Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was the lowest of the low, but the sweetest of victories. Cold white walls were the backdrop as you awoke, curled up in a fetal position using your thin brown jacket as a blanket. Metal bars surrounded you, but you weren't handcuffed—a piercing headache, eerie silence. Slip dress on. Clutch purse still in tow. Drunk tank.

It was a springtime haze, a celebratory event for a student organization combined with a 21st birthday celebration with your closest friends, and you were high on the freedom of your breakup from Jimmy: a year and a half of bliss. One drink turned to four, five turned to six, and you thought you could fight someone, as you could see from the massive bruise on your arm by the wristband handed out at the bar, and you thought you could fly. Your dress is ripped, and bruises seem to have blossomed on your knees. They gave you a single phone call and no one picked up, so you accepted your fate of spending the night in a cell, and drift back into an uneasy sleep.

"Wake up, girlie. Someone's here to collect ya.", a burly guard growled out, leering at you as you awoke with a shaky start and gathered your things, standing up on shaky legs like a foal.

He lets you out of the cell, and you follow him slowly but surely, wobbling in your white heels caked with mud and a bit of vomit as you head out to the main area. Maybe Evan had a change of heart and came to collect you, or maybe even Curly is coming to your rescue —a fantasy that played in your mind a dozen times like a CD stuck in your car.

Those dreams are dashed the second you see him. Angry, with that disappointed dad expression, like you forgot your soccer cleats for your tournament when you were halfway down the highway.

"What am I going to do with you?" he asked, playing the role of the concerned boyfriend.

He sizes you up. Mud cakes the torn bottom hem of your navy silk slip dress, grabbed off the clearance rack of a department store the same day as the event, dirty vomit-stained white heels entombed with little white butterflies on the top, as if to symbolize a false freedom. Hair in a hastily teased-up updo that's now mussed, your friends did in the bathroom of your small college apartment. A wristband on your right wrist, handed out by the bar for the event you were at, college- mandated alcoholism. Clutch purse clutched in your left hand like a bible, pupils dilated, swaying a bit. Milk-carton missing poster eyes with smeared mascara.

He's dressed in his coveralls still from his astronaut job, name tag glinting in the harsh fluorescent light, and you feel a pang of guilt. Knowing he didn't even have time to change out of his clothes, and he's dealing with you, but there's also a glimmer of annoyance. Why is he here? Why can't he just fuck off and let you sleep this off and go home on your own terms?

The second the guard walks back to his desk, he drags you out by the wrist like a kid throwing a tantrum in a store, out of the police station, out into the parking lot where his old pick-up truck is parked. He helps you get in, and the squeaky door slams shut like a coffin. He gets into the driver's seat and peels out.

Inky black night swims through the windows like a never-ending sea, the sky littered with stars. The same stars he was just above, hours before, while you were on Earth, celebrating the fact you were no longer his.

The radio crackles some old classic rock songs; it's more garbled if anything. You reach for the dial, trying to change it to something else or just shut it off, but you know better, so you retract your hand before he can smack it away.

"Curly called me.", he says, breaking the silence with the evidence of your shame. He says Curly's name like an insult.

"Said you tried to reach Evan." Of course he did.

"Un fucking believable", he hisses out.

"I leave you alone, and you get yourself thrown in jail, and you don't even call me or anything. It's like you're trying to piss me off.", he adds, wrinkling his nose at the smell of cheap booze emanating off of you in waves.

"You didn't leave me alone. We were broken up, and I was doing just fine without you before you tried to be the hero. I don't need you to do that.", you counter, looking straight ahead at the empty road before you.

The plush leather seat that once was your gilded cage feels like a bed of nails.

"Wasn't really in jail either. They would have released me in the morning since I'm legal now.", you huff, eyes trained on a minivan in the lane beside you.

"Besides," you add, gaze moving to his stern expression, your icy stare softening a bit.

"I didn't want to burden you.", you say softly, patting his firm arm like an apology.

He jerks his arm away from you like your touch is poison.

"For fucks sake I'm your boyfriend, not him.", he huffs, glaring at you in a way that made you wish you could die on the spot.

You wish you could scream out, "You're not my boyfriend," at him, jam it through his thick skull, but he'd probably swerve into oncoming traffic and kill both of you instantly.

"Is that how little I mean to you? Seriously. Was what we had nothing?"

"What we had was bad.", you say soberly, wanting to fling yourself out of the car and onto the road.

"For both of us.", you add, trying to soften the blow.

"I don't think we can fix this.", you admit to the night air, not wanting to look at him in fear you might burst into tears.

His expression doesn't soften; if anything, it becomes harder, like the invisible brick wall between you and him in the truck cab.

The brick and mortar are in your trembling hands.

"You think you're better than everyone else." "Better than me."

"No, no, I don't.", you stammer, wringing your hands, charm bracelets jingling like jester bells.

"I see the way you look at me." His eyes are so sharp that you almost turn to stone when they meet yours; he looks away again, to your relief and dismay.

"I give you that goddamn reality check no one else will give you. Least you can do is be grateful.", he scoffs, glancing at the road again to change lanes.

Sights become familiar again, the little pizza place where they don't card, the garden where everyone takes their graduation pictures, beat-up houses with red solo cup lawns, and a communal Walmart where everyone gets their Scantrons from.

Home sweet home.

He turns into a familiar street, your apartment complex. You can see the light still on from the bottom floor, in good old 107, can even hear the sound of muffled music within the quiet air. The little metal door to tug through, can feel the cool air conditioning and hear the hum of the laundry room beside your door already as you fumble for your keys, eager to see your friends, escape again. A tentative hand reaches for the passenger door, eager to make your exit.

The car continues moving, however, and freedom rushes past you as the sudden motion forces you back into the confines of the leather seat. You turn to look at him, his expression is determined, manic even.

"I think you should take me home, Jimmy.", you say calmly, trying to hide the terror in your voice that is present in your wide-eyed expression like blood on snow.

"No, we're going to mine. You need to sleep this off and get your shit out of my apartment.", he snapped, making a sharp turn that makes your purse fall out of your lap.

"I thought you mailed most of my-"

He cuts you off sharply.

"You wanted me to fix things, this is me fixing things.", he scoffed.
"Happy birthday by the way.", he added, patting your thigh like a consolation prize.

The drive to his apartment is agonizing. You sit there in shame, and he's humming to the classic rock station, feeling like the cat who ate the canary. Swerving in and out of lanes, lurching too forward at red lights, trying to terrify you with his motions since he can't put his hands on you just yet, even though you know he's not going to for once.

He brings you in, and you kick off your heels, collapsing onto the aged leather couch like a dead weight. He's behind you, his expression annoyed, as he slams his duffel bag onto the kitchen table. It's freakishly neat, just like you remember, ashtray always cleaned out, empty beer boxes crushed by the trash can, books in alphabetical order.

More than ever, you feel like an unwelcome guest.

The lone bedroom door slams as he stalks over to the bathroom to take a shower. You turn on the TV, trying to find something to watch, and rummage through the kitchen. Those cheap bar mozzarella sticks seemed like ages ago. You find some instant mac and cheese, the kind you microwave, and you make yourself some, opting for water instead of milk and margarine instead of butter. There's popcorn, too, and other snacks you smuggled from your apartment to his for movie nights. Channel surfing, you settle on some old western movie marathon, and you sit in his recliner, mocking him. It's a quiet rebellion.

He comes out, steaming, almost red from scalding hot water with a towel slung low over his hips, his broad chest on display, as he dries his hair off.

"You're in my seat.", he grumbled like a schoolyard bully, eyeing your relaxed position.

Wordlessly, you get up and head to the shower, body-checking him like he's a piece of furniture, and head into the bathroom, slamming the door. Unzipping your dress off, you stare at your reflection in the bathroom mirror, wild-eyed and exhausted as you unhook your lace bra with nimble fingers, slide your tiny g-string down. Slip your bracelets off and leave them on the condensation-moist sink. You make a mental note to rummage through his medicine cabinet as a final fuck you, find one of his painkillers from the forty-seven injuries from being a sleazy astronaut that he fakes having, and sell it to someone for some cash.

The coke he keeps in a locked drawer anyways.

Hot water rushes over you in waves, relaxing your tense and aching muscles. You have a massive bruise on your back from where you fell, and your arms and legs are dotted with bruises from the bar fight, from him, from everything. Scars tell stories, you think dryly, as you reach for your half-finished strawberry milkshake body wash/shampoo, the cheery pink bottle perched right next to his stupid pine warzone smelling stuff—the sound of drawers opening and slamming shut rings from outside.

Bubbles cling to you as a second skin as your eyes close and your breathing calms as you clean yourself off, cleaning the grime off. 24 hours from now, you'll be fully clean, would have let him circle the drain, rebirth. You'd go home. Sleep on the couch, leave before he wakes up, and continue making that review sheet for that exam.

Aged hardwood creaks open, but then you feel his presence behind you like an ominous shadow, calloused hands gripping your hips. You keep your eyes shut, trying to concentrate on your breathing, but your green shower puff is swiped out of your hands, and you feel like your skin is being peeled off as his hands scrub at you aggressively, trying to reduce you to bones.

His firm bare chest is pressed against your back, and the weight is crushing.

Your eyes shoot open.

"What the fuck are you doing?" you hiss out, keeping your eyes trained on the off-white shower walls, noticing the soap scum in the crevices.

"Helping you get clean. Just relax", he scoffs out, like he's not trying to tear your skin off with each intense, methodical scrub.
He focuses on your lower back, scrubbing a tiny tattoo of a shooting star by your hip with disdain like he's trying to make it disappear.

He likes his girls as blank canvases after all, easy to mold.

"This hurts.", you whine, trying to move out of his grip as he scrubs your upper thigh, eyes trained on soap scum.

"Good. I hope it does.", he sneered in response, as he scrubs deeper into a fresh wound. He holds your legs apart with one calloused hand and scrubs hard between your tender folds. You push his rough hand away.

"You're gonna give me a fucking UTI if you do that.", you seethed, shaking fingers fumbling for the regular soap bar. He takes the hint, but not before slapping your ass, making you yelp.

"You know you're lucky to have me, right?" he says as he scrubs your sex like he's trying to create a million microtears.

You roll your eyes. "Yeah, I know", you say begrudgingly as he moves to scrub your tits, trying to tear your nipples off with each vigorous motion.

Just one more night and you'll be done with him once and for all.

You couldn't be more wrong.

"Having me play clean up crew for your ass. How many guys have cum in you since I've been gone, huh?" he questions, yanking your wet hair back to smear shampoo into it.

None. You know it's none, but you don't want to give him the satisfaction that you're saving yourself for only him, too busy after all to have sex between your chaotic social calendar and classes, not even a coat closet hookup at a house party. It's an afterthought. Sex is the last thing on your mind (the first is an accounting exam looming over you in a couple days), but you're probably going to have to endure him lying on top of you for 5 ten-minute rounds.

It's routine.

No intermissions either.

He's on top of you once again, old box TV blaring some 90s sitcom rerun as the bed squeaks, your eyes are on the asbestos-coated ceiling, as he pistons in and out of you quickly. Your pajama bottoms, the cheap drugstore ones with the snowmen on them (his matching ones are either in the closet or the trash), are somewhere in the sheets as well as your least favorite red panties. Your flimsy lavender tank top is pushed up, tits bouncing with each movement.

"God, I fucking needed this.", he groans out, drilling into you like a fleshlight.
"You don't know how lonely it gets in space.", he adds lowly, dipping down to attack your neck with chapped lips.

