’s A Shore Thing. I wonder what she’ll say about it. Probably something like, “The literary world needs another white male perspective like I need these shingles on my ass,” or some other perfect withering quip.
I knock on her door, and nobody answers. I glance back at the garden, checking to see if she’s crouched in the sunflower patch, lighting up. She’s not. I knock again harder, and the door creaks open by itself.
“Ruth?” I yell, tentatively stepping inside. “Are you home?”
I walk through the foyer, following that never-ending shelf of feminist literature that winds all the way into the bedroom. I’ve never been in there before; our relationship has always been contained to the garden, the porch, the foyer, and the kitchen. (And, on one memorable occasion, the bathroom. I walked in on her puking. “Schnapps,” she explained as she choked over the toilet, before I ran to get her a glass of water.)
After hesitating for a second, I push the door open.
The bedroom is small with one bright window, illuminating tiny dust particles that float across the room. Posters of classic French films from the sixties hang on the wall, their yellowed edges curling up and inward. A ceramic ashtray shaped like a mermaid sits directly on the mattress, filled with cashed joints and the black dregs of weed.
That’s when I see the pill bottles—thirty at least, neatly stacked on a mirrored tray next to the bed with the exception of one bottle, which lies on its side, empty. On the nightstand, draped over a water-damaged copy of The Handmaid’s Tale, an oxygen mask lies coiled like a snake.
“Ruth?” My voice comes out a squeak, then I find it again. “Ruth!”
The house is empty, but she’s still everywhere. She must be out grocery shopping, or buying fertilizer, but even as I’m telling myself this, I know. I just know, somehow, and I have no idea how I could’ve been so clueless this entire time.
I bolt out of the house, hearing the screen door slam and bounce a few times behind me, and vault over the flowers. I think this is what disassociation is—seeing through a shaky camera, hearing your own heavy breathing like a heroine in a horror movie. I hurtle up the apartment stairs two at a time.
“Dawn!”
She appears from around the corner in her uniform, wrapping up her hair under the headband she uses when she cleans.
“Is everything okay?” she asks, alarmed.
“It’s Ruth, she’s not home, she’s always home at this time, and I went in—” I double over gasping, sinking with dread like an anchor. “We need to call the hospital. Something’s really wrong, the door was unlocked, and—I think I’m gonna faint.”