Effie crawled out of bed the next morning—stiff, sore, and bruised from all the mind-blowing sex of the past few days. God, how hard she came when she was on top in the kitchen.

Staring into his eyes, watching his reactions with every move of her body, it was nearly addictive. When he growled, “Come for me,” it was like her entire body had been waiting for the command.

In just a few short days, it was like her body had learned how to obey.

After all those years, Effie had forgotten how intense and heady their connection was. It wasn’t just the sex.

In fact, she really couldn’t even compare to their first time when she was in high school. She’d been nervous, there had been a pinch of pain, but even then she was surprised by how good it felt.

But this? It was nothing compared to this.

Effie quietly opened the drawer and pulled out one of his few remaining clean shirts and a pair of boxer shorts she rolled into what could nearly pass as plaid girly beach shorts.

She watched the steady rise and fall of King’s chest as he slept heavy in bed. The connection was more than sex, she knew that. Sex was just the tool they used to communicate.

What else have I been missing out on? she wondered.

Effie shook her head and finger-raked her hair. She didn’t want to leave the room, let alone the cabin. But she had the real world, and real-world problems, to deal with.

You’ve been in escape-land for long enough, she chided herself.

She’d continued to avoid her phone, and could only imagine how many angry messages from Thorne and her mom there might be.

Renee would just be totally confused. She’d never not returned her best friend’s messages within a few hours.

Selfish, she admonished herself. You don’t have a job, you don’t have a fiancé, what’s your problem? Locking yourself up here screwing your very freshly ex’s brother while your mom and grandma are nearly homeless.

Damn. The end of the month crept closer. Had Thorne talked to her mom yet? Were they at the house fervently packing and ringing her phone day and night?

“Get it together, Effie,” she said under her breath as she tiptoed into the hallway.

Okay, first thing’s first. A job. Then a new apartment—for me and mom and Yaya.

“Ugh.” She was ashamed. Effie couldn’t remember the last time she’d fully funded everything from her rent to her bills.

She pressed her lips together as she approached her phone, face down, on the console table. Effie hoped for the best as she entered her passcode.

Seventeen voicemails, over twenty-five missed calls, and over thirty texts. There was no point putting it off, it would only get worse.

With a sigh, she dropped into the couch and thumbed quickly through the texts and missed calls. It was mostly who she suspected, but before she got down to answering them, she needed to at least see if there were any job leads out there.

Effie went to Craigslist and Indeed to plug in “vet tech” anywhere in the greater Chicago area. If she had a monster of a commute, it didn’t matter.

You’ve had quite the lovely vacation already, she reminded herself. There were a few open positions, and Effie shot off her resume with a chirpy cover letter. How many other people are applying for these jobs? Dozens? Hundreds?

She’d never really had to look for a job before. Effie had been placed as an intern with Dr. Yung, and when she completed her certification program segued seamlessly into a permanent position.

Many of the open positions asked for advanced training that she didn’t have. Two required at least a master’s degree in animal science or a related field.

“What the hell?” she muttered.

She didn’t even have a bachelor’s degree. Her vet tech certificate was through vocational training at a community college.

Most of the posts didn’t list a salary or even a range. When one did, her mouth dropped open. It was nearly half of what Dr. Yung paid her.

All these jobs demanding years more of training and paying half the salary? There was no way she was going to make it, let along take care of her mom and Yaya.

When she’d exhausted all the open jobs she qualified for, which were few, Effie stretched out on the couch dejected.

“Stop wallowing,” she told herself and shot back up.

Just because she’d been a vet tech and that’s what her certification was in, that didn’t mean it’s what she had to do immediately.

All kinds of people take random jobs to make ends meet, she thought.

She started surfing for receptionist jobs, and was surprised to find that quite a few offered generous pay and benefits. There was some overlap with her job as a vet tech and admin work. But most of the receptionist jobs that paid enough for her to survive also required years of administrative experience.

By the time Effie had also applied to the general Starbucks online application and actually started clicking on ads for “models,” she called it quits.

There’s motivation and then there’s desperation, she reminded herself.

Effie put down her phone and looked towards the bedroom. All she wanted to go in there and wake him up.

Maybe with a blow job, she thought.

Their times together, he was always so dominant, and she loved it. But Effie wondered what it would be like to take control from the jump. She felt herself start to get wet just thinking about it and snapped herself out of it.

You’re getting addicted, she told herself.

Maybe that was true. It would be so easy to just lose herself in the act, in him. However, that was a distraction she could no longer afford. She’d indulged herself enough.

But it would feel so good, she thought. Sure, it might make her feel a certain way, a good but strange way, but she knew it wasn’t a good idea. Scratch that, it’s a terrible idea.

Still, the idea of leaving the cabin and their cozy little bubble to face the world out there alone made her miserable.