"Huh, I thought you'd be fucking aliens or something.", you retort between a moan and a sigh, as he bites and sucks on your neck, trying to leave a hickey you'd just as soon cover up with bathroom counter moisture-slick concealer tomorrow morning.

The laugh track breaks the silence as he looks down at you, annoyed, angular, and handsome. Dead serious like always. Sex to him was a performance. To you, it was just two becoming one.

The only time you felt equal to him, even though it couldn't be further from the truth.

"Don't be stupid.", he growls, slapping one of your tits. You let out a whine against your own volition.

He kisses you to preemptively stop any further commentary as his movements increase. All tongue and teeth, no tenderness, the way you like. Traditional missionary, no upside down, hog-tied, dark web torture film bullshit. He's at least doing something right for his last show. Moans and sighs get swallowed up between your intertwined mouths, bed squealing in protest. His eyes are closed, but yours are open, watching the ceiling.

He yanks your head back down into him as he bucks into you harder and faster.

"Eyes on me."

Sleepy vodka-hazed eyes meet a stony stare, your lips meet at an avenue between a shaky breath and a sigh.

All-consuming. His hands are digging into your shoulders, and you do the same, clawing deep in the hopes you draw blood. He lets out a strangled cry between your lips, and you do a little cheer in your head.

One hand snakes down and rubs your clit, and you bite down into his shoulder, not wanting him to hear your cries of pleasure as his calloused hands work your sensitive nub. He jerks his shoulder back from your latched-on mouth, nimble teeth marks branded into his flesh.

"Say how much better I am than him.", he orders, fingers moving faster, one dipping into the spongy spot that makes you squeal and curl your toes under the sheets.
"Say how I fuck better than Curly.", he breathes, sweaty and exerted from an imaginary dick-measuring contest.

"I never had sex with him.", you whine.
"I s-oh fuck wear.", you gasp, looking up at him with doe eyes, sweat-soaked lashes.

He leans down, two fingers twisting in you to make you let out a strangled cry from the back of your throat.
"Don't fucking lie to me.", he hisses out, hot breath fanning your face. You swore you could have finished just from the firm expression alone.

"I swear. Please, your dick is so good, Jimmy.", you whine out, trying to stroke his ego like how popular girls talk to the quiet kid so that he doesn't shoot them when the time inevitably comes.

"No one has ever fucked me as good as you.", you coo, leaning up to kiss his nose, crooked from the countless uppercuts he's endured.

His fingers curl like heaven when your lips meet his skin.

He rewards your honesty with a breakneck pace that leaves you dizzy and breathless, rough grunts and groans matching your loud wails and moans that seem to echo off the faded eggshell walls.

"Should fucking lock you up in here with just your textbooks. Keep your ass in line, have daddy in charge of every minute you're fucking breathing.", he groans out, rutting into you with a force that makes tears stream down your cheeks.

"That what you want huh? Huh?"

"Want me to put a fucking ankle monitor, make you wear one of those monkey leash harnesses for toddlers so that I can keep an eye on your dumb ass? That what you want?" "Tuck you in every night, and tell you I'm proud of you since no one else wanna do it?"

His eyes glint cruelly like coals in the light emitting from the old television screen, shooting up your weakness like the most potent drug.

"Should put you in fucking overalls and walk around with you on my hip.", he groans out between fast thrusts that make the headboard rattle. "Cut your food up for you, put parental locks on the fucking TV, give you a bedtime."

"You're not mature enough for the real world, so why should I treat you like a grown-up?" he ruffles your hair mockingly with the same hand he fingered you with, mussing it up even further.

God, you needed that. It wasn't fair, how he was playing on your darkest desires, your deep-seated needs, using them as pawns in the midst of breakup sex.

He laughs, low and cruel.

"You got tighter when I said that. God, you're such a sick little bitch.", he says, amused.

You want to say something, but the words caught in your throat, strangled by your sobs of bliss and self-hatred.

He shifts his approach; he's a method actor after all.

"You don't take consequences for your actions, never take responsibility.", he snarls out, breathing through his nose sharply as he finds a jackhammering pace.

"Maybe I should make you a mommy. You want that, princess?" he says mockingly, tasting the saline off your warm cheekbones.

The nickname stings like the worst insult, like the fresh mottled bruise rewarded to you from the bar fight that he's digging his hand into like an anchor to situate himself.

"Give you some real obligation outside of your stupid organizations that let you get drunk and parade around like some cheap slut.", he huffs.

"D-daddy, I'm so close.", you whine out, unable to recognize yourself, your voice breathy, mind left somewhere in the shower with your pride.

Salt in the wound.

Like a bungee cord snapping off the edge of a cliff, your orgasm hits like a tidal wave, and you let out a loud, borderline screaming moan as your walls flutter around his cock and you go boneless, arms falling at your sides, legs still hoisted up. He angles himself more upward, to hit deeper, making you see a galaxy of stars as your legs tremble in his iron grip.

"Gonna fuck a baby into you.", he groans out, smug expression as he gazes down at your borderline unconscious form, keeps the same breakneck pace.

"Gonna give you a real fucking birthday present. Not some necklace from mother and father that costs more than my damn rent.", he sneers, words dipping meanly on mother and father.

You say please, daddy over and over like a broken record, getting weaker and headier.

The squelching noises overpower the end credits playing on the TV.

Your mind is elsewhere, blank as a sheet of ice on a lake at sunrise, nothingness welcomes you with open arms.

You call his bluff, he's wearing a condom like always. The thought sounds like hell, and your head was filled with floaters, cock-drunk and dizzy. He chases his high, catching it quickly, and he lets out a contented sigh, looking down at your spaced-out expression with eagerness.

“I love you.”, he admits, like it’s the worst sin of all.

Round 2 was imminent, and you were powerless.

All your hatred and animosity seemed to melt away, your dignity reduced to the pool of pleasure between your thighs. The fire snuffed out like a birthday candle.

Asbestos comets on the ceiling dissipate as you concentrate on your breathing, as he gears up for war again.

To your surprise, he just pulls you into him and holds you close. It's weird. It feels like goodbye. His hands are warm and gentle as they rub your back like an apology, and you nuzzle into his chest. The comets on the ceiling turn to nothingness again; all that matters is your breathing and him.

He speaks up, low and smooth like warm wax, even though what he says makes your body feel like it was plunged in ice water.

"You know I wasn't wearing a condom, right?"

Chapter Text

Two weeks. 20,160 minutes, 1,209,600 seconds.
That's how late you were.
It wasn't "I'm stressed" or "I'm about to go on vacation, let me wait for a surprise visit" late.

It was "My life is ruined" late.

You kept track of it, a tiny notebook in your nightstand drawer, that he made fun of. Logged each time you had sex like a maniac, scribbled down when your period came, made sure the stars aligned so that you didn't get an unwelcome visit from Aunt Flo before a final.

You thought you took care of it. The second you came home from his place, you showered and bought a morning-after pill with cash in sweats and slippers instead of your torn party dress, avoiding eye contact with the pharmacy cashier, and chased it with some overpriced fruit essence water in the parking lot. Told him immediately over the phone, and that was the last time you spoke.

More than ever, you missed the pain of cramps, the subtle adjusting of a pad under loose dark wash jeans in the polypropylene seats of a packed lecture hall, grocery budget splurge-spent chocolate pudding as you curled up on the couch watching raunchy comedies with your roommates, whose periods all seemed to sync with yours like a blood pact.

While they tore open pads like wrapping paper in the dead of night, you were hunched over the toilet first thing each morning. They ate fast food salad kits and dining hall pasta salad with fat-free ranch. The smell alone made you rush to the bathroom to dry heave. None of your jeans fit, you lived in long shapeless babydoll tops, flowing sweaters, and boho skirts, thanking God that the 70s were back in the mall ecosystem. That, as you looked across the campus lawn, no matter what, you'd find at least four girls dressed in a similar outfit. Sweatpants were sloppy, your mom always said.

If she could see you now.

You meet him at a restaurant, a chain one, a five-minute drive from his apartment. The kind with seven TVs playing the same football game and a wall of confiscated fake IDs above the bar like hunting trophies, yours from freshman year, hidden in the bunch.

How the mighty have fallen.

Trudging over, beat-up Converse squeaking against the sticky hardwood floors under your flowing off white peasant skirt, baggy brown cardigan, and airy sage green top, you sit across from him in the withering, aged leather booth, slamming your car keys and wristlet stuffed with your cell phone and anti-nausea medication onto the table.

He chuckles, seeing your state of attire, already two beers deep. You hate how smug he looks in the dim stained-glass chandelier light.

"You look like a hippie.", he quips, reaching for the last piece of complimentary bread, eyes trained on your swollen breasts, no assistance from a push-up bra.

"Shut the fuck up."

"There's my little firecracker."

You roll your eyes, not even wanting to dignify him with a response.

Plastering on a pageant queen smile at the server, you order more bread and a club soda to ease your already churning stomach, not planning to stay long.

The world kept spinning even though it felt like yours was crashing down to the depths of hell. Assignments were due, there were club meetings to attend, a graduation application to fill.

The server walks off, you watch him stare at her ass for a second with disdain, tired eyes shifting back to glare at him.

"Look,", your gaze softens for a moment, vulnerability shining like light through stained cathedral glass on Sunday morning.

"I need to talk to you. This is serious.", you mutter.

He looks away from the NASCAR race playing on one flat screen diagonal from your booth.

"I'm late.", you whisper, terrified, as if you uttered it, the stained glass chandelier would crash on you and you would die on the spot like in a disaster flick. It sounded like a better fate than dinner with your piece of shit, almost old enough to be your dad ex.

Better than carrying his child.

"How late?" he asks casually, like asking about the weather forecast for tomorrow.

Like regret isn't boiling in your body every second you're alive, like your chest doesn't feel like there's two people sucker punching it at all times, like the scent of the Bloody Mary two tables away isn't making you want to sprint to the nearest bathroom.

"Two weeks," you say, automatically like you're a machine.

In a sick way, you were.

An incubator.

That's all you saw in your reflection anymore.

The server comes back and you beam at her as she walks away. His gaze shifts to the football game recap blaring on another screen—the one behind you.

He's looking through you.

You grab a tiny serving plate and reach for two pieces of bread, drowning them in butter sauce on your plate. Taking a bite, it warms your insides, making the entire situation more bearable.

His hand plunges into the basket, swiping a piece and popping it in his mouth. Crumbs get all over the table as you wipe the butter off your fingers with a napkin.

"Did you take a test yet?" he says, too nonchalant for your liking.

Looking up from the bubbles in your club soda, you speak softly, treading lightly like a minefield is on the table.

"No. I'm too scared.", you utter, taking a small sip.

It was futile.

You already knew at this point. Didn't take an astrophysicist to figure out what was wrong with your body. Hell, your roommates treated your morning sickness in the communal apartment bathroom like an alarm clock.

"Well, are you just gonna wait until the damn thing pops out of you?" he scoffs, looking at you like a village idiot, as he takes another sip of beer.

"I swear to God you're so immature sometimes."

He snatches the good corner piece of bread out of the basket and pops it into his mouth.

You fight the urge to strangle him with your wristlet in front of everyone.

You stand down, the strap wasn't long enough anyway.

"I don't know. I just I don't know."

Words failed you for once.

No sharp insult, no harsh bite, the thing festering inside of you took your fangs and sharpened them down to baby teeth.

"Well, what do you want me to do?", he asks lowly, like it's some sort of business deal he's begrudgingly agreeing to.

