Antonia
Antonia showered for a solid hour after fucking Cal again, willing the shame to fall off her body and slip down the drain along with all the sweat and grime and whatever else was clinging to her body as a result of her latest bad decision. Jesus fuck, she thought as she scrubbed at her skin to the point of pain. What the hell is wrong with me?
Once she had scrubbed at every inch of her flesh bright red in her frantic desire to wipe away any evidence of her crime, she finally managed to slip into bed for a few hours, blissfully sinking into the oblivion of dreamless sleep before she felt somebody shake her awake. Before she even opened her eyes, she could tell that it was too early to be awake. “Daniel, stop it,” she mumbled out, keeping her eyes shut, willing the sweet darkness of slumber to return to her. “Go back to bed, baby.”
“It’s Cal.”
Antonia’s eyes flew open, her body bolting upright. She gathered the blanket around her to cover up her exposed arms, shielding them from Cal’s eyes. She knew it was ridiculous, given the fact that they’d already fucked twice and he’d seen every inch of her, but she couldn’t stop herself from hiding under whatever cover she could find. She couldn’t let herself be vulnerable again. Not in front of him, at least.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, clearing her throat to try to sound as casual as possible, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened the night before.
“I just wanted to talk to you before the kids woke up,” Cal said. He took a seat on the edge of the bed, a little close for her comfort. She shifted to the other side, giving herself some more space around her body so that there was no danger of Cal touching her.
“Um, okay,” she said. Her blood pumped faster in her veins as Cal’s words sunk in. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, Antonia thought. This is when it happens. This is when he fires me. It wasn’t like she could even blame him. That was the worst part. She was an awful, horrible slut, a stupid whore who’d irresponsibly banged her boss. It made sense that she’d lose her job. It was just the law of the universe: bad things always happened to stupid, dirty girls who thought with their cunts and not their brains.
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it for a while, actually,” Cal said, fidgeting a little with his hands. Well, at least he feels awkward, too, Antonia thought, even though she felt like she was choking on her own heart, tasting slick copper as if her own blood was flooding her mouth.
“All right,” Antonia said. She blew out her breath to steady herself as she swung her legs over the side of the bed to sit next to Cal. Her stomach churned, the remains of yesterday’s dinner flopping around inside of her, silently telling her to get out of this situation as quickly as possible. She was going to be fired. She and Daniel were about to be out on the street again, living from motel to motel until she could find another shitty job. Goddammit, she thought. She bit the inside of her lip to punish herself for her stupidity. How could I fuck this up this badly?
Cal sighed heavily. His hands clenched into fists and balanced on his knees like he was holding himself back from blurting it out all at once. Antonia honestly wouldn’t have blamed him if he had. It would be easier to take it if he just came out with it already rather than trying to do it the nice way, drawing it out excruciatingly slowly, only torturing both of them for no good reason. “This is really hard for me to say—” Cal started to say, but he cut himself off and shook his head before turning to look at Antonia. His face fell immediately and his brows furrowed up as he met Antonia’s gaze. “What’s wrong?”
“What?” Antonia asked, flushing from the base of her spine to the top of her head. “Nothing. What were you saying?”
“You look really scared,” Cal said. He scooted a little closer to Antonia on her bed. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Antonia lied. Her tongue felt like a fat, worn-out sponge hanging limp in her mouth whenever she wasn’t speaking. “Go on with what you were going to say before.”
“Not until you tell me what’s wrong,” Cal said, his forehead wrinkled up with frustration and confusion.
Antonia exhaled heavily and reached up to undo her ponytail, bringing her hair, which was still slightly damp from her shower a few hours earlier, down about her shoulders. “I just wish you would get it over with,” she muttered through her teeth. Why was Cal doing this to her, prolonging the inevitable? Did he get off on hurting her?
“Get what over with?” Cal asked. “Hey,” he said when she dropped her head, letting her gaze fall to the floor. Cal reached forward and grabbed her chin, turning her face to look him in the eyes. “What do you think I’m doing here, exactly?”
“Firing me!” Antonia shouted. She knocked Cal’s hand away from her face and backed up until she hit the wall behind the bed. “Just…have some fucking mercy and spit it out already, okay?”