You have to go, Effie. She knew she’d had it relatively easy her entire life. Straight from her mom’s house to Thorne’s, basically.

Maybe she didn’t get on with her mom, but she’d always had Yaya. And her dad when she was very young. Then she’d had King in high school followed quickly by his brother. Easy life, she told herself.

Is this really the first real hardship I’ve ever faced? No. Losing King had been the first. And here she was, all these years later, right back in the thick of it.

Okay. If I hear anything coming from the bedroom in the next minute, I can go back in. Effie looked at the clock on her phone. Wake up, she urged to the other room. Wake up.

The minute passed and she let out a huff. Emboldened by sexual frustration, Effie turned her phone back on and scrolled to MOM.

It was the middle of the work day, a good chance that Yaya would answer. Just in case, Effie temporarily blocked her number. She could just hang up if her mom answered.

Her heart started to flutter as she listened to the ring. Finally, the familiar voicemail message clicked on. It was her mom’s sickly fake voice, sugary sweet and promising to “get back to you just as soon as I can.” For a moment, Effie let the answering machine pick up and sat in silence before finally hanging up.

I hope Yaya’s okay, she thought suddenly. Yet she didn’t have it in her to listen to any of the messages.

Finally, Effie pulled herself up and went to the bedroom door. She poked her head in and saw King unmoved, spread out on his back and breathing deep.

You should never have left, she thought to him. Never made that ultimatum. What did you expect me to do?

But King and ultimatum aside, she was the one who really put an end to it. For all she knew, their little tiff would have blown over. King would have realized how unreasonable the proposal was and they could have worked out the distance for a year.

Who knows, maybe when she’d graduated she would have moved to Los Angeles to be with him. Maybe she would have gone all the way in school there, become a full-fledged veterinarian.

But that’s not what happened. You ran right into Thorne’s arms.

All she’d had to do was say no. She knew it in her heart at the time, too. However, she’d just been so hurt by King she wanted to hurt him back.

Effie didn’t think she would have sought out a means on her own, but Thorne presented it so cleanly. At the time, they hadn’t talked about details like length. It had just seemed like an easy, fast, and very effective way to get back at King.

If I’d just said no, maybe I would have had a real shot with King.

Even if they had broken up then, so what? That was normal. All her friends, especially Renee, always talked about how important it was to sow those wild oats before settling down.

Maybe she would have reconnected with King now, organically, someplace much less complicated. And they could fall in love for real, with no obstacles, just like it was supposed to be.

Supposed to be. There’s no such thing as kismet, she scoffed to herself. Even after all of this, I still think there are such things as fairytales?

Worse, here she was hiding out in his cabin and pretending like he was in her corner. Of course he protected her from Thorne! Any semi-decent person would defend someone about to get their ass kicked if they could.

A man stopping another man from hitting a woman doesn’t make him a white knight. It just makes him not a monster.

There’s nobody in your corner. You’re all alone, just like always. Just like you were with Thorne, and just like you are with your mom. Tears welled at her eyes, but she pushed them back. All you do is cry and victimize yourself.

She couldn’t tell if those words were her own or her mother’s. In her head, the voice blended into a hybrid of both.

But it was like there was a dam that couldn’t be contained. Silently, she let the tears run down her face while she watched King sleep. It felt like it did years ago when he’d first left. She’d cried for a month straight.

It had been easy then. It was in the early stages of her and Thorne faking it, and they rarely saw each other. Thorne hadn’t even seemed to notice she was sad.

That, or he didn’t care. Or he liked it.

She shuddered. Effie had always known that Thorne wasn’t exactly the greatest guy, but the person he’d unveiled to her in the past week was horrific. She couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid to be with him. To get engaged to him.

What does that say about me?

Throughout her childhood, her mother lobbed clichés at her so precisely they rang like truth. “Birds of a feather,” her mother used to admonish when she didn’t like the friends Effie brought home.

“You are the company you keep,” her mother noted when Effie proudly showed her a picture of her best friend from summer camp—a chubby girl with early acne her mother immediately judged as sub-standard.

Suddenly, King stirred. Effie quickly wiped at her face.

“Eff?” King called out, his eyes still half-closed.

“I’m here,” she said. “Just went to the kitchen for water.”

How easily the lie fell out of her lips.

“C’mere,” he murmured, still partially in sleep.

Effie walked quickly towards the bed, though she knew she was just setting herself up for heartbreak all over again. She just couldn’t resist him.

As she crawled into bed, he opened his arm to her. Effie curled into her space and kissed his chest. She sensed his response and inched her way up his neck to his jaw and finally his lips.

“Don’t you know the definition of insanity?” she could hear her mother ask as King pulled her close, invading her mouth with his tongue.

She did, of course. Maybe I just don’t care enough if I keep getting the same result, she thought.