Three dialogue options float through your head.

I want you to take responsibility.
I want you to be there for me when I have to come clean to my parents.
I want you to support me and then get the fuck out of my life once I get rid of it.

You pick the fourth.

"I want you to be there when I take the test.", you breathe, reaching across the table, soft hand meeting his calloused one. Crocodile tears pinpricking in your eyes as they meet his rough stare.

He didn't smack it away. A promising sign, at least, even though you hated yourself for reducing yourself to a damsel in distress role.

You weren't stupid. You knew how men like him operated from word-of-mouth, cautionary tales of douchebags, men who only wanted one thing and vanished into thin air once they got it. If you took the test with your best friends, all teary-eyed and tragic like a teen drama special episode, and called him with the news, he'd go AWOL. You wanted to give him the cold, hard proof right to his face.

If he became a deadbeat, he'd at least feel some sort of guilt.

"You have a right to know after all.", you gush, giving him those eyes.

The ones on sad animals in animal cruelty commercials.
The ones on coked-out emaciated models in wispy dresses. It goes straight downstairs.

Never fails.

He sits perched at the edge of the blindingly white bathtub, instructions open like a map while you sit on the toilet, skirt bunched up, gathered in one trembling hand, pink camo patterned boyshorts a size too big at your shivering ankles, nipples hard and aching in cramped cold bathroom air.

The other hand is reached under, holding the test with shaky fingers. There's two other boxes on standby in case this doesn't work or you drop it in the toilet. He didn't buy them, but he at least had you wait in the car while you handed him cash to spare your humiliation, let you take the test in his apartment to hide it from your roommates. In exchange, you didn't say anything about the pack of Reds he purchased as well with your money, and blew into his ignition interlock for him.

Mutually assured destruction.

His voice breaks the tense silence, outside of the hum of the air conditioning.

"So it's negative for one line and positive for two." He looks up at you over the mile-long instruction sheet, rolling his eyes at your held-up skirt, some layers dragging onto the bleached white tile floor in your one-handed grip.

"Take that skirt off. You're gonna get piss on it."

"It's freezing in here.", you huff, holding the wand over the stream, fingers shivering, struggling to grasp it.

Goosebumps are ever-present on your legs, razor bumps sticking out like hollow bullets in a flower garden.

"Not everyone can afford heated toilets and floors.", he snaps back in response.

"Grip it firmly. If you drop it, we'll be in here all night, and I don't have time for this shit."

Wordlessly, you stand up after wiping and flushing, pulling your panties and skirt back up, and place the test delicately on the bathroom counter, slamming the door on him so hard the mirror rattles, head to the kitchenette, and set a timer on the microwave for three minutes.

A lumpy mattress envelopes your exhausted body as you lie down on his bed. He steps out and follows you, doesn't sit down, but cleans around his dresser, finds something to organize that's already perfect. There's a picture of you on the mirror, a polaroid of you smiling at the camera from the passenger side of his truck.

You're topless. You wish he'd burn it. A small part of you wonders if he looks at that picture every night and falls asleep thinking about you.

"So is it mine?" he grumbles, taking out his undershirt drawer to refold wifebeaters with military-like precision.

Rage bubbles in you as he eyes your stomach with mistrust, but you choke it down like bitter wine.

"What do you think?", you retort, soft, tone less conflictive, turning to the side slightly, playing with a loose thread on his navy blue king-size comforter.

"I told you I wasn't having sex with anyone but you. Besides, you weren't wearing a condom. What did you think was going to happen?"

He hears the crack in your voice, the threat of tears about to spill, plucky girl act evaporating before his eyes.

"I told you the condoms were expired. You still wanted it. Don't be mad that I gave you what you wanted."

The drawer slams shut.

The internal bullshit alarms hit Defcon 2.

Condoms don't expire for another three to five years. You paid attention in high school health class, didn't ditch it to chain smoke by the bleachers or read magazines in the library. He got them a year and a half ago.

You weren't born yesterday, but he loved to act like you were.

"You know what, forget it.", you mumble, sitting up slowly to face him head-on.

"Let's just get the test over with and figure out what to do from there." You look up at him, with those godforsaken eyes, and he crosses the distance between you to hug you.

Out of pity, out of desperation to keep you in his orbit, out of kindness, you're not sure.

It feels wrong holding onto him like this, like opposite day. Normally, you're pushing him away from you, and he's pulling you closer.

The microwave beeps like a detonated bomb set to explode.

"Can you check for me? I don't wanna look.", you plead softly into his shirt, like the airhead wife in a horror movie who sends her husband to an early grave because she heard a bump in the night.

"It's probably negative anyways.", you insist, voice disarming and sweet.

Fucking liar.

After the fifth beep, the microwave stops. He obliges, standing at the basement stairs.

Maybe it's negative. Maybe this is a wake-up call, since the first twenty seemed to fall on deaf ears—your sign to walk away for good.

He brushes past, heavy footsteps making a beeline for the bathroom.

It's negative for sure. Take a few deep breaths. It'll be okay.

The bathroom door creaks open.

It's just a scare, a lot of people have them, especially in college. Three of your friends did. A fluke, an error, a mistake.

The sound of a fist hitting drywall rings out. A thud of flesh against plaster followed by a resonance that echoes in the thin walls and in your trembling body.

It's negative. It's negative. It has to be.

You hear the bathroom mirror shatter.

Your blood goes cold.

Chapter Text

Every instinct told you to run and not look back, but you stayed assessing the damage like a pile-up you couldn't look away from, and went to retrieve a small dustpan.

His punch was well formed, but glass was everywhere, and his hand was marked with lacerations.
The test, two pink lines lay stillborn, untouched by the shattered glass that he watched you sweep up as his breath heaved coming down from the adrenaline high.

It was pathetic. Tending to his self-inflicted overdramatic wounds like a demented nurse. Helping him wash his hand, sitting in front of him pressing down on his wounds using cheap whiskey as disinfectant.

"Can you move your fingers for me?", you whisper, despite yourself.
"I'm gonna have to compress a few more times."

Senior year first aid taught you well.

It was a requirement as well as to learn CPR and take a test. Everyone hated it, and you didn't graduate on time because you put off the CPR test for so long. Your parents only cared because your tuition was already mailed in spades, and half of the garage contained dorm essentials.

They went to war.

Mom threw a bitch fit at a school board meeting, wielding a petition you got classmates to sign mindlessly, feigning a too-busy schedule of classes and mental health. It wasn't.

It was stage fright.

Nerves.

Dad faxed a sharply worded letter.

They relented. It was the last time they fought for you.

A class ring necklace swung like a hypnotizer's pendant over the plastic dummy under harsh gymnasium lights as you kneeled with trembling hands, two compressions a second, like how you practiced on pillows.

Still as a statue stood your history/PE teacher scribbling things down on a clipboard, assessing your form, eyeing how you shivered as your bootcut jeans kept sliding down, tight long sleeve riding up. How your face itched with swears, and desperation to pull your clothes down, knowing if you chose to save your skin, the dummy would die.

Passed by the skin of your teeth.

The summer after freshman year, you did a victory lap and got a CPR certification.

The laminated card collects dust in your wallet, itching to be used on a choking restaurant patron, self-serving hero tendencies. Curly has the same ones. Jimmy badmouthed it over cigarette-smoke-scented pillow talk in the bedroom. Half awake, you'd lie crossfaded and sore as he droned on and on about how he was too nice to the interns on some mission that were your age, how he covered up his fuck-ups by owning up to them, gave him his urine for a surprise drug test, repeatedly clenching at the saintly hand that fed him.

If it were you, on the other hand, choking on a piece of cake, you wanted to go in peace. Wanted a DNR order at the ripe age of 21. If you were in a hospital bed after being found passed out in a bedroom at a house party, found in your turned on car in a closed garage after you smoked an entire pack down to nubs, a roommate waking up to brush her teeth finding you in your pajamas with aged foam in your mouth like spit up, bleach bottle in one still hand, open eyed, you were at peace.

It was a mercy kill.

Summer was around the corner, and the thought of coming home terrified you.

"I'm not keeping it.", you whisper, as you press down the makeshift clean cloth with a fresh douse of whiskey on his hand.

He looks up at you with a piercing stare.

"Like hell you aren't.", he hisses out between groans of pain.

"It's my kid."

"I'm not going to throw my future away for this." You reach for a pair of tweezers to pluck out a piece of glass by his thumb you just noticed.

"It's my kid." He repeats it like a preschooler staking claim over a toy truck.

"And I'm the one who's going to have to break the news to my parents. I'm the one who's going to have to give birth, put everything on hold."

"You don't even know what they'll do to me if they find out." Your voice breaks with tears, and you turn away from him, not wanting to have him see you cry, eyes trained on a weird stain on the kitchenette floor.

"I'll be there for you." He says it like it's muscle memory. Like making your life hell didn't come easy for him as breathing.

In your inner landscape, it was impossible to picture him being a father. Every time a domestic bliss image of a picket fence and 2.5 kids enters your brain, it disappears before it can form into Technicolor. All you saw in your hypothesized future were custody battles and AA meetings instead of a dissertation at 23, healthy marriage by 25, first kid by 26 or 27.

"I don't want this life.", you say, harshly, in a tone that shocks even yourself.

"Then what life do you fucking want?" he retorts through gritted teeth as you set the bottle down and wrap muscle tape as a makeshift bandage.

You start to speak but he disjoints your sentence.

"You know what I see when I look at you? I see a big gaping hole. You try hiding it with makeup, with your studies, with your stupid friends, with doing dumb shit like getting a tattoo that makes you look like a cheap hooker, and getting yourself tossed in the drunk tank. But deep down, you know it's not working. You're never gonna be happy. No matter if we live happily ever after, or you get rid of it and go on to be a fucking doctor or something. There's always going to be empty space."

There's a heavy beat of silence after he rips you apart, his glower unwavering, a hint of something softer underneath.

"I have it too. Difference is I don't pretend that I'm something I'm not."

He grabs the bottle of whiskey off the table and downs half of it in one second, and slams it back down with a loud clatter that shakes the flimsy hardwood table.

You're envious for a second.

"I'm just. I'm not ready to be a mom. I don't even know what the fuck I want to do after grad school, let alone what to name a kid."

He rolls his eyes at your fear of motherhood.

"So what, you're just gonna put a hanger up there and go back to your perfect little life and act like nothing happened?"

"You're a coward. You know that? You act like everything is easy for you, you're little Miss Perfect. God, you're just like fucking Curly."

Reaches for the bottle again as if saying his name alone is enough to warrant another drink.

"I bet you wouldn't be saying this shit if it were his kid." His gaze shifts from his slowly healing wounds to your eyes as if to assess if what he said is true or not.

"Don't say shit like that." You deflect, knowing he's right.

"I'm not blind. I see the way you look at him when he's around. Like he's Jesus Christ or something, it makes me sick." He fumes, looking in your eyes as if he could read what you thought about his resented best friend like a book.

"I love you. I see you for what you are. And you see me as dirt on your shoes. Do you even know how it makes me feel?"

The word love spits out of him like poison. There's a vulnerability in his eyes, a weakness that you want to bottle up and overdose on.

"You love me? You have a funny way of showing it.", you laugh bitterly as you crumple up a paper towel with his blood on it.

"I'm preparing you for the real world. You'll thank me someday."

You apply the last bunch of tape and snatch your wristlet off the kitchen counter, sitting down slowly to put on your Converse that once had a home next to his work boots, slamming the door shut as you exit.

