I’m sweating and gasping for breath and the sun isn’t even up yet. But it’s worth it because being with Garrett, alone before the world has come alive, might feel more intimate than sex—it’s like a secret I’m sharing, letting him see me pant and struggle and perspire. Running has revealed to us both that I neglect to care for my body. I eat junk and only exercise when Daphne makes me, and it shows.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Garrett says from ahead of me. He slows to a stop and turns to face me, his chest heaving rhythmically. “You’ll be sore tomorrow.”

My shoes crunch against the pebbles on the path as I catch up to him and double over with my hands on my knees. I’ve discovered that the lungs are a muscle and can light up with pain like any other muscle can. But though I can barely breathe, I feel alive as fuck.

Garrett’s hand rests on my back. “Stand up and walk. It’s not good to suddenly stop like that. Let your heart rate come down gradually.”

I force myself upright and plant my hands on my hips, try to move around. “That,” I wheeze, “was hard. I almost puked.”

“Let’s walk the rest of the way as our cool-down. We’re close to your dorm.”

“How far was that?” I ask. I feel like I’ve run a marathon.

He looks at his phone. “Two point eight miles.”

“Is that…good?”

“It’s not a lot. But it’s your first time out.”

He leads, and I stumble along behind him on rubber band legs. There’s a sweat mark on the back of his shirt between his muscled shoulder blades. I want to stick my hand up under his shirt and feel the damp heat of his skin. I want him to turn around, see my flushed cheeks, and invite me back to his house to shower with him.

He doesn’t, of course. He kisses my cheek at the end of the sidewalk by my dorm and heads back across the street to his house without looking back. I go to message Liza that I’ve gone jogging for the first time ever and see the messages she sent me three days ago while I was in the practice room—messages that got no reply. I send her an apology, with the excuse that I was in the middle of practicing and meant to get back to her, but that’s only partly true. I was distracted by Garrett’s texts, marveling at his self-control.

And I’m an asshole.

---

“Just hang on, I’m almost done with this chapter.” I highlight a few more lines, close my eyes and repeat the events and their corresponding dates to myself, three times each, giving them a catchy rhythm to help me commit them to memory.

Rome and I are in my room this morning since Daphne is out. I’m sitting on my bed and Rome is at my desk, polite as ever. He wouldn’t sit next to me on the bed, wouldn’t dare give me the idea that he’s angling for anything more than friendship. He’s staring at me now, though, suppressing a smile as I whisper-repeat my facts. Rome’s done studying, or basically done; he’s read all the material for the entire course.

“Not everyone is blessed with a photographic memory,” I tell him.

“Quit saying shit like that.” His knee won’t stop jiggling. “I told you, I’m just interested in shit, and when you’re interested in shit, your brain retains it easier.”

“Well, no wonder I’m slow, then. I have to force-feed every bit of information into my brain.” I close the book with a sigh and lie back on the bed. My room faces east, so the late-morning sun is streaming in through the window and bathing us in bright white light. “Where did you get your love for learning from, anyway?” I ask, staring at the ceiling. “Are your parents super intellectual too?”

I hear his backpack zip. He doesn’t answer right away. “My parents…yeah, I guess. My dad’s a pediatrician and my mom’s a social worker. I suppose I picked up some of my love of information from them, but…it’s not a genetic thing. I’m adopted.”

I prop myself up on my elbows. “Oh.” I want to know more, but it seems rude to pry.

“Yeah, it happened kinda late in my childhood, one of those adopt-from-foster care deals. I was one of my mom’s cases.”

I remember my brief stint in foster care, when my mother got a concussion and my dad was locked up. It was only a couple of nights, while Liza and I waited for Mom to be released from the hospital and Dad to be released from jail. If it hadn’t been for Aunt Bonnie, Liza and I might have been adopted by a nice intellectual couple too.

Now I’m too curious to stop myself from asking. “How late in childhood? Like, how old were you?”

“Man…” His hat has been backwards for the duration of our study session, but he turns it now so the brim shades his eyes. “I kind of hate to talk about it. For kids like me, it was a fairytale fantasy for your fucking social worker to fall in love with you and adopt you. That shit almost never happens. It’s not fair that it was me and not someone else.”

