It lasted so much longer than I ever thought possible. We brought each other to climax after climax all night and well into the following afternoon. We’d vary between sweet lovemaking, hard fucking, and sleeping, all the while never breaking contact with each other’s bodies.
I loved it. I loved every single second of it. I had no idea it was possible to have a night like that. It was so surreal, seemingly a scene straight from another girl’s life. A girl who wasn’t me and didn’t have my issues. But it was so easy to forget about all of that with Brooks so close.
“Wake up,” he said while nuzzling my neck.
“Hi,” I said, one eye still closed to block out the afternoon sun. I kept my hand over my mouth, trying to conceal morning breath.
“You need to eat. How’re we going to repeat last night if you’re all weak and scrawny?” He pulled the soft blanket off my naked backside to emphasize his point and ran his hand over my skin. “You really don’t have any tattoos. I thought maybe I just missed it, but you don’t have a single one.”
I rose on my elbow and turned to face him. “No. I don’t have one. Not yet, anyway.”
“Why not?” He caught me up in a kiss before I could answer.
“I just can’t settle on one, ya know? It’s permanent, and you have to want it forever, and that’s scary.”
“Good thing your customers weren’t here for that comment.”
“You don’t have one either.” I playfully hit at him with the pillow.
“Not yet,” he said. “And what about these?” He tugged at his own unfairly long eyelashes.
“Am I on trial here?” To avoid answering, I grabbed Brooks’s hips and pulled him closer to me. Talking about it would ruin everything and that would be a real shame.
“No. I was just wondering.”
“I just like them.” I shrugged. It wasn’t a lie. I did like them—a lot. In fact, I loved them, but my reasoning behind my love was borderline insane asylum admittance-worthy.
“I like them too,” he said, planting kisses all over my face.
Either he really did like them or he sensed my unwillingness to talk about them and let it go. Either way I hoped he didn’t bring them up again for a long time. I didn’t think telling him I wore them because it was the only way to keep me from crying all the time would go over very well.
***
I didn’t need to worry about anything like I usually did because Brooks took care of it all. We did have a repeat of the night before. Except we added eating the delicious creations Brooks would make using only ingredients he already had in his kitchen, talking about things like our college experiences and favorite vacation spots and movies, caring for Boden—who, even though it was unspoken, we would only take out in the back so we could remain hidden—and several more X-rated activities to the list.
We were one hundred percent submersed in our own world of passion and no pressure until early Sunday morning. We were in the middle of the hard fucking in our rotation when I heard a shrill ringing.
“Brooks,” I gasped, not able to fully speak.
“Ollie,” he moaned back.
“No, no.” I couldn’t breathe and almost didn’t care, but the noise didn’t stop. “I hear a phone…I think.”
He growled—a real animalistic growl that was slightly terrifying, yet fully sexy—and pulled out of me. Brooks stood to retrieve the ringing phone from the chest of drawers by the window.
“What?” he snapped in the angriest voice he’d ever used. “Does it have to be…fine. Yes. I’ll be there soon.”
I watched and heard the conversation as I sat naked on his bed and missed him even though he was standing right there, but I couldn’t really believe he would leave. How could he walk away from this?
“Ollie,” he said as if I was an eggshell and his voice might break me. He came to sit beside me. “That was work. There’s an emergency surgery that’s needed and it’s really important that I’m there for it.”
I scrambled to get up and started scavenging for my long-forgotten and unnecessary clothes and underwear. The thought did hit me that the call could’ve been fake, some kind of easy out. I found my dress and bra crumpled in the corner and pulled them on while Brooks vanished into the hall.
The magic was dissipating and I hated it. I knew the real world would creep back the second he left, and I just wasn’t ready for it. I stood motionless in the middle of our love nest in a complete sex haze. I wasn’t even sure if I could walk.
“What are you doing?” Brooks laughed and kissed my forehead.
“Trying to find my panties,” I admitted, feeling embarrassed that I hadn’t worn any in so long.
He was tucking his blue button down into his Dockers while I tried to decide if he looked better in or out of clothes. “I have your panties and I’m not giving them back.” A smile played at my lips. “And don’t leave. I’ll be back in a few hours and I want to know you’ll be here waiting.”