He lets you leave, doesn't get up to corner you against the wall, doesn't even throw a stray dish as a parting greeting.

In the cool night air, flipping off a few catcallers from their pick up trucks, you walk back to your car in the restaurant parking lot and drive home with the same summer cd blaring in your car radio, unable to get it out since your friend gave you a sour mix with corrupted files that rendered the eject button unusable.

The sound of loud arguing rings outside of your bedroom as you lie down on your back, not your side, for once in those snowman pajamas you rescued from his place and a baggy black shirt. One of your roommates has a presentation tomorrow, and she called a last-minute group meeting. You can hear life inside you, and it makes you sick.

Sleep comes easily due to exhaustion. For once, you don't dream. In your field of vision are just empty fields, blank blue skies, galaxy tapestries with one dead pixel.

The melodic beeping trill of your phone snaps you out of empty dreams as you reach into your half-open nightstand, clumsy fingers brushing past that logbook that mocks you every day.

Unknown number.

You flip it open to answer it, and your heart goes a mile a minute. Like the peak of a rollercoaster, balloons swelling up to catch sunlight, looming mountain tops.

It's Curly.

"Hey." You don't reply, don't want to ruin the moment, don't want to cheapen it.

"Jim told me the news."

"I know you guys aren't on the best of terms, but it's good of you to try to fix things. Keeping the kid and all that." In your mind's eye, you imagine him sitting up in a recliner, drink in hand, reaching out to you like an old friend trying to patch things up.

You want to interject, tell him the truth, but the words choke up in your throat like needles, threatening to cut you to pieces if you shatter his fantasy of reconciliation.

"He means a lot to me, he's like a brother to me. And he really loves you. It means a lot to me, too, what you did. I want you to know that I'm here if you need anything."

Short, sweet, and to the point, but it made your heart flutter like a hallway crush, smoothing your hair down as he walked by your locker.

He hangs up the phone, not letting you get a word in. You snap your phone shut.

That's when the new normal began.

Chapter Text

tw for drug use and roofying

"Don't touch me.", you mutter under the soft vibrating hum of the air conditioning.

The navy blue comforter pulled over both of you. You're in one of his white t-shirts and a pair of rose pink and lilac plaid pajama pants that seem to drag onto the floor. He's in boxers and no shirt, and you can feel the heat of his erection.

He always did this, scooting closer, hand placed on your slowly growing stomach as a security blanket, even though you put a weak wall of thin pillows between you (the thick ones being used to cushion your aching back so you'd actually rest).

The world outside is twinkling, night sky comes slow. From the nightstand, you can see the harsh red fluorescent light of the alarm clock flash 11 pm, right beside a framed picture of you and him. His hand isn't on your shoulder, but his presence is enough pressure in and of itself. You're dressed in a pair of painted-on bootcuts that have been lost to the donation bin and a long- sleeved navy blue henley that's even tighter with a Miss America smile that doesn't reach your eyes.

The original picture is a group shot with Curly, Evan, some of Evan's friends, and a couple of girls you remember from bathroom compliments, not by name, but it's been cut and glued like a demented collage, so it's just him and you. His spot in the picture was beside Curly, yours beside Evan.

He grumbles something in his sleep and turns away from you.

Old fuck.

Beyond the stillness of your box spring prison and the four eggshell white walls, you can hear music thumping, hollering, and laughter, cars honking. Your friends are out at the bar, observing the ever-present freakshow.

The fishbowl life is all they need and you're turned away gnawing at poisonous algae.

It was a routine. You would go to class, keep up appearances, go to your activities, spend time with your friends. On the weekends, you would retreat to his place. You'd lift your shirt, tell him how you were feeling while he pretended to give a shit. He'd go out and get food. You'd sit and eat, and then he would sit on the couch smoking, watching TV, while you went to the other room, some bastardized excuse he'd rattle about how secondhand smoke only hurts the baby if it's in the same room as if the walls and vents were nonexistent.

"My mom did drugs when she was pregnant with me, and I turned out fine. You're too soft."

Drinks himself to stupor while you watch whatever team was playing blanky, rambling on and on about shit that happened at work, shit with Curly, shit about the world and society. Sometimes Curly came by and rambled with him. Not really agreeing with his statements, but not disagreeing either, to not rock the boat.

It's bad taste to get into debates with your best friend and dealer.

Sex was at a standstill. He treated your cunt like a temple, as in he didn't touch it. Out of fear, disgust, or awe, you weren't sure. His hands would grope your sore breasts, caress your stomach, a swat on the ass as a gesture of domesticity, lips on your neck, your ear, on yours.

Blowjobs and handjobs were expected.

You lie awake. Not because of the aching. It was drowned in ibuprofen, though you yearned for the morphine that sat beyond the mirrorless medicine cabinet like a treasure trove.

It was a white-hot gamma ray of a reawakened feeling that he spent so hard to suppress that sparked to life in front of you that night, burning bright under his obliviousness.

It was a typical Friday. A book in hand, lounging on the couch in your pajamas, as the TV blared some cop show. The key turned in the lock, and you expected Jimmy again, brown paper bags in tow and a complaint about women drivers.

Instead, you saw Curly in all of his glory. Letting himself in as if it were his place. As if you were his girl. He gives a warm hey as a greeting and beelines for Jimmy's bedroom, here for only one thing.

You speak up.

"The key is in the second drawer. He moved it again.", you holler out.

He grabs the key and heads back to the living room, eyeing your calm presence in a sea of chaos. Curled up with a book, bookmark on the table he's about to do lines off of. His best friend's shirt baggy and swallowing you up like a cloud, plaid pajama pants that drag onto the floor hiding a fresh pedicure, slowly growing bump.

Barefoot and pregnant, every man's dream.

"How have you been?" he asks, tentatively.

Looking up from your book, you see him with that disarming smile, dime bag in hand. He’s in a pair of blue jeans and a black turtleneck.

"I've been okay.", you reply, giving him a gentle smile, one that you force to reach your tired eyes.

"That's good to hear."

Empty, like a middle school guidance counselor trying to do a psychological evaluation of the kid who throws pencils at the wall.

Rummaging in his wallet. He rifles through countless credit cards, scattering them, his driver's license, pilot's license, blue eyes piercing into your soul, finding a gym membership loyalty card, and stepping away.

He eyes your book. You eye his engagement ring.

"War and Peace.", he hums. Pulling a chair from the kitchen like a gentleman and heading to a separate area to get his fix, not wanting to traumatize your unborn baby.

In the coffee table pile, there's a wallet-sized picture of him and his betrothed.

She's regal. Mature. Fiery red hair, cutting green eyes with princess freckles, slim with soft curves, model face.

Mrs. Right.

In the department store photoshoot, she's in a turquoise dress that hugs her like perfection. He's in a crisp gray suit, rugged and raw, reduced to sit in the hardwood chair while she has a firm but gentle grip on his muscular shoulder like a queen and her knight with a soft underbelly.

Loud coughs come from the next room, and he steps out. Wild-eyed but also at peace, like a tranquilized horse. He sinks into the couch beside you, and it dips with his weight, causing you to fold your book down and give him room wordlessly.

"I'm getting too old for this shit.", he mutters, defeated. He turns to look at you again, a new perspective aided by stardust.

"How are you? Really." He asks again, staring at you dead in the face. You turn to look at him.

The poster girl of wasted potential in all her glory.

I'm not fine. You want to scream. I don't want this fucking mistake. He lied to you.

"I'm not okay," is all you manage to say softly, over the cop show blaring on TV.

Eyes dart away, and a finger tilts your chin to look into his. Blue as loyalty.

"I know you aren't. I know it's a lot.", he consoled, one rough hand taking your smaller one, calloused hand sinking into your trembling one, thumb rubbing small circles. His engagement ring gleams in the television glow.

"You're dealing with so much." The words sink in like Rohypnol to a lone red solo cup.

"I can't even begin to understand what you're going through. You're selfless. So selfless. It makes me so fucking sad to see you like this."

“Evan's age, with a kid on the way. It's wrong. Especially in this kind of environment."

He doesn't say it outright, but you know he means Jimmy.

"Graduation is around the corner, and your life is just starting, and you choose to do this." Choice is one word for it.

Graduation is inevitable, and rehearsal is in a few weeks. A topic amongst your friends is the complaint of how at some random stadium instead of the football field.

"You're so selfless." He breathes, hitting the reinforcement button, self-sacrificing tendencies in your brain.

Her picture on the table, shrewd stare glaring, daring you to cross that line and see what the fuck happens.

His eyes lighten a bit, reverent, twinkling.

"You're so smart. So beautiful."

Beautiful.

In that smooth Pinot Grigio voice that makes your nipples harden against your already sore breasts. A whine is withheld.

You want to record that word and stuff it into a teddy bear to hold and fall asleep with every night.

He says it like he's looking at an expensive convertible at a used car lot.

"If I was your age." He chuckles, teasing look in his eyes, not finishing his sentence.

Your eyes remain trained on his plush, rosy lips. You don't want him to. Just want him to kiss you and fall into his honeyed trap of empty praises.

You get your wish.

Lips touch for only an instant.

It's a secret that will haunt you for the rest of your life.

Chapter Text

tw for implied rape and suicidal ideation mentioned in passing

He pulls away instantly as if your lips were a hot stove he touched with the calloused skin of his hand.

Not as disorienting but still burning.

“This was a mistake”, he says gently. “I don’t know what the fuck came over me.”

It wasn’t, you want to reply breathlessly. Kiss me again. I need this. More than ever. The words are on the tip of your tongue, threatening to rise like a pot boiling over.

You finally had him. Two years of pining, dangling your tits, gushing over him shamelessly. It led to this moment—a real one, not a fluke like last time.

A powdered-nose mistake he’d regret.

A high you’d chase for the rest of your life.

Words seem to stifle in you, a cruel mix of guilt from desecrating three sacred bonds with a touch of your lips, and the mistake inside you that led you to seek him out now more than ever.

“You’re right.”, you respond softly, unsaid words glinting in your gaze and in the soft light.

“But you can’t deny it happened.”, you breathe, hand brushing over his muscular arm as if to stake some sort of claim that would never come to fruition. Not now, not in another life.

She’d never know it, but what happened between you two that night was what jump-started the wedding months ahead of schedule.

What led you to sit in the hard wooden pew in the beautiful, well-chosen cathedral, wringing your hands, silently praying for the chandelier to drop down and fucking kill you. You were in a long, plain spaghetti-strapped rose pink dress and white heels, hair done up to perfection. Jimmy stood up there with the groom, rented suit and tie, best man smirk plastered on his face. A hand went to your stomach as a nervous tic.

Perfectly timed right after your college graduation and retribution.

More than ever, you felt alone. Didn’t know anyone on Curly’s side of the pew, other than Evan. Who was standing up with Jimmy, keeping his distance using two of Curly’s friends as armor, avoiding eye contact with you as if he’d get a million-dollar prize for doing so. The engagement ring on your own finger felt like a ball and chain. Gaudy, the one your parents picked for him to give to you.

The drive back from your parents’ house was silent, the kind of silence that makes it terrifying to breathe.

She’s ethereal, in a dress circled out of a bridal magazine catalog you’d gloss over with your friends, daydreaming. He’s beaming a million-dollar smile that screams guilty conscience.

You wish it were you dressed in white.

You want to burn in hell.

But either are options, so you cry hysterically, dabbing at your watery eyes with a handkerchief from some older woman you don’t know hands you.