I sit up all the way, crossing my legs and resting my elbows on my knees. “I dunno, Rome, I feel like you deserved a little luck in your life.”

“Yeah, but my older sister…” He rubs a hand over his jawline, over the back of his neck. “Ten years older than me, already out of the system by the time my mom and dad adopted me. She never knew any kind of peace or comfort. Still doesn’t.”

“That sucks.”

“It’s not fucking fair. I tried to get her to come around, my mom and dad tried, but…”

“And your real parents? I mean, your biological parents?”

“Unfit. Meth. We were taken from them when I was two and my sister was twelve.”

“Holy shit, Rome.”

“Yeah… Anyway, my sister got jack and I got the good life. My adoptive mom, she’s some kind of fucking angel, I swear, she devoted everything to me. I don’t know why it had to be me, but…”

I wait for him to go on, but he’s staring out the window, lost in thought. “Maybe she saw all that potential in you,” I tell him. “Maybe she wanted to give you a chance to explore it.”

“That’s nice of you to say, Malory, but having potential doesn’t make me any more deserving of a good life than anyone else.” His voice is low and rough. “‘Potential’ shouldn’t be a prerequisite for comfort, safety…love. Right?”

I push at my cuticles. “Guess not.”

“And, for the record, my sister is ten times smarter than I am. She just got caught up with the wrong people, and she was so lost, so desperate to find some kind of connection with anyone…”

“Where is she now?” I ask the question timidly, afraid to overstep.

“Miami somewhere.” He shrugs. “Last I heard, she had two kids from two different dads, and she’s on and off drugs. And she gets involved with these fucking assholes that beat her. It’s like…it’s almost like she seeks that shit out.”

“I’m sure she’s not really…I mean, that’s a hard pattern to break.” I’m thinking of my mother now.

He huffs an agitated sound. “I guess so. It just makes me feel kinda helpless, you know?”

I think of Liza, trapped in that piece of shit trailer with Aunt Bonnie. I make a mental note to Skype her after Rome leaves. “Yeah. I know.”

---

I’m at Garrett’s again Saturday night, reclining against the arm of his black leather couch and methodically pushing my cuticles back one fingernail at a time while doing math in my head. After I played downtown this afternoon I gave away another wad of cash to some random bag lady loitering and mumbling to herself on a street corner. Why do I keep doing this? She’s probably already used it to buy wine or heroin or whatever thing she’s addicted to. Now I’ve got to go back downtown tomorrow to make more cash or I’m going to overdraw my account when the school applies the parking fee that’s due this week. Fuckity fuck, fuck.

Garrett is beside me with my legs across his lap. He’s watching boxing, a surprise to me because he seems too clean for it. He shakes my foot to get my attention. “You’re quiet today.”

I don’t want to tell him that I have a weird habit of throwing money at random strangers and that it’s literally making me nauseous. I can’t explain why I do it; I don’t know if I’m subconsciously trying to punish myself or if compulsive philanthropy is a temporary buffer against self-loathing. “I didn’t make much money downtown today,” I say. “People were…stingy.” I was too generous.

“That’s too bad.”

I sigh. “I’ll have to go again tomorrow.”

“Ow!” he says, jerking his head back in sympathetic agony at the scene on the TV. A sweat-slicked fighter is on his hands and knees, dazed and blinking, trying to get his feet back underneath him. One fighter is clearly weaker—he’s getting the piss beat out of him—but he keeps on coming back for more.

“I don’t understand this brutality.”

“Girls never do.” He gives a dismissive sniff.

“Next time, warn me, and I’ll bring a book.”

“Are you bored?” He looks at me. His face is hard, intimidating, his blue eyes gleaming with a hidden dare. My heart rate quickens and I lower my eyes.

“I’m…no, not bored. Just…anti-violence.” I want to be playful with him, make a joke, tease him and say What are you gonna do, kick me out? but I can’t make my mouth form the words. He turns me into someone else, someone who is desperate to impress and terrified of saying the wrong thing. Plus, what if he does say yes? What if he tells me to go?

He lifts my chin with his finger, forcing me to look at him. “It’s not violence—it’s a sport.”

