“Me, too.”

“You need to trust me, okay?”

He cradled me in his arms as water dripped down from his hair onto mine. His heart was beating rapidly, and I regretted having upset him. I loved him so much, and suddenly felt like I needed to show him.

I walked over to the door and locked it. “Is your roommate gone for a while?”

“I never know with him,” he said, still looking upset by my earlier behavior.

I got down on my knees and began to unzip his jeans.

He gripped my wrist to stop me. “Whoa. What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I know I don’t have to.”

“You’re doing this because you’re feeling insecure. I’m not letting you.”

“I promise. It’s not because of that. Let me do it.”

Despite his insistence that I stop, his rapidly growing erection indicated otherwise.

“Skylar…”

“I just want to taste you. Honest. I’ve wanted to do this for a while.”

His trepidation succumbed to the desire reflected in his darkening eyes that told me he wanted it badly. He didn’t say another word as I pulled his sweatpants down. He was fully hard when I wrapped my hand around his thick shaft. His breath hitched as I slowly licked in circles around the wet crown.

“Fuck. That feels so good,” he said under his breath while his hands massaged my hair.

I moved my mouth up and down slowly, developing a rhythm as I took him deeply from root to tip. I was surprised how turned on I was, my underwear wetter with each movement. His palms were plastered against the door for balance, and his eyes rolled back. I took him harder, wanting desperately to own him more with each thrust of my tongue.

He moaned from deep in his throat. “In…credible.”

His c**k was hot and slick in my hand as I pumped it into my mouth. His stomach contracted with each heavy breath, and his eyes were closed. I loved having this total control over him.

After a couple of minutes, his trembling hands gripped the back of my head. “I can’t. I…I’m gonna come.”

I took him even deeper.

“Shit. Skylar, you need to get off me.”

I ignored him, jerking him harder and swallowing every drop of the hot, salty cum that spurted out in a seemingly endless flow.

He panted, still leaning his back against the door. Looking frazzled, he said, “Wow. I think I need another shower. That was…I can’t believe you did that.”

“I can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner.”

***

Nina and Jake lived in a brownstone just outside the city in Brookline.

After he buzzed us in, Jake came to the door and immediately started ducking and blocking his face. This was his way of busting my balls over a time back in New York when I showed up at his apartment and decked him with my giant bag as soon as he opened the door. At the time, Nina mistakenly thought he had cheated on her, and I left my father’s house at the height of my sickness in a rage with the intent to beat his ass. It was the most impulsive thing I’d ever done, although it ended up being a huge misunderstanding. Still, he never lets me live it down.

“I see you’ve downsized your purse. I should be good,” Jake said as he wrapped his tattooed arms around me. His cologne was intoxicating and as always, touching him gave me the cheapest of thrills. “How’s my Skylar?” He slapped hands with Mitch. “Sup, Bitch?” He always called Mitch, Bitch. “You takin’ care of my girl?”

“Of course, man.”

Nina yelled from the kitchen. “Hey, Sissy!” That was our nickname for each other, short for sister since neither of us had one.

The house smelled like Indian spices. Nina must have been practicing some recipe from that international cooking class she told me about.

Their condo was really cozy, decorated in lots of black and red with dark wood furniture. Ornate drawings that Jake created using kohl pencil were framed as artwork on the walls. One of them was a sketch of a pregnant Nina, looking up at the moon. Her hands were covering her breasts.

Jake sipped a beer and joined Mitch on the velvet sofa.

Their two-year-old son A.J. came running into the room. I ran to him and lifted him up. “Look at you!”

His hair was almost black like Jake’s and gelled into a Mohawk. I tickled him. “You look just like your Daddy.”

“Daddy is bananas,” he said in the cutest little voice.

“Nina taught him that. Just for that, I’m gonna try and impregnate her tonight,” Jake said.

I laughed. “How’s that coming along, by the way?” Nina had told me Jake really wanted another kid, but she wanted to wait.

His lip ring clanked against the beer bottle as he took a sip. “Haven’t slipped one past the goalie yet.”

Nina overheard and came out from the kitchen wiping her hands on an apron. Her dirty blonde hair was longer than the last time I had seen her. “You’ll never believe what he did to me the other day. I opened my birth control pill container, and the pills were missing. Instead, there were a bunch of candies in there with a note that said, ‘Even trade: SweeTarts for lady parts.’”

A giggling A.J. jumped on Mitch’s lap, took off his Yankees cap and put it on his own head. Mitch started to tickle him, and A.J. was laughing so hard he got the hiccups.

“You’re good with him,” Nina said. “Don’t be surprised if I call you to babysit.”

“I’d do it. Seriously. We’d have fun, right A.J.?” Mitch turned to me and winked. “I wouldn’t mind one of these someday.”

While I couldn’t imagine having a baby anytime soon, the thought of a little blue-eyed Mitch running around made my heart smile.

As if he’d just read my mind, my heart fluttered when he whispered in my ear, “She’d have to have your eyes, though.”

Jake turned to Mitch who was now bouncing A.J. on his leg. “So, Bitch, how are you liking BU?”

“It’s okay. Statistics is killing me, though.”

“Come on. Statistics is easy as balls. Let me know if you need any help.”

Nina sat on Jake’s lap and wrapped her arm around him. “That’s how I got into trouble in the first place, letting this guy tutor me in math.”

Jake stuck his tongue out at her, and I could see his tongue ring. “Subtract her clothes, divide her legs and multiply, baby,” he joked.

She kissed him. “You’re sick.”

“You know you love it.”