She eyes your smeared mascara and baby bump and passes it off as crying spells, patting your hand with a gentle, understanding smile.

If only she knew.

The bouquet gets tossed in the air, and it was all over. You were to be locked away in his memory, his treasury of fuck-ups.

You wonder if you’ll cry as hard at your own wedding.

He sits on your landlord’s couch in your deliberately dimly lit apartment, watching TV while you sit beside him. A post graduate exam prep book is open on your lap, and you have a stopwatch, filling out the essay portion. He’s drinking a beer in just a pair of red and yellow plaid pajama bottoms, feet kicked up on the coffee table your friend saved money from waitressing to get for you and your former roommates.

Normally, he’s not allowed here, but times have changed, considering you’re soon to be man and wife.

The lease doesn’t expire until late August, but your roommates have graduated, moved out, onto better things. He’s in your sacred space, already found another spot to invade. You’re stuck in this stupid town, like country mud sucking up into fresh rainboots. The test is scheduled for early September. He’s fiddling with a tassel on a decorative brown and blue throw pillow. Already rolled his eyes at the rotating disco ball, chick flick posters, strawberry-shaped kitchen clock, framed photographs of friendship, handmade wine cork wall by the kitchen.

“You still studying for that test?” he scoffs, eyeing your almost manic scribbling into the workbook. The way you bite your lip in concentration, dressed in a grey hoodie and a pair of hot pink sweatpants that drape over your feet and drag to the floor.

“You’ll do fine. It’s more of the fact of if you want to take it with a bun in the oven.”

He reaches across the table and pauses the stopwatch.

You want to beat him to death with your exam prep book.

Instead, you look up to glare at him, snapping it shut and setting it down by his beer, condensation getting on the photo of the girl deep in focus on the cover.

“It’s my future. Just because we’re being forced to get married doesn’t mean I’ll move everything around for you.”

“Forced" is a funny way to put it. More like peer pressured.”

“I know I’d always get a ring on you.” Says it smugly, ruffling your hair playfully, eyes glimmering with a sick sense of victory.

Your misery is his trophy.

Those words make you think back to his words when you first met. For real, not just crossed paths like normal, exchanging harsh insults, with a barrier of Curly and Evan keeping him at bay.

It was a smoke-filled haze like a car crash, orange airbag dust clouding your vision as you sat on the dirty, aged leather couch, drinking your sorrows down, cheap rum in your trembling hands. The black skirt way too short for your tastes, the baby blue halter top material, synthetic and itchy, gold strappy heels too high. Expensive charm necklace, a nineteenth birthday gift that matched half of the girls in the room that had company.

Fresh out of a breakup. Fresh meat.

People milled around you. You watched the dance a hundred times over. Bong hits, backstabbing, lines for and in the bathroom, back smacks to celebrate beer pong, ass slaps as a way to say a girl was pretty, lips locking all over the place, and guys in loud conversations over the music as they competed to get their words across to a half interested, drunk off her ass coed.

Normally, you were a participant, but you sat on the sidelines, mulling over his parting words, the world spinning around you. A box of your things passed from one of his friends to another like a messenger you wanted to kill.

In exile, but not the throes of banishment.

Eyes kept flitting to Curly chatting with a group of guys by the keg he helped hoist into the house, who gathered around him eagerly like shepherds to his flock. Evan was with another girl; he had a right to be, although watching them make out in the corner by the pantry like a sick voyeur made you want to fling yourself off the roof.

A weight shifts and you turn to see an older guy with dark brown hair and stubble sitting beside you that you register as Jimmy, Curly’s right hand man.

Way too old to be here.

You watched him try to charm girls from your old throne, get drinks splashed in his face, Curly lecturing him on the art of subtlety when both of them just shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Watched him take a few upstairs, slumped against him like rag dolls, returning downstairs alone and self-satisfied. They weren’t special to him.

You, however, were the crème de la crème of college girl pussy.

So he had to play it smart.

Rehearsed his lines in the grime-coated bathroom mirror, leaving his beer can by the sink with the others.

“Sorry about that Ethan guy. He sucks.”

His hand touches yours slightly as if to test the waters, and you scoot away instinctively.

“Don’t even try it.”, you snap back, smacking his hand away. “I know what you’re doing, and I’m not going to be your pity fuck.” “And it’s Evan”, you added, throwing back another swig of the cheap rum he likes.

Cut, take two.

He sighed in annoyance, rubbing his hand.

“Just trying to be nice.”

He wasn’t really a stranger, more like an unwelcome house guest in your social circle that you’d spit harsh words at from time to time, like a game of tennis. A mutual animosity, with him wanting to take you down a peg and you not wanting to stoop to his level, while also being terrified of him.

He shifts his approach to the language you both speak.

“Did he finally dump you for being a frigid bitch?” He snatches the bottle from your hand and chugs some, passing it back to you.

“More like I wanted too much too fast.” When your fingers touch, you feel a spark of electricity you try to tamper down.

The real reason you broke up was because you were horny for his cousin. Evan wasn’t stupid, he caught on to the lingering stares, the desire to help set up parties more often when he was around, the low cut tops you’d wear like battle armor in the hopes you’d see him.

The fever pitch was two weeks ago. You were in the golden afternoon-tinted backyard helping inflate plastic flamingos for a beach-themed party, dressed in an orange and yellow string bikini top with hibiscus flowers that barely covered your tits and a denim miniskirt with platform flip flops. Curly walked up to you to ask you something, something about where the spare plywood was to help fashion another beer pong table since the other one broke last time, dressed in those fucking cowboy boots, jeans, and a black t-shirt, not planning to stay long. Jimmy wasn’t there for once.

Led him down the serial killer stairs to the basement like routine, and showed him where the spare plywood was. As you bent down to help him lift the piece of wood, your top loosened, like how you daydreamed it would.

You set the strip down by his feet and reach around to adjust your top. However, he moves behind you and adjusts it for you like a gentleman, you think, but he takes it all the way off, revealing your tits to the cold basement air, his lips on your neck. Like a head rush, leaving you off-balance and off your carefully poised pedestal.

You push him off, prioritizing morals above everything else. You wanted him, but not like this, not when you were dating someone else, so you let him down gently. He obliged.

Respectful even after making a pass.

Reaching around for the strings, he helped you put your top back on, apologizing profusely as if it would fix anything. Evan came down the stairs and saw you two in a compromising position. Top half done in front of Curly.

Curly defended you, saying it was an accident, and Evan believed him for the most part.

When Evan asked again after you were gone and the party was over, Curly made up some bullshit to save face about how you came onto him, and in the end, it was his word over yours.

Bros before hoes.

It was no wonder he and Jimmy were two peas in a pod.

“Got mad at me for talking about marriage and shit like that. God forbid I plan for the future.”, you huff, lying through your teeth.

He chuckles.

“Oh, sweetheart.” The nickname rings out nails on a chalkboard, his hand going to fiddle with your charm necklace.

You see two of him in your line of sight.

He watches you down the bottle with eager interest, scooting closer to you in a way that makes fire and ice war in your body and your limbs turn to jelly, not in a romantic way, but like you’re stuck in a nightmare, a horde of zombies coming at you, superglued to the floor.

“You aren’t the marrying kind.”

That was the last thing you remembered.

Chapter Text

tw for rape and period-typical homophobia

“We can't keep doing this," he groans out, as you sink yourself down on him over and over.

Slow, tender. Not because he wanted to, but because he wanted to hold back, not leave any fingerprints. Not have your nails dug into his back, leaving evidence of your collective infidelity.

Met him at a bar in your fuck-me minidress, ring tucked in your purse, it slipped out during a bathroom stall hookup, and he showed you his tucked in the back pocket of his jeans.

There's a cracked lid for every pot after all.

You both at least had the decency to keep it out of the bedroom, rain falling in sheets outside the backseat of his car. Plush pleather seats a contrast to the cool aged leather of your husband's truck.

You'd get bolder with age, though.

A nice sedan with seats that roll back slowly, not an aged gear shift to tug on mid undressing that gives whiplash.

"Shut the fuck up.", you hiss out in response.

He watches in awe as you take control, tracing over bruises with a gentle finger, atypical ones, not ones afforded from marital duty. Those that came from the failure of producing life.

"Shut up and let me have this", you mutter lowly, as you increase your pace, peppering his neck with kisses.

Your wedding ring with his tucked inside the cup holder.

Closing your eyes, you imagine him. Cornflower blue eyes, curly blonde hair, Adonis asymmetry, gentle but rough hands handling you like a delicate vase when you just want him to shatter you to pieces.

It rips through your body like a tidal wave, the next word you utter.

"O-oh f-fuck grant!"

"Who the fuck is Grant?"

Your eyes snap open, looking down.

He's handsome in a plain office hunk, khaki slacks, and pickleball way.

A way that got you wet enough but didn't leave you lying up at night writhing like a woman possessed, while your husband snored loudly and hacked up his lungs in his sleep from excessive smoking and a deviated septum from one too many punches.

Blonde and blue eyes. With a buzz cut that stifled his beauty.

It wasn't him, and you both knew it from the pissed off expression he wore as you rode out the wave of your orgasm.

The drive back to where you parked your car was awkward with harsh, stifling silence, eyes trained on the hanging keychain picture of his family on the mirror as you pulled your long sundress back down, praying you didn't smell like whatever overused department store cologne he was wearing. Not that it mattered, your husband was up somewhere in space.

He never called you again. Who cares? You'd find another.

Felt good to have control for once.

He remembers bringing you back, slumped against him, lying you down onto his bed. So quiet and peaceful, hair splayed out over a navy blue comforter like a fallen angel. Heels neatly placed on the floor, shirt pushed up to show your tits, nice enough to keep the pasties on. Dead weight legs easy to spread, to move how he wanted, like a fully articulated Barbie. Slid your scrap of fabric, you called a skirt down and laughed to himself, seeing your choice in underwear.

Plain pink cotton underwear fresh out of the pack.

Not even in a slutty shade of pink. You weren't really looking to get laid at all. As if it were a lace g-string or whale tail that hung over your jeans would excuse what he was doing to you in his fucked up head.

No clever comeback. No half assed college self-defense class kick.

Pussy is pussy, the self-titled captain deduced.

No matter if she lay there and took it with dead, daddy issues-scared to disappoint eyes, matched his movements, wailing about how she wanted to marry him, thrashed and kicked, or was fully comatose.

He knew he was fucked up, reveled in it. Had a blonde safety net if things got too bad.

What was worse? Someone who did bad things, or someone who stood by and let someone do them out of friendship?

That wasn't for you to decide.

A lamb could don a wolf's clothing, laugh at its jokes, slip into the pack, but it does not save it from its inevitable fate.

And there you were, lamb led astray. He debated whether to steal your necklace, too, and pawn it off.

His somewhat intact conscience won in the end. He would have gotten charged for the robbery more likely than the rape.

So he undresses himself slowly as if you're watching with bated breath, and he reaches for a camera to document this moment. You'd find the polaroids tucked in his glove box later after you get married between serene pictures of the lake and fishing buddy pictures with Curly- the "i'm going to fucking kill you and then myself stare" you'd make at the camera, dressed in his shirt after sex, the familiar one- smiling from the passenger side staring down the lens like the end of a shotgun topless, or your hand blocking your face like a celebrity from the paparazzi in frumpy pajamas.

You would be there, encased in a fawning celluloid prison, passed out on his bed like a trophy, a calling card of how he always gets what he wants in the end.

"Absolutely not.", you scoff.