“It looks violent to me,” I say timidly. “All that…blood. I’m pro-nice, you know? Pro-gentle touch. Make love, not war and all—”

“Come here,” he says, and he grabs me by the face and pulls me up to sitting so he can kiss me. His tongue is in my mouth and I turn to butter, oh, here we go, please yes let’s turn off the damn boxing, but he leaves it on, and even as he’s pushing my knees apart and sliding his hand up my inner thigh, I’m distracted by the angry thudding of fists on flesh, the crowd cheering on the brutality with their hoots and whistles.

I break our kiss and lie back against the arm of the couch. My legs are still splayed across his lap like an offering, Here, use me. Garrett’s fingers are beneath my underwear now, working me, sliding into my wetness, my knees flopped apart at odd angles. God, how does he always manage to make me feel so exposed? I don’t care about the boxing anymore—I’m panting and hungry. He keeps at me with his fingers, and I can tell he gets off on watching my face contort as he brings me closer to orgasm. I’m grabbing at the edges of the couch, spreading my knees as far as I can, pushing my hips at him, I’m so close…fuck.

He removes his fingers and edges out from under me, then settles himself in between my legs and undoes his belt, pushes his pants off. I’m pawing at him, helping him undress, greedy and impatient to put my hands all over his steel-soft skin. When he’s naked I go to rip off my own shirt, but then he says “No,” and he positions himself over me so that he’s straddling my chest. It takes me a second to realize he wants me to suck his dick.

I blink, surprised. That’s not what I was expecting. But he’s only the best lover I’ve ever had, and shouldn’t I want to please him too? I do want to please him. I take him in my mouth and suck, try to be as greedy with my mouth as I was with my hands, and the little hitches in his breathing tells me he appreciates the effort. I relax my gag reflex and take him as deep as I can, but this is an odd position and my neck is hurting, my muscles about to give out. I can hear the fighters on TV, thwack, thwack, thwack, the roar of the crowd and the semi-bored tone of the announcer describing the hits. I try to adjust position but Garrett thrusts into my mouth, and he’s tensing, getting close, so I move faster. I turn my eyes up at him, give him a bold, pornographic look, to maybe make him come quicker. His jaw is set and his lips have drawn into a thin, twitching line. Thank god, it’s working. He’s beginning to pulse so I stop to pull away, but he palms the back of my head and holds me there, forces me to take all that he empties into my mouth. I yank my head back—fuck, he’s strong—and it is all I can do not to vomit. I have to swallow, I make myself swallow, but I’m gagging and retching, stunned by the unbearable fullness, the snotty, seawater tang.

Finally, he releases the back of my head and pulls away from me, eyes closed. “Fuck Malory, that was amazing. You are the fucking best…the fucking best. Jesus Christ.”

I’m still trying to clear the slime from my mouth. What just happened?

“Amazing,” he says again, retreating, satisfied, to his side of the couch. Then he gets up and disappears into the kitchen.

On the TV, the ref is holding up one of the boxer’s arms by the wrist and bellowing, The Champion, a clean knockout after five rounds, can you believe this, ladies and gentlemen? The crowd roars like an agitated swarm of bees, but the sound feels like it’s coming from inside my own head.

Garrett reappears with a glass of water for me and I gulp the entire thing down even though what I really want to do is spit, spit, spit. It feels weird, laying down all this water over top of the slime I just swallowed. I give Garrett back the glass and rub my hands up and down my arms. I’m covered in goose bumps again. Freezing.

Garrett turns off the TV and helps me out of my clothes. I’m lying naked on his couch, legs sprawled, still covered in goose bumps, but my nipples are shriveled too, and that must look tantalizing, right? He licks his lips like he’s going to go down on me, but instead he just fingers me, and that’s fine because he’s good at it. He starts slow, taunting me again with those unbearable pauses until, this time without any prompting, I’m trembling and begging for his cock. He shakes his head and fixes his icy blue eyes on my face as he makes me come, smiling a little when I grab his hand and shove his fingers deeper into me, and then he slips on a condom and pounds into me until I’m screaming his name.

Afterward, when I’m lying limp on the couch and he’s kissing my neck, my chest, my nipples, bringing back the goose bumps as my body pulses with the aftershocks of orgasm, I think, It’s okay, I can learn to swallow a little semen.