Out. Definitely out.
“I can’t. I have to go to class and the shop and I have nothing to wear but this dress.”
He eyed me appreciatively. “Go home, get some things, and come back.”
With a plan in place, Brooks and I agonizingly yet hastily said our goodbye with a kiss that I knew I would feel for hours. When he left it took a while for me to find my phone and keys. I didn’t even bother turning my phone on, but the realization of where I’d left my car hit me like a semitruck.
The whole time Brooks and I had been canoodling, my car had been parked across the street.
Before I even closed Brooks’s front door I heard Aaron yell, “What the fuck, Ollie?” in his signature speech.
And there he was, standing directly in front of my car shouting obscenities at me on a Sunday afternoon.
“What?” I asked as I cautiously walked toward him.
“Don’t play dumb with me. You come walking outta Will’s house, after two days, wearing that same dress, not answering your God damn phone, never once moving this car and have the balls to say what? Like you don’t know.”
He half signed a few of the words as he spoke, but he was so angry his hands were shaking. I didn’t even attempt to sign back.
“No, Aaron, I don’t know. I’m sorry if my car being parked in front of Sadie’s place has been inconvenient for you, but other than that, I’m not sorry for a damn thing.”
He didn’t say anything for a few long minutes, undoubtedly shocked that I’d spoken to him that way. He raked his eyes over my body, looking for something. I couldn’t have been less in the mood to be talking to him, so I unlocked my door and tried to brush past him, but he grabbed both my arms.
“Ollie, don’t—don’t leave. I’ve been so worried about you.”
My teeth started to chatter, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of the frigid weather or fear of what was about to happen. “Why? You knew exactly where I was. There was nothing to worry about.”
“Yeah, I knew exactly where you were and exactly what you were doing there.” His dark eyes narrowed.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He tossed his head to one side and gave me a sour look. “You know what was going on up there. I think the whole fucking neighborhood could hear you.”
“Unbelievable,” I said.
“Sure sounds like you are.”
His words dripped with venom, so I hoped mine did too. “Don’t talk to me that way ever again, Aaron Kim, or you’ll regret it.”
Look at you, Ollie. Who are you? What are you doing?
I knew what he was doing. Aaron always signed when he wanted to win an argument, but I wasn’t going to fall for it. I wasn’t going to let him win.
I’m trying to be happy for once. And he was trying his best to ruin it.
This is what makes you happy? Your dad wouldn’t want this for you—guys you hardly know, running off, ignoring everyone. He signed the words with so much emphasis and expression I knew exactly the tone he was using.
If my life was a movie, that would’ve been when I slapped him hard across the jaw. Instead it felt like he slapped me. “You’re only upset because I wouldn’t have sex with you.” I spat the words out, leaving a bad taste in my mouth.
Truth hurts.
Oh, someone finally loses it and she starts acting like a bitch. This isn’t you, Ollie. This isn’t the girl I know…the girl your dad left behind.
“Stop talking about him,” I shrieked, completely losing any cool I had left.
You’re only getting upset because it’s true.
I tried to think of something to say back that would hurt and emotionally devastate him the way he did me, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I shoved him aside with all my might, which still was nowhere near enough, and got in my car. Aaron watched me the whole time. But he didn’t back away from the car, even when I started it. I sped away, whishing I ran over his toes.
Never mind that I had no idea where Sadie was or what she’d heard or what she thought. For all I knew she was standing at the window listening to the whole exchange, but I didn’t care a smidge. This was about me, my dad, and my issues.
When I got home I was a total mess. It was almost as though my happiness with Brooks made my misery feel worse. I told myself I’d gather my things and go straight back to his place. I found a bag, I put some clothing in, and actually thought I could hold myself together.
Then I couldn’t.
As I packed my piece of paper, the piece of paper that fell out of my jeans pocket from the night I met Brooks, I held it to my heart. I held it every day, always keeping it on me, in sight.
I never, ever, read it anymore but that didn’t mean I didn’t know it by heart. The instant I saw it falling to the floor I knew I was going to read it. After Aaron bringing him up and fighting to not think about it for so long, I was in the perfect self-destructive mood to read my father’s suicide note.
