When I Fall

He holds his hands up, backing away slowly.

I turn away and grab my drill and a few screws, stopping to pick up one of the 2x8’s I sawed in half. I think I get thirty, maybe forty seconds of silence before I hear Ben’s laugh building from a muffled grunt to a full-blown, throwing his head back, all at my expense laugh.

“You’re so fucked,” he repeats, bracing the nail gun on one of the posts. “I’ve been waiting for this. Now you can’t say shit about me and Luke.”

I line up the board where I want it.

“So fucked. I’m excited.”

I drill in one screw. Just stay focused. Ignore him. Don’t think about it.

“Wait until Tessa hears about this.”

The drill slips, splitting the wood as the second screw goes in jagged.

“Fuck!” I set the drill down and grab the crowbar, pointing it directly at Ben. “I’m not fucked.” I’m fucked. “Nothing happened.” A lot happened, just don’t ask me what. “And I don’t give a shit if Tessa hears about it.” I’d rather she didn’t. “Are you ready to get back to work, woman, or do you need another break to go change your tampon?”

Ben drops all humor, and I lower the crowbar. He stares at me with the look I’m sure he gives the pieces of shit he arrests every day. Ben’s probably got a good ten to fifteen pounds of muscle on me. He’s intimidating as fuck. He always has been. I’m sure if we were to start throwing punches, I could keep up for a while, but one of his blows might knock me into next week.

His eyes narrow, then a slow smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth.

Shit.

“So fucked,” he taunts.

I look back at the board I’m about to pry off. My shoulders sag, and I almost kick at the dirt on the ground.

“Yeah,” I say through a groan. “Yeah, I fucking know.”

Beth

I HAVE NEVER FELT SO embarrassed in my entire life.

Not even the time I was caught eating lunch in the bathroom at West Oak Middle School, and that was mortifying. I had been trying to avoid a group of girls who were picking on me every day in the cafeteria. But I was caught. Caught by the very girls I was trying to avoid. They made sure the entire school knew I was eating my peanut butter sandwich on the toilet. After that, the tormenting got worse. Word got around school, even reached the teachers, and I was eventually sent to the guidance counselor to talk about my issues. Issues? I didn’t want to be around mean girls. The classrooms were off limits during lunch hours, and I just wanted somewhere quiet to eat where other kids didn’t make fun of me. How is that having an issue?

No, not even seventh grade tops this moment. It can’t. Seventh grade was typically embarrassing. No one likes middle school. This, what happened two days ago with Reed, this is in a whole other universe of embarrassment.

I had the best sex of my life, times a million, and I’m the only one who remembers it.

I took advantage of him. There’s really no other way of looking at this. Reed was apparently way more intoxicated than he led me to believe, which has left him with zero memory of what we did. I was completely sober, which gives me the painful advantage of remembering every single detail of our night together. Painful because it only adds to my humiliation.

I can’t forget what happened. He can’t remember. And what we did? Well, that just kicks the embarrassment meter up several thousand notches.

It wasn’t just everything I’ve been imagining us doing in my head since I first looked up into his face. I let him do everything he’d been imagining doing to me since I first smiled at him. No limits. No fear. We did things I’ve never even thought about doing, things I know, without a doubt, I wouldn’t have done with anyone else. But it was Reed. He asks me if I trust him, and my answer is automatic.

“Yes,” I whisper, offering him my hands, my fingers threaded together like he showed me. I look up into his eyes, nodding, swallowing down my eager moan. “I trust you.”

My body hums at the memory. Eager. Yeah, I was definitely eager.

And he was drunk.

He wouldn’t have done what we did if he wasn’t drunk. I saw it in his eyes the next morning. The regret, gentled to spare my feelings, but it was there. And now I’m questioning everything that’s happened between us. I was nothing more than a distraction for him up in that room at the party. It didn’t matter that he was sober at the time, a willing participant in one of the hottest moments of my life. He didn’t instigate it. He didn’t grab me and kiss me that night at McGill’s. Everything, aside from what we did at his house, was initiated by me. Reed needed enough alcohol to make him sick the next morning to touch me on his own. He’s probably grateful he has no memory of what we did.

You can’t feel shame if you can’t remember.

“Will you call me, please, so we can talk about this? I don’t like that you left here upset.”

I set the phone on my chest after listening to Reed’s voicemail for the hundredth time. He’s called me once since I left his house. No texts, or anything else from him since. I haven’t called him back, and I’m guessing since he hasn’t reached out to me anymore that it doesn’t matter if I do or not. The game is over. We don’t have to pretend we’re something we never were. He’s going back to the life he had that didn’t involve me. I need to do the same, it’s just . . .

“Beth. God . . . fuck, Beth.”