I could have sworn I felt the temperature rise in the room from the explosive chemistry those two had. I envied them because they were at a point in their lives where they could just enjoy each other. I wished that Mitch and I were able to fast forward past the next four years.

Nina hopped off Jake’s lap. “Sis, you wanna help me finish up dinner?”

“Sure.”

Their kitchen was small but modern. Stainless steel pots and pans hung from above a small island. The cabinets were dark cherry wood with black granite counter tops, and there were at least 20 bananas sitting in a fruit hammock.

I laughed. “Bananas anyone?”

“Jake’s like a monkey. He eats them by the bushel.” She cleared her throat. “Mitch is really looking hot these days, huh?”

“Why do you say that?” I snapped.

“It was just an observation. You tell me all the time how hot you think Jake is. I’m just saying Mitch has really grown into a man from the last time I saw him.”

“Sorry. I’m just—”

“Something is bothering you. Talk to me.”

I looked down at the terracotta tile floor. “It’s been a bad couple of days. His being here in Boston is tougher than I imagined it would be.”

“What about it in particular?”

“He’s living with a bunch of girls. It’s like a brothel. I’m losing my mind over it.”

“So…”

“What do you mean, ‘so'?"

Nina poured some orange-looking curry sauce over plates of basmati rice. “He loves you.”

“I know, but four years is a long time. So much could go wrong.”

“Do you know how many women hit on Jake everywhere we go? If I worried about that crap, it would make me nuts, too. You saw what happened when I jumped to conclusions in the past and stopped trusting him. I was wrong. At the end of the day, trust is all you have.”

“I don’t think I could handle it if he ever cheated on me. I’ve always been such a strong person, but when it comes to him, I’m so weak, and I hate it.”

“Love makes us crazy. Take one day at a time, Sissy. You’ve been through a lot the past couple of years, more than most have in a lifetime. Maybe the stress is just catching up with you now.”

“Maybe.”

Jake walked into the kitchen carrying A.J. “Everything okay in here?” He kissed Nina’s neck. “You know they say curry boosts the male sex drive.”

“In that case, plain rice for you.”

“Nooo, baby. Load me up on the Tikka Masala.”

***

Three weeks after the Boston trip, the feeling of dread that surrounded my relationship with Mitch remained. There was no doubt that I loved him, and he gave me no reason not to trust him. Yet, with him gone, I had too much time to think.

My grades were plummeting, and I started seeing a therapist who reaffirmed Nina’s theory that my overreacting to everything was some sort of delayed response to the stress of the cancer ordeal.

Things were just starting to get a little better when a routine visit to my gynecologist sent my life into a tailspin.

My periods had been irregular, and while I remembered discussions with my doctors prior to the cancer treatments about the risks of infertility, I hadn’t paid too much attention, mainly because the priority was getting rid of the Lymphoma fast before it spread.

“Skylar?”

A nurse led me into a small room where she took my blood pressure. This was a follow-up appointment, and I was supposed to be getting the results of a blood test I had taken days earlier.

I focused on the butterflies on her scrubs and the pumping sound of the blood pressure monitor.

“The doctor will be right in.”

I looked through a pregnancy magazine while I waited, listening to a low instrumental version of a Whitney Houston song coming from a speaker overhead.

Dr. Ottone had a troubling expression on her face as she entered the room and cut right to the chase.

“So, Skylar, I wanted to talk to you about the results of your blood test.”

“Okay…”

“It seems that you have poor ovarian reserve.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, everyone is born with a limited number of eggs. Over time, under normal circumstances, they diminish. However, when a woman receives high doses of chemotherapy…that can destroy your eggs. It seems you have a very limited number remaining. It’s also possible that they may be of poor quality due to the treatments you received. While we can’t be absolutely certain, you’ll likely have a hard time conceiving. If you are able to, there’s a higher chance of miscarriage.”

“Is there anything that can be done?”

“Aside from someone freezing their eggs prior to treatment, there is little we can do at this point. I’m sorry, Skylar. This doesn’t necessarily mean total infertility, but chances are, you’re going to have difficulty.”

The magazine with the smiling pregnant cover model taunted me from my lap and fell to the ground as I got up to leave. My mother had been waiting for me, but I refused to talk and didn’t remember much of the ride home.

That night, I kept relaying what Mitch said when playing with A.J. at Nina’s house. “I wouldn’t mind one of these someday.”

There was a very good chance I would never be able to give him a child. How could I stay with him in good faith knowing that he wanted one? I loved him too much. But if I told him what I now knew, he would just say it didn’t matter to him. Deep down, I knew it would, maybe not right away but someday. The longer I stayed with him, the more it would hurt when he finally arrived at that realization.

I obsessed over it for the better part of a week. Then, one night, came a panic attack that felt like a moving freight train filled with insecurities.

800 nights.

Infertile.

I had myself convinced that his leaving me eventually was inevitable for one reason or another. Whatever the cause, it would destroy me when it happened, and I couldn’t let it. It’s always easier to be the one doing the leaving than to be the one left behind.

The room swayed when I opened my laptop and started typing:

Mitch, please don’t hate me for what I’m about to do.

CHAPTER 16

MITCH

Mitch, please don’t hate me for what I’m about to do. I don’t have the courage to call you because I know if I hear your voice, I will never be able to go through with this. Please know that I love you so much and always will¸ more than you could ever know. But I think that everything is just happening too fast with us. I don’t like the jealous monster I’ve become lately. You need time to just be away at school without worrying about how it’s affecting me.

At the same time, I need time to find myself without the strain of a long-distance relationship. You need to do the same without being tied down at this point in your life. The more I think about it, the more I realize we’re too young to settle down. I don’t want us to resent each other later.