Sitting in the nest of clothing and magazines on the floor of my tiny apartment, I had tears in my eyes so big my false eyelashes were sliding out of place before I even unfolded the seemingly ordinary piece of paper. I tore them off and cast them aside. Why couldn’t they stop me? Why didn’t they keep me from crying?
I sat staring at that life-ending piece of paper through tears for what seemed like hours. I held it far from my face, careful not to get it wet, and just let the tears flow without wiping any of them.
Each tear had to count.
My old therapist’s mantra played in my head. “You aren’t him. You aren’t him. You aren’t him.” But I was him. In every way I was him. My bones, my skin, my very DNA was him. My actions, my thoughts, my words were him. And more than that, I wanted it that way.
What kind of messed up person would rather be her dead father than her alive and well mother?
I missed him. I missed him so much I couldn’t take it. Thoughts of Dad blocked out everything else as I convinced myself my life would be perfect if he were still in it. And my mom…I blamed her. I blamed her so much for their failed marriage and for his depression. She ruined his life so much he ended it and now she was trying to do the same to me. I just knew it.
Since I was already down, I figured I might as well kick myself. My brain and heart were both telling me to stop—if I pulled it together right that second, I could still go back to Brooks and let him kiss me till I felt better. But the external force telling me to do it won; it always won.
I got up from my nest-mess and headed straight for the kitchen and into the silverware drawer.
After selecting the first knife my fingers touched, one quick yet calculated action destroyed all the progress I’d made. The worst part was it didn’t even make me feel better. If I was going to ruin myself, it should’ve made me feel better for at least a couple seconds.
I steadied my hand with wildly misplaced determination and tried repeating my mantra. It was infuriatingly useless. My soul was telling me I didn’t want to do it, that it was a mistake, but my heart just hurt too damn much.
Everything hurt too much and the only one who could ever make me feel better was my daddy. But he wasn’t here, so I did the unthinkable. All I wanted was to feel close to him, even if it was only for a few fleeting seconds.
It was just one cut, one small cut I could easily pass off as an accident, or at least that’s what I told myself. But it wasn’t an accident. I very intentionally dragged the knife in a line across the transparent skin of my lower arm.
My mom never should’ve told me that was how he did it. That was information I didn’t need, because obviously I couldn’t handle it, but she didn’t think of that. She was so eager to dump half the burden, or more, on me that she couldn’t wait till I knew too. Moms are supposed to raise their children with love, it even says that in the dictionary—I checked. They aren’t supposed to bang on their daughter’s door at 3:52 in the afternoon to tell her all the gory details of her father’s untimely and self-inflicted passing.
I’d only ever cut myself one other time. My intention was never to die; I didn’t even want to hurt myself. My intention was only to feel closer to my dad, who I missed so much. One night, when the pain of losing him was too much to bear, the idea to do it struck me. It wouldn’t leave me alone. It nagged at me like my mother.
Why would I hurt myself? How could that make me feel better?
It was so dumb, I knew that, but I thought it’d make me feel connected to him. I only cut my left arm in one place in one small line, but it was enough for everyone to think I was suicidal. It’s not like I couldn’t understand; I got why my mom, Sadie, and Aaron would think that, but I just wanted my dad back.
It didn’t work.
I cleaned, bandaged, and covered the cut with the efficiency of an emergency room nurse. Then that outside force took over again and I found myself wanting to reach out to Aaron just like I used to do when shit got too real.
What I really wanted was to go back to Brooks’s like we planned, like nothing happened, but I couldn’t. He was a real man, a grown up with a good job, a nice house, and a luxury car. Not to mention jaw-dropping physical features and a loving soul. I, on the other hand, was sitting on the floor of my dingy apartment’s kitchen, bruised inside and out, with fake lashes ripped from my eyes.
I belonged with him about as much as mermaids belong in Pittsburgh.
And that doubt was what kept me from going back to him. The cut, that damn cut, was my literal and figurative scarlet letter. Any small amount of hope I ever had of being with him went out the window when I put that knife to my skin. So I decided to do the most natural thing in the world to me—avoid everything.