Cal stared at her with his mouth open, his brows still scrunched up in the center of his infuriatingly beautiful face. “What?”
“You heard me,” Antonia said, crossing her arms across her chest. “Just do it already.”
“Antonia, I didn’t come in here to fire you,” Cal said. He slowly got to his feet and walked over to stand over Antonia, looking down her in the eyes. “Where did you get that idea from?”
“Oh, maybe the fact that we’ve fucked twice,” Antonia snapped, her face flushed with heat, her skin crawling with embarrassment. It was the first time she’d admitted what happened out loud. She immediately felt sick, her stomach clenching in on itself as her own voice echoed in her head. It took her several long moments to muster up the courage to lift her head again and meet Cal’s gaze, as she was confident he must have been totally enraged that she’d had the audacity to speak the truth out loud.
Finally, after several long unbearable seconds of silence, Cal cleared his throat, stuttering for a second before he finally forced out the words, “I’m sorry.”
Antonia was so surprised she forgot that she was afraid to look at him directly, her gaze flashing to look at Cal, who now had his head bowed like he was ashamed. “You’re sorry? For what?”
“I don’t know what I did to make you think that I would fire for you that, but that’s not who I am,” Cal said softly, his words barely audible even in the silence of the room.
“Then why did you ignore me all day yesterday?” Antonia asked, her fear rapidly replaced by righteous anger. Her whole body burned with it, her skin prickling almost painfully with the memory of the rejection she’d felt after he’d ignored her the day before.
Cal’s throat worked furiously for a moment as he struggled to come up with an answer. “I—I don’t know,” he stuttered out a moment later, his voice sounding uncharacteristically small and weak. “I really don’t. I just didn’t know what to do. I’ve never done anything like that before.”
“Yeah, right,” Antonia scoffed out. She got to her feet and carefully stepped around Cal so that they didn’t brush up against each other at all. “You expect me to believe you don’t get laid all the time?”
Cal was silent, but he followed her across the room, stepping in front of the door so that she couldn’t run out into the hall.
Antonia sighed, feeling a considerable amount of energy sag out of her body. “Listen, I’m sorry for snapping at you. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t like I was unwilling or anything.” She smiled a little sadly, thinking back on the way her body had responded so passionately to Cal’s. “But it was a mistake. It can’t happen again.”
“Why?” Cal asked, staring at her unblinkingly. “Why can’t it?”
“Because you’re my boss,” Antonia said immediately. “It’s inappropriate. And it just makes things more complicated. I don’t need any more messes in my life right now.”
“It doesn’t have to be messy,” Cal said. “I’m good at compartmentalizing.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m sure you are,” Antonia said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes a little bit. She recalled that she still didn’t know where Cal went at night, except that it wasn’t to go see patients, that was for sure. He always left in jeans and t-shirts, not his usual work uniform, but that wasn’t much to go on. She was tempted to ask him point blank, but for some reason she held herself back, too nervous to admit that she was curious about any aspect of his life. “But there’s another problem,” Antonia said. She stepped back a little so that there was more distance between her body and Cal’s. “I’m not a live-in prostitute. That’s just not something I’m interested in being.”
“Who said you’d be a prostitute?” Cal asked. “I wouldn’t want it to be that way.”
“Then why did you thank me for my services last night?” Antonia asked, inwardly grimacing at the memory. It hurt so much to be thanked so coldly, especially after they’d fucked with so much fire and passion.
“Is that what you thought I meant?” Cal asked, some of color fading from his face. “That’s not what I was trying to say.”
Antonia had to bite her tongue to keep from groaning out loud. “See, this is why we shouldn’t do this,” she said instead of grunting and stomping her foot the way she wanted to. “We obviously can’t communicate very well.”
Cal smiled a little at that, his eyes brightening as he stepped closer to her, cutting the distance between them in half. “It’s not one of my talents, no, but I can work on that.”
“Why would you want to?” Antonia said. Her pounded harder in her chest again, but this time she wasn’t sure what she was afraid of.
