“You want me to cancel my trip to France. My research trip. My bangcation. The one thing I’ve looked forward to for the past several years. You want me to stay here with you instead.” Again, these did not sound like questions.
“Yes. I love you. This is what I want.” I heaved a deep sigh of relief, and I waited.
“You want to drink wine together. Have sex. Lots and lots of sex. In impossible positions.” I thought about the Kama Sutra wins from the night before.
“Definitely,” I agreed. I loved books too.
“And go to sex stores. Buy ninja outfits. Fuck in the neighbor’s yards.” Hell yes. Yes I did. In fact, I wanted to do them so badly that I’d—oh god.
There was only one reason Marc would know about those particular fantasies of mine. And it wasn’t because I’d gotten drunk and forgotten I’d told him. My stomach dropped into my knees and I twisted my mouth around nervously.
“I can explain,” I said, but of course I couldn’t. Maybe I could have at one point, early on, but I’d let things go too far. Oh no. I really couldn’t explain. Shit, even last night. I could have used Brandon’s outburst as a way to have a really awkward conversation. But I was nervous, and embarrassed, and instead I grabbed a man’s shirt and threatened him.
All my denial about my little silly webcomic not being important enough to share—suddenly, it was so, so obvious how stupid I’d been. Or how cruel. Because of course he would find out. Any google search would turn it up.
“I was going to order one of your shirts. I love your drawings. I was going to buy a shirt to show you how much I admire your work.” His voice was soft. It would have been so much easier if he was angry. But the look on his face, the tone in his voice—pure betrayal.
And I did this to him.
“You don’t want to share me with other people, but you shared so much more with perfect strangers. You took something that was private between us, and you made it cheap. You made it a joke.”
“It wasn’t a joke! It was just supposed to be speculation, only things kept happening, and you have to admit they make a great story.” Shit! I knew it was wrong. But—I had justified it like this to myself, so maybe it would work on him, too.
Please let it work on him too.
“A great story, Madison. One that ends here. It’s been almost a year now since you moved in. Let’s call that good. I think when I get back from France, you should probably be gone.” His gorgeous brown eyes couldn’t even meet mine as he said it.
What? No! This was not how this was supposed to happen.
It wasn’t how I drew it at all.
“Now hold on just a minute here, Marc. I just told you I love you, fully clothed, and you’re kicking me out? Over a comic?” I just couldn’t believe what was happening. I’d hurt him, yes. Unforgivably, though? Really? I couldn’t believe it. I was going to fight for it.
“I’m not kicking you out over a comic. I just don’t see a future with someone I can’t trust, and I can’t imagine living with you afterwards.” His shoulders were slumped. He might not have been doing the things I scripted for him, but at least he didn’t seem to be taking any pleasure in going through the motions.
“But…” I wasn’t sure what to say that would convince him to let me stay, convince him to stay, but this couldn’t be the way things got inked. I wanted to erase what he’d just seen and thought and said, and surely if I just hit on the right combination of words, they would do the trick.
“Okay. Okay. Maybe you do need to go to France. We’ll just take a long break from each other. And then when you get back, we can have a long talk about boundaries, and renegotiate our terms. As long as you don’t bang anyone while you’re there. I won’t either, of course.” Was I begging? I was practically begging. I wondered if dropping to my knees would actually help or hurt the situation.
“I don’t want to talk about boundaries, Madison. I want you to have understood the concept to begin with.” It used to thrill me to hear my name in his mouth, but it sounded different now. It sounded like it tasted bitter to him now.
“Okay.” I said again, and sighed. “I fucked up. And I’m really sorry. I should have told you. Or fictionalized it a little bit better. But I swear to Odin, I did not mean to hurt you or upset you, or betray your trust. I really just thought about twenty people would see it and laugh. The idea of a sitcomic had been floating around in my mind forever, and our situation seemed like the perfect setup. But when was I going to mention it, really? Like, after the first time we made out? Oh, hey, hope you don’t mind but I’d really like this to go further so I am pretending it does in drawings. No way! It would have been embarrassing!”
“Embarrassing? You think that would have been embarrassing? Embarrassing is stumbling across a comic in which your genitalia is discussed in great detail. I can’t believe you talked about my junk with Ava. That’s just… gross.” I rushed to correct him.
“No, no, Ava specifically told me not to discuss your cucumber with her. I just added that part to the comic. See? Fictionalized! It’s totally different.” I bit my lip and waited.
I thought the butterflies had made my stomach upset? They had nothing on this sinking, awful feeling that nothing I said was going to bring him back, that he’d slipped out of my arms and life forever while I slept.
“The only difference here is how I see you right now. I can’t do this. I…” But he didn’t finish. He just got up and walked out the door. A few minutes later, I heard a car pull up for him, and then that was it.
The weight of what I’d done fell on me like a sack of potatoes. The hottest, smartest, sweetest guy I’d ever met gave me multiple orgasms and I ruined it all—with comics. It was truly the most Madison thing to ever happen. I was the worst human in the entire world. Or at least on this block. And I couldn’t even pout properly, because I wasn’t the one who’d been wronged.
I was just the asshole.
Sixteen
Unlike the last time I’d cursed giving Ava a key, this time I was very happy, because it meant I didn’t have to leave bed to let the girls in.
“Is she… alive?” Scarlet whispered.
“Yeah, I think she just looks dead,” Ava answered.
“How long do you suppose it’s been since she washed her hair?” Lizzie asked.
“Surely not the month that it looks like,” Scarlet answered.
“If Charlotte ever pulls this kind of crap, I swear to god…” Lizzie trailed off.
“Does anyone know what actually happened, anyway?” Ava asked.
“Does anyone know that I can hear you?” I rolled over and glared up at them. It had only been two days since I’d washed my hair; there had just been a lot of product in it. It wasn’t so bad. I thought. I scratched it experimentally. Okay, maybe it was bad, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.
“It’s alive!” Lizzie cheered. “Get up and spill. We brought booze.”
I considered this for a moment. I did want a drink and a friendly ear. Or six of them, as the case may be.