"That's disgusting.", you add, scooting away from him in bed, wincing at the pain between your legs, small mattress dipping weirdly with your combined weight.

It was already bad enough you let him in your room after a fight.

It happened the first couple of months after starting round 1. You don't even remember what it was about; it ended with him hitting you, you breaking down crying when you should have chucked a frying pan at his head. He didn't call, and you moped around for a few days, stewing over it. Even passed on fishbowl night- he showed up outside of your apartment, bottle of gas station white wine in hand and soon to expire grocery store flowers looking like a fool.

It felt good to see him, Mr. Emotionally unavailable, reduced to something out of a romantic comedy, so you let him in. Let him inside you, and you were back at square one.

Safe space desecrated, every knick-knack and bauble analyzed, collegiate identity up for scrutiny. He rolled his eyes at your padded fabric bulletin board that documented every drunk digital camera picture with the flash way too bright, the collection of little antique trinkets, the blue and white knitted blanket you brought from home as a good luck charm. Clothes left on the floor because your desk chair had unfolded laundry.

He was a clean person, a neat freak who would yell at you for not lining up your shoes by the door, would rearrange stuff when you cleaned his place, but his presence felt dirty. Cheap cologne and excessive showers couldn't hide the smell of cigarettes that stuck like glue, but it was a comforting smell.

Like home.

But there he was under your floral comforter, like a paralyzing presence, drinking your wine, pretending to watch your TV, naked under your floral sheets that you plan to either bleach out or burn once he leaves.

He sets the bottle down on the nightstand, not bothering to use a coaster. He would have thrown something if you didn't do it at his place.

"Come on. It's literally just the other hole."

He turns to look at you, brushing a strand of hair out of your unwavering eyes like some celibacy commercial you'd watch in high school.

Asking for the holy loophole as if you didn't already do every premarital thing possible.

"No, you being here is bad enough."

"You fucked up my mattress", you add.

You meant to say life.

He doesn't even register your moment of clarity, but starts badgering you with kisses, pulling you closer, sweat slick and warmth matching yours. It was so fucking pathetic. Someone almost twice your age kissing your lips and neck with chapped lips like a dog begging for a bone.

Pathetic to him, too. You weren't his dream girl anymore, this unattainable nymph. You had a pussy, not doll parts, skin that bruised when he hit it and bled when he bit down, he watched you puke your guts out the morning after he took you home, holding your hair as you retched, the stained glass image shattering before his very eyes.

So why were you acting like you were above him?

Swayed by his badgering, you switch to a more teasing approach. Not quite a yes, not quite a no, going back to the plucky girl persona.

"Kinda gay you think, to be more into ass than pussy?", you laugh at your own rib, reaching for more wine to loosen your tongue.

His gaze darkens, and he grips your wrist harshly. Touched a nerve there.

"I'm not fucking gay."

"Whatever.", you huff, feeling a fight coming on like the rush of sunny weather before heat lightning. He releases your wrist, letting out an annoyed sigh.

"It's supposed to be tighter."

"Don't you have to do some sort of prep for this thing?" you counter coolly, throwing back another big sip of wine to prepare yourself.

You think back to tales from your friends about how the backdoor hurts like hell, sitting on frozen vegetables the day after. One girl you knew went to the hospital needing a colonoscopy.

Blood is the best form of lube, he thinks, but filters it out.

"I don't have any lube.", you add boredly.

"We can use spit."

"Ew."

"If you're gonna act like a bitch."

He gets up and starts redressing. Part of you wants him to leave, part of you wants him to stay.

You protest once you see his shirt buttoned back up.

"No, stay, babe, please", you whine. He's pulling on his shoes, deliberately ignoring you, rummaging through your desk.

"Daddy, please stay".

He looks up from a framed photo of you and saunters back to the bed with a stupidly smug expression you want to wipe off his face.

"I swear you're fucking bipolar. One minute you want me to leave. One minute you want me to stay."

He sits on the bed, leering at your nude body as he starts to undo his jeans again, boxers already at half-mast.

"Which is it?"

The thing between your legs spoke for you instead of your logic.

Heels digging into the worn cloth of his red and lie plaid button-up as he drilled into you with sniper precision, each thrust making constellations explode behind your tear-welled eyes.

"O-oh my god, slow down please", you whine, looking up at him with pleading eyes, the mattress box springs already reduced to scrap metal underneath, headboard thunking against the wall, no pillow situated so your head lolls back each time like a bobble head, almost hitting it but not quite.

You know if he moved a bit closer once he's done, if you touch the back of your head, you'd find blood.

Tempting fate like always.

"Shut the fuck up.", he breathes lowly into your neck between kisses, trying to soothe your whines while making them worse.

"Shut up and let me have this."

The pace felt like a whiplash with each movement, body jerking up and down like a jackhammer, hurting in the best ways. It wasn't a good hurt or a bad hurt; it just hurt.

Like getting off of a rickety roller coaster with trembling legs and a spinning head, but that alive feeling is still there.

His lips move from your neck, bed squeaking, tiny TV on the dresser playing some game show.

"Call me captain.", he groans.

You don't even want to know what kind of fucked up fantasy is going on in his head.

"Oh god, Captain, please!" you whine out in response. It sounds ridiculous leaving your lips.

You always heard tales of two becoming one and thought what sex was supposed to be. This wasn't make-up sex; it felt fake. Felt like those weird porno DVDs he had at his apartment, alphabetized like everything else that he'd show you to show what he expected from you.

The script to learn by heart before the performance.

Busty coeds getting their asses pounded, euthanized stare at the camera. That empty pleading look in the eyes matched the one you were giving to him.

"I should get paid for this shit.", you think to yourself, not even enjoying yourself anymore.

You stand in front of him dressed in white, the lace is itchy, and the veil looks stupid on you, like you're playing dress up. The vows were already said, rings were exchanged. In the pews sat your parents, dad stone-faced and stoic, mom crying tears of happiness or defeat, you couldn't even tell anymore. Some friends that didn't make it to the bridesmaid list with looks of pity, itching to call a hotline, but not knowing which one.

The bridesmaids were in a shade of deep navy blue, simple dresses.

They were hometown friends who knew it was inevitable, who wielded your babygirl pout like a sword to secure alcohol from older men, the friend who would sit next to somebody's burnout older brother on the couch when you'd all get high in someone's garage, watching him and his friends play first person shooter games, a hand snaking up your thigh that you wouldn't dare to slap away.

Groomsmen in suits. His side of the pew was empty except for Curly's wife and a scant few others you didn't recognize, either leering or looking at you with pure disdain.

Running away was an option, expected even.

You could steal a car, drive away to California, and swim your way to the other hemisphere. Start a life on a fishing boat. Could somehow convince Curly to leave his perfect wife in the pews and run away with you, promising forever when his best friend's child was growing inside of you still. Freedom was fickle.

She was death glaring your hometown friends making goo-goo eyes at her husband in a dress you envied from the style section.

Choice was an illusion.

It was decided when you crossed paths what would happen, acted out with puppet strings by the hands of God, destiny, an amalgamation of bullshit coming together to craft the perfect storm of you married and pregnant at the same time to your worst enemy, lover, and living nightmare, with your future in the rearview mirror.

He pulls your veil and you want to sucker punch him in the stomach.

Lips touch yours, but it seems more final than ever.

Not the first kiss in a house party bathroom after he showed you how to do a line, not after he backhanded you and did it as a hasty apology, not the all-consuming one after the conceiving of the thing that kept you tethered to him.

He tastes sweet like Christmas peppermints, even makes a show of dipping you down.

The crowd cheers even though your center of gravity shifts.

Freedom is aiding in your own self-destruction.

Chapter Text

Tw for drug use and overdose written in detail, mentions of self harm

Rhythmic beeps line up one by one in a repeated staccato, the news playing softly in the background as you awoke under sterile sheets and blankets, an IV tube stabbed into your arm. Dried blood smeared on your faded blue t-shirt, tiny sleep shorts, the ones with the shooting stars still on under sharp cotton.

Head feels like lead, body feels the rush of stardust, and misses it like Saturn does its rings.

Ivory was the last thing you saw, his hand on your back pushing you towards your demise, the last thing you touched.

Panic starts to vibrate in your body as you think of your apartment dissected into a crime scene, ceramic dishes as evidence, roommates lined up one by one like perps. It couldn’t be. It was okay the first couple of times like testing to see how deep a blade could touch skin.

Where was he?

A clouded sequence of events, heartbeat of a hummingbird, a rush of blood to the head spilling onto your shirt like oil, euphoria and heaven and hell and being lifted by some sort of holy ghost to his pickup truck, slapping you awake repeatedly swearing as he swerved in and out of traffic to urgent care while you lay slumped against him eyes closed but breathing frantically like air was running out—the urgent care for a sprained ankle or strep throat, not a coke overdose.

The hospital and the police are intertwined.

The worn brake pedals of his truck screech to a halt, and he looks at you, panicked for once in his life, stroking your hair, holding you like a limp ragdoll, arms and legs moving how he wants them.

You wish you could see his face.

You wish you could feel anything.

He leaves you by the automatic door, and a girl getting stomach flu test results, walking out of the facility, screams and dials 911, and holds your hand through the entire ambulance ride, even though she isn’t family. Watches as you get wheeled into a room and doesn’t leave until the nurse asks if she’s family or not.

It was like a bad dream- the kind that left you reeling and trembling, seeing shadows in the dark like smeared watercolor paintings, voices whispering for you to close your eyes, people milling in and out like worker bees to check your vitals, check your fluids.

“Hey.”

Blinking your eyes slowly but surely, he flits into view, golden curls and a pained expression.

“How are you feeling?”

He asks it genuinely for once, not to check a box, and it feels like sunlight warming up your insides but not scalding them.

“I feel like shit.”, you mumble, looking away from him, eyes on the shitty soap opera playing on mute subtitles a mile a minute.

“It’s normal to feel like that.”, he murmurs. He sounds like the room is underwater. He has on a grey sweater and jeans, looking like a surface-level counselor.

The question sits on the tip of your tongue like it’s on the diving board, being goaded to jump.

You let it take the plunge.

“Where’s Jim?”

His brow furrows as he devises some bullshit excuse to tell you.

“He had some work thing.”

Patron saint of sugarcoating, he didn’t have the heart to mention how he cussed you out when he found you were put in the hospital instead of urgent care, how he sent him to talk to you out of getting the police involved, too busy dumping evidence to check on his sweetie pie girlfriend almost half his age.

“Okay.”, you mumble more to yourself than him.

“Can you stay with me?” you whisper, ashamed to ask for comfort.

His warm hand takes your clammy one.

“I’ll be here as long as you need.”

If you weren’t bedridden, you’d swoon.

It’s a comfortable silence. He stays with you, watching talk shows on mute, worries down watery soup and stale bread from the hospital cafeteria, you share an extra pudding cup with him, and he even buys a crossword book from the gift shop, passing it around as you fill out page after page with a gel pen.

Too good to last.

Sun-soaked afternoon slowly fades into evening, the blinds turning sky blue into orange and pink, and his disarming expression turns serious.

“Can I ask you something?”

Your ears perk up, maybe he wants to ask if you need to crash at his place, something in your delusional head promising proximity to him, anything, anything.

“If the cops come, please don’t say anything.”

Your heart drops into your toes. You didn’t even think of that, more concerned with the hefty bill your parents will get with no explanation, if your brain will be alright, if the nosebleeds won’t be as constant, the end of sophomore year, and an exam looming over you.