Cal stared at her so intensely that Antonia felt her skin physically tingle, goosebumps popping up on her arms and legs like he’d actually reached out and touched her. “I think you know the answer to that.”
Antonia wasn’t so sure that she did, but she felt her stomach flutter. She dropped her gaze to the floor and swallowed hard again to clear the lump in her throat. “It can’t happen. I’m sorry,” she murmured. Guilt burned along her spine, radiating out to the rest of her body.
“Why not?” Cal asked.
“I can’t…I don’t want a man in my life right now, okay?” Antonia said, turning around and heading back to her bed. She crawled under her covers to signify that the conversation should end now.
But Cal was undeterred. He followed her back to the bed and sat down next to her, reaching out to put a hand on her knee. Antonia almost flinched away from the contact, but for some reason the weight of his hand there felt a little too reassuring to force him away.
They were quiet for a minute, sitting in a silence that was weirdly comfortable, as if they weren’t having a disagreement about their potential as a couple. If Antonia was really honest with herself, she would have had to admit that she’d already gotten used to this, sitting quietly with Cal. It felt familiar now, even though they’d only done anything like this a couple times over the past several weeks. It was like relaxing into a warm bath, letting a kind of calm nothingness creep into her mind, crowding out all of her worrying thoughts and troubles, letting her sink into her own body, away from anything that might hurt her.
But eventually, Cal broke the easy peace they’d made with each other, saying, “You know, it might be good for Daniel.”
“What?” Antonia asked, confused.
“To have another male role model in his life,” Cal said.
Antonia flinched away from his words, unable to stop herself from reaching out and knocking Cal’s hand away from her body entirely. “Get real,” she snapped, shifting in the bed so that no part of her body was in danger of brushing up against him. “He’s got his dad. That’s all he needs.”
“Really?” Cal asked. “Then why did he come home with bruises yesterday? Why did he have a nightmare that he was too afraid to tell you about?”
“Shut up,” Antonia said reflexively. She felt weirdly defensive of her ex despite everything that he’d put her through. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Cal shrugged a little, but Antonia could tell that he wasn’t accepting defeat that easily. “What do I know, right? I barely know the kid, and I haven’t met your ex. It’s just that from what you’ve said, he sounds like a scumbag. I wouldn’t put anything past a man like that.”
Antonia wasn’t sure what to say. She had been expecting Cal to comfort her, the way he had the night before, telling her that she was a good mom and reassuring her that she was doing her best. But she wasn’t, was she? Cal was right. Paul couldn’t be trusted, even if he was Daniel’s father. Blood didn’t count for much. After all, Antonia’s own father had been a horrible disappointment, hurting her emotionally whenever he got the opportunity to do so. It wasn’t a huge leap to think that Paul might have put his hands on their son.
After a few long moments of silence, Antonia said, “You can never really know anybody, can you?” She was just thinking out loud, not allowing her thoughts to be processed before they were spoken. “I mean, no matter how much time you spend with somebody, they could still be lying to you. Or they could be holding something back, you know, and that way they can justify it to themselves, because they never lied. They just omitted the truth.” Cal shifted his weight around on the bed, and for a moment Antonia was afraid he was going to try to touch her again, but he remained on his side of the mattress, picking at his fingernails. Antonia was a little curious about that. Was it a nervous habit, fidgeting with his hands? Or did she say something to upset him?
She let herself go limp against the pillows behind her head, settling her legs into a comfortable position, preparing herself to go back to sleep. “You can’t ever know anybody,” she said again. “Especially men. There’s always a missing piece that they don’t let you see.”
Cal looked like he was about to say something, staring at her with a strange, foreign emotion in his eyes, but then his phone rang shrilly, slicing the gentle silence of the room like a jagged knife.
“Fuck,” Cal muttered as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. “I have to take this.”
“Okay,” Antonia said. She yawned a little and cuddled up to the pillow next to her, imagining that it was much warmer and harder than it really was. Stop that, she told herself, forcing her eyes shut so that she couldn’t watch Cal retreat from the room. She kept them closed until she heard the door shut behind him. You’re not allowed to fantasize about cuddling a man. It doesn’t matter if he wants you. You still can’t trust him. You have to be strong. For Daniel.