“They’ll pass it off as some sort of nasal infection to save face. You’ll get out early.”

He says casually, like he has experience with emotional blackmail.

“But if they do come. Please just don’t say anything.”

It feels like metal is getting pressed against your temple as the sweet way he pleads for silence leaves him, blood between your teeth.

“I won’t.”, you promise listlessly.

His words are true. You get discharged a day early, no cops, no drama. Crystal clear as the ceramic dish you scrub clean and bury in the garbage, combing your room for evidence of something, anything, in case some plainclothes people drop by.

A brochure, some fall program in a partner school two states away catches your interest as you cram for your last exam and you take it, scribbling the application full with one hand while Jimmy delivers a crocodile-teared apology over the landline, the phone in your other hand. He called first, demanding to know why you blocked him. A halfway apology, but it’s a start.

Being gone was the goal.

When you go and collect your mail out of your P.O. box, you get a big manila envelope congratulating you for getting accepted into the program. It was a new beginning, right at the start of junior year, when you’d start over somewhere else. Everything in the rearview mirror was left behind; the bridges you burned didn’t even matter. You’d douse them in gasoline.

Summer promised eternal hope.

Chapter Text

tw for suicide

One by one, you toss things into a cardboard box, not bothering to label it. Framed photographs, unopened cheap wine, one of his sweaters reeking of cigarettes, a bottle opener, an army knife, a little lavender keychain of a horse meant to go on your car keys that you never put on out of shame or pride, you couldn't tell anymore.

Catharsis.

At first, you contemplated tossing everything into the lake, a fire pit, getting rid of it like crime scene evidence, letting the case go cold with you, but you felt brazen with the way August heat caressed you as you drove windows down, radio blasting to drop the evidence off yourself.

The lease was about to be bowed out of temporarily, roommates congratulating you, promising to visit on long weekends to get trashed at new houses with even wider red solo cup lawns, bittersweet farewells from study buddies that you surprised with homemade cookies as a last hurrah.

Your room is a half-constructed disaster, boxes on one side of things to haul into your trunk, things to keep as a safeguard for when you come back, like your favorite blanket, extra batteries, and a few framed photos so that the room still feels lived in when you come back for the spring.

Hoisting the box up the stairs, you drop it at his doorstep, planning to leave like a drive-by, but the thud alerts him, and he opens the door, looming over you like a tomcat seeing a mouse caught in a trap.

Your heart drops into your strappy sandals, carefree attitude replaced with caution.

"Look what the cat dragged in.", he sneers.

It didn't make sense. You looked good, made sure of it: a floral print halter top, tight bootcuts, shimmery eyeshadow, and gentle sweetheart blush.

He eyes the box with disdain. Throwing away his memory like yesterday's garbage was a cardinal sin compared to anything he did to you in his eyes.

"What's this shit?"

"Stuff I don't need anymore.", you reply coolly.

Pride took place of common sense with what you say next and you live to regret it.

"I'm leaving in a couple weeks. Got into some program a few states away.", you rejoice, turning to walk away.

Cue the credits.

You expect him to grab your wrist, yell at you, maybe even hit you.

What he does next is the most terrifying thing.

"What can I do to make you stay?" he pleads, too vulnerable for your liking.

You turn around and look up at him. Really look at him. He's tired, not in the overworked and bitter way you knew, but in a defeated way. His stubble is shaved like always, hair brown and chin-length, loose jeans and a black t-shirt on, TV playing softly from inside. He's not in a robe holding a bucket of ice cream, crying his eyes out, but you can see the pain in his stare.

It matched the one you practiced in the mirror.

"Nothing.", you reply softly. "I'm done."

What you say next pierces through him like shattered glass.

"I'm leaving this stuff here so that I don't owe you anything."

He lets out a sigh.

"I know I fucked up." Understatement of the century.

"You can't just leave like this."

"Can I at least take you to dinner or something?" he begs.

Every instinct in your body screamed no, but it was like you were on autopilot, bringing the box inside, watching him pull on his work jacket, and then getting into his truck and driving to some shitty chain restaurant, the one you go to with friends to celebrate birthdays and to test fake IDs.

The server seats you two in a cracked leather booth. She's pretty with a high ponytail and freckles.

"We're splitting the bill by the way.", you mutter when she flits away to give you time to look over the storybook-sized menu.

He says something like fucking bitch under his breath, but you can't tell over the sound of loud conversations and the football game on full volume.

"What can I get y'all started with?"

You speak up first, ordering for yourself.

"I'll get a blue island punch pitcher for the table and artichoke dip."

You set your fake ID on the table, campus darkroom backdrop extremely obvious.

"The fuck you are.", he barks, making her flinch, looking up from examining your ID.

A couple of patrons turn to look at your table. He slams his debit card onto the table with a hollow clattering noise, making the small chandelier lamp tremble a bit.

"Start a tab. I'll just get whatever cheap beer you got."

She takes the card and walks away, but not before shooting you a sympathetic look.

He glares at you across the table.

"You're not drinking that by yourself."

You roll your eyes.

"I said it was for the table. You're gonna have to finish it with me so you get your money's worth."

A simpering smile creeps onto your face.

"Unless you know, you want to split the bill."

The pitcher is intimidating, supernova blue, with a handful of maraschino cherries garnished on it. Two tall glasses are set out in front of you, and you reach for yours first, pouring a generous amount.

It goes down easy, blue raspberry lemonade overpowering the absolute clusterfuck of every bottom-shelf bottle dumped into the pitcher. He nurses his single bottle of beer, eyeing it with pure disdain.

You pour him a glass and push it towards him with a soft smile.

"You said you wanted things to end on good terms, right?"

You throw his words back into his face, and it tastes better than any booze.

"Drink up."

The tension between the two of you unraveled, and for a moment, everything felt okay. The pitcher dwindled down slowly as you kept talking and joking around, not even bothering to order actual food, just appetizers.

The room started to spin, but it wasn't in a lurching, terrifying way; it was in a roller coaster reflex way, natural. His hand started reaching under the table to squeeze your leg now and then, but you didn't bother slapping it away.

"So if you hadn't dropped by, you were just going to take off without telling me.", he slurs, three glasses deep. You're nursing number two.

You look up from scooping the dip onto your small plate, handful of chips on standby. Your appetite dissipates seeing his dejected expression under stained glass lights.

Smoke in the wind.

"Yeah.", you reply, feeling undeserved guilt.

"That's a shitty thing to do."

"You're one to talk." You take another sip from your freshly poured glass, coughing a bit since the syrup has sunk to the bottom of the pitcher.

He lets out an aggravated sigh.

"I told you I was sorry."

"Like that's enough.", you huff.

"It's not like I'm leaving tomorrow. It's early September, so that they can get the courses and credits figured out.", you add, giving him false hope.

Your hand reaches across the table, trying to ease the emotional sucker punch you plan to deliver next.

"I think we need time apart to work things out."

His hand tightens in your loose grip.

"You had all summer for that. God knows what or who you were doing." he eyes your low-cut top with contempt, steely stare snapping back to your defiant eyes.

"You can't just leave like this because things are hard and you need some sort of escape."

"Grow the fuck up."

"I can't believe you think this is about you." You deflect, knowing he's right.

You didn't even care about the program that much, half-assed your application essay, and you just wanted an excuse to flee. Needed it.

The drive back to your apartment is silent and suffocating; he's too focused on the road. His hand holds onto your thigh for dear life, while he steers with the other.

"Let me walk you back inside.", he urges, eyeing the way you look under the moonlight, fleeting beauty.

"I'm fine.", you retort, stumbling to unbuckle your seatbelt and get out, the sound of his car door shutting soon to be the final bow out from your leading lady role of girlfriend and punching bag.

"I'll pick up my car tomorrow."

His hand grips your thigh harshly, yanking you back.

"So that's it?"

"I told you that I'll be back in the spring."

"Maybe we can start over then." Lying through your teeth.

The manufactured warmth in his eyes turned flinty in an instant.

"If you walk out on this. I swear to God I'll fucking kill myself."

Tears blink back into your eyes, as natural as the head rush from the pitcher you shared with him hours ago, the laughter from his snide commentary.

"You can't put this shit on me, Jimmy."

His stare slices through you, a manic glint in his eyes.

You know about the hunting rifle he tucks under the backseat.

"Watch me."

He releases your hand like dead weight and lets you leave, knowing a new weight was just dropped, his cross to bear.

Autumn bred eternal misery.

Chapter Text

tw for suicide

It was muscle reflex at this point, trained agility that came natural to you as flinching.
The sound of his tires on the street outside, canvassing the area like he's done over and over for weeks now. Two loops to be unthreatening, to test some imaginary threshold. And he's gone.

You had a glimpse into his fucked up head, had the pleasure of playing nurse and cutting open the recesses of his mind to see what his approach was. He planned to kill himself the morning you left, parked right next to your car, blow his brains out with a shotgun so that he haunts you from the afterlife, hell, probably, a final middle finger to you walking out on him as if it wasn't bound to happen.

He fixed your dumpster fire of a relationship, at least.

You would just flit past him, lugging a suitcase and a box or two without his help, slamming it into the trunk, not even giving him a second glance at his brains on the windshield like a squirrel left for dead on a busy intersection.

Fucking bitch.

It was ten o'clock. Your roommates were fast asleep, and you sat awake, cup of lavender tea in hand, waiting for the sound of his truck to do his nightly canvassing again. Wanting to make sure you were in bed safe and sound, how sweet.

10:05. The cable box on the TV flashed it in radioactive green. He would have been done by now, tires skidding out of the parking lot as soon as his little stakeout was checked off from his to-do list.

Something was wrong.

Wordlessly, you throw on a hoodie, grab your car keys out of the bowl on the kitchen table, untangling the keychains from the ballet shoe keychain of one of your roommates and the panda one of the other.

One knock. Two knocks. No answer.

You let yourself in with the spare key you meant to throw in the box weeks ago, bunny slippers squeaking with each step.

A shaky breath you didn't know you were holding left your body as you surveyed the backdrop, normal as always. The TV was playing softly, he was sitting in silence in his recliner with an empty stare, nursing an entire bottle of whiskey. The cheap one that's meant to be hurled behind a picket fence party and doesn't go down easy.

He doesn't even notice you're there, looking through you.

No clever anecdote to toss in your lap like a powder keg.

You don't sit next to him on the couch; he doesn't like that. Instead, you sit at his feet, leaning into his leg like a beaten dog seeking stale kibble. A hand reaches down to pet your hair, and you hate yourself for the warm, sickly feeling of affection that comes from his touch, like a bad reaction to medicine.

"You weren't driving around.", you murmur, barely audible above the game show rerun playing from the rear projection TV that came with his apartment.

"Didn't feel like it.", he replied, tossing back another swig, setting the bottle down on a rickety coffee table held together with leukotape.

He looks down at you, your gaze more piercing than ever, from switchblade to dagger, looking at your frazzled state. The fact that you had a 5-hour drive ahead of you in a couple of hours, and you were here at his unspoken beck and call, dressed in a grey, lint-covered hoodie and navy blue fuzzy pajama pants with yellow, laundry-worn moons on them. It was pathetic adoration, and he lived for it.

Words sat mushed together in your body, unsure of how to talk him out of whatever he plans on doing without promising him a future you couldn't keep. It felt wrong playing God, dangling a thirty-something year old's life in your trembling, nail-polish-chipped hands like a half-rusted keychain. That level of power felt sickening, being pushed into the role of minx and Atropos.

But it wasn't power when he held your fate in his own strings.

"I-I don't know what to say to you.", you mused, looking up at his stoic expression a million miles away from where he sat and where you knelt.

"But this isn't the answer."

"I don't know what to do about this."

His glower holds steady at your trembling confession.

"You know what you can do.", he spits out.
"You can just not fucking go to that stupid program."

You blink back tears.

"I can't do that, Jimmy. It's not that easy. I paid a deposit."

He cuts you off.

"You mean your parents paid a deposit.", he sneers.

"I have all my stuff packed, and I got all of the forms done. I can't just throw it away.", you plead.

He stares you dead in the face as he delivers his ultimatum.

"Then consider me dead tomorrow."

The tears you try so hard to hide from him spill in streams, and you put your head down, not wanting to have him see you cry.

"I don't think you'll follow through.", you murmur.

"Give me a reason why I shouldn't."

The air is tense and silent, save for the manufactured cheers playing on the TV.

He yanks you up by your hair and kisses you softly, too soft, almost like a ghost.

You push him away.

"What do you want from me?"

A slow grin creeps onto his face, should have saw it coming.

"You know what I want."

It's a familiar dance, holding out your dignity like a bargaining chip, but it doesn't mean it's any less humiliating, tracing the footprint map again.

He kisses you like a man starved and your lips his last meal, peeling off your armor of frumpy pajamas with practiced proficiency, knowing the quickest way to reveal yourself to him, as you tumble onto his bed like always, where you settled the score, or in your case, tried to cut the wire without detonating.

He smells good, like fresh pine and bergamot orange, hair still a bit damp from the shower. If anything, your impending departure sparked more rituals, more cleansing, his skin is a bit more raw to the touch, and tinged like calf's liver. Tender to the touch, like handling shards of glass between nimble fingers, as he unwraps your gift of a black t-shirt bra and plain yellow cotton panties with a baby blue bow.

Just straight to the point, no foreplay, no condom, just pure need to drive himself into your depths to feel alive, to feel human, not a list of tasks, rituals, and navigation codes.

It's what humans do, right? They take and take and take from one another.

You couldn't feel any less human.

"Feels as good as I remember.", he says lowly, as if you're just a pair of tits and a pussy held together by flesh.

He holds you tight against him, pressing your tits into his bare chest like he wanted you two to meld together into handiwork of his worst and your best.

He'll get his wish in a year's time.

You want to die in his arms.

It felt good for you, too, but you didn't want to admit it. Better than any misused electric toothbrush or skinny-dicked golden boy summer fling could. Deeper.

For once, you don't cry under his crushing weight, embrace it even, pulling him down to you, deeper, deeper, you want him to touch your insides, and feel his broad, muscular chest pressed against your steamrolled tits to stifle your breathing, sputtering and coughing a bit between moans and whimpers.

Mewls and whines come out garbled, stifling in your throat, as his hands dig into your shoulder blades as an anchor, leaning forward, the entire liquor cabinet fanning your face, but you don't mind. Don't even mind the fact that the pull and pray method is going to have to be implemented.

"I know, baby, I know.", he says, sinking into your veins like a sedative, but making no effort to slow down.

You stare him dead in the face, observing every feature, every curve and dip of his face to commit to memory, what memory you're not sure, for a gigantic picture bust for a funeral procession, a police lineup, they seem to meld one in the same.

His eyes were hooded with pure lust and heady control and agony of being in love but being callous, his gaze never leaving your glazed, cock-drunk one, even as he goes in to kiss you. You can't imagine anyone else, not Curly, not Evan, not how you did with your summer hookups.

He's his own template of a lover, has his own backdrop and scripts for your fucked up daydreams you can't imagine with a nice guy your own age who eats ice cream with you in the parking lot after making love to you by the dock on the lake, wearing his plastic wayfarers like a false crown.

Chapped lips entangle with your soft kissed out ones in a way only you two can understand, can't be replicated. When his hand snakes down between your legs to rub your aching clit, it's unlike anything, skilled calloused precision from age that makes your eyes roll back to your skull like a girl possessed.

It was a dilemma that stuck like spearmint gum in your teeth, poisoned by his words and actions, and pure in his bed.

"I love you.", you whimper, pride reduced to pure wanton.

"I know.", he groans out, leaving hickey after hickey on your neck like an assemblage of celestial spheres, a symbol of ownership from beyond the grave.

The bed groans and squeals in protest with each lurching movement that has your toes curling under the sheets, calling out to God or whoever for him to slow down before an accident happens.

It hits both of you like a tidal wave, clutching onto each other for dear life as you both ride it out, sheets sticky with combined effort, whining softly as you feel empty again. He leans up to stick his cock in your mouth, and you take it like a champ, like how he wants it. He ruffles your hair as you swallow his load, even though your eyes prick with hot tears and you're fighting the urge to throw up, as he holds himself up on the headboard.

His cock leaves your mouth with a wet pop, and a thumb goes down to trace your bottom lip, and you suck down the heady taste, not breaking eye contact, praying that the cum inside you wouldn't take, the last thing you needed after sex with your ex was a baby.

He's already imagining you making sourdough starter in a sundress, two boys, no girls, running around the kitchen while he's off getting shitfaced with Curly.

The AC hums lowly as you both lie awake, in actual pajamas for once. Him in a white t-shirt and boxers, you in one of his navy blue shirts and the moon pajama pants, wanting to look the part of the forlorn girlfriend if he actually followed through with it, ready with a blubbering testimony to lament to the cops as if you didn't basically say "bet you won't." when he dangled taking his life in front of you.

You turn away from him to try to get some sleep before your grueling 5-hour drive tomorrow. Still had to make coffee back at your place since you didn't plan to stop, no matter what. You were scared that if you stopped even for a moment, some kind of weird magnetic force would bring you back to him.

Like clockwork, he pushes your shoulder back and turns you towards him to pull you into his chest.

"Why do you want to leave? You have everything here, your friends, your classes, me." A hand goes to caress your back.

Me. Why are you leaving me? He means.

"I told you I'd be back."

"Don't fucking lie to me. Not now."

"I love you." I'm the only person who can love you, you stuck-up cunt.

You stare him dead in the face. Those three little words always dangled like a carrot on a string to keep you in the crate.

"You're only saying this because I'm leaving."

The words that leave your lips next leave blood boiling in your ears, hands shaking from pure anger, defeat, and exhaustion from his stupid games.

"Well, I am, and honestly, you can go kill yourself. I don't care."

You'd spit on his grave, you say to yourself over and over, but in actuality, you would sit by a cold marble bench and smoke, rambling to him about your stupid little fish tank world he never made an effort to understand.

He laughs, and it's not natural like lemonade spilling over a pitcher; it's more like a garbage disposal hacking something up.

"If I wanted to kill myself. I would have done it by now, and I would have taken you right with me."

His caressing gets slower, and the grip he has on you tightens as if testing to see if he can break a bone.

Fear entered your body in a single assault, a shock of ice shooting straight through your body, but you held strong; he wanted to see you scared anyway.

"Like I'd stoop down to your level.", you practically spit at him.

"I worked my ass off to get into this program. I'm not going to piss on every chance I get just because you seem to be stuck in the same stupid job."

"Oh, princess."

You hate how, out of all the summer flings, beach boyfriends whispering sweet nothings to you, this single word had the ability to make you clench around nothing.

"You're not cut out for it." He knows you are, but tapping into insecurities like a well-excavated gold mine is what keeps you coming back.

"They'll eat you alive." Same high and mighty shtick you use on your wide-eyed cousins when they ask how college is on holidays over dry store-bought turkey and infrared cranberry sauce.

"Isn't it better if you fall on your ass and you have people to catch you?"

He coos, booping your nose, knowing damn well his boot would be what you would trip over.

Daddy knows best afterall.

Chapter Text

cw for period typical homophobia (takes place in the mid 00s) and mentions of abuse

Hacking into the sink, smoker’s cough jolts you awake and you groan, turning away as he pisses with the door open like you weren’t even there, already dressed in a long sleeved thermal shirt and jeans. You cursed yourself for not leaving when he was asleep and your heart dropped when you looked at the time.

7am.

You were supposed to be halfway down the interstate by now in order to make check-in at 11am.

Typical, throwing a wrench in your plans like always.

Shooting yourself out of bed like a soldier called to action, you prayed had some normal clothes left in his closet, cheering internally when you found a pair of ill-fitting bootcuts that you matched with a frumpy light green and pink sweater, the sleeves too long and itchy, while you tried to manage your morning after bedhead.

He watched in pure amusement as you brushed your teeth with one hand and tried to wipe the sand from your eyes with the other.

“I can drive you if you want.”, he suggests, casually, amused at how you’re swearing up a storm when a strand of hair keeps sticking out from your trying too hard but not quite loose bun. As if he wasn’t basically holding you in a hostage situation to keep you from leaving.

He always did this, changing his tune to play the hero when he was the reason the problem was even there in the first place.

“Shut up.”, you hiss out in response, leaning down sitting on the bed to frantically tie your shoes.

“You think that piece of shit you drive is going to get you there in time?”, he spat. “Let me drive you.”

“My boxes are in my trunk.”

“And don’t talk about Betty like that.”, you add, defending your silver subcompact.

“I’ll help you move them.”

That’s how you ended up sitting stuck in traffic on the highway in his pick-up truck, watching the minutes tick by heart racing in your chest from pure panic and a cup of gas station black coffee the size of your head.

The boxes were in the trunk and so was his shotgun.

You fiddle with the radio, turning it up a bit when a pop song you like plays, gazing out at the miles of cars on the highway, no honking or swearing but building animosity between drivers.

He snaps his fingers bringing you back down to earth, like how you’d scold a dog for pissing on a new rug.

“Hey.”

You turn to look at him, pupils dilated, trying so hard to be put together, to stay strong.

“I’m not helping you move in. I’m just dropping you off and moving the boxes inside.”, he asserts.

The room is eggshell white, not cozy, industrial. The mattress lumpy even with the mattress topper he hoisted into your room, his one random act of kindness outside of the whole ordeal. Your roommate down the hall is a nice girl, but the bathroom is a similar symphony of hair dryers and loud talking, foundation in the sink, bloody pads in the mini trash can, but with a hollowness you're not used to or welcome easily.

You don’t sleep a wink that night.

The program flew by, marked by hours spent hunched over textbooks, watery coffee and croissants with fairweather friends, and an occasional party or two. Not with red solo cup lawns, in cramped apartments with dartboards in the living room instead of the spacious basement, and ripped jean trust fund babies instead of the preppy asswipes you rubbed elbows with on the regular. They both had an affinity for boxed wine and kegs but the former would try to quote Dickinson to get into your pants. Artsy pricks, your ex called them, and you couldn’t help but agree.

Heat of summer, your best friend.

His worst enemy.

A slice of pizza with the grease patted off stares back at him as he sits at the aged navy polyvinyl booth, three shots deep. Thirty-four and using teenage girl dieting habits from one of your nail salon magazines. You introduced him to this little dive, not his scene, he prefers the townie bars on the edge of town where fights break out as the nightly entertainment, not some whiny meterosexual in a scarf wailing with an acoustic.

2 dollar shots and 1 dollar pizza slices. A bachelor’s paradise.

No open mic night, thank God, but still obnoxious pop punk blaring over the half broken speakers is the soundtrack to his lonely night out, as well as the loud hollering of coeds with too much time on their hands. Curly forced him to quit his bitching and he did with ease, finding a new bedwarmer every week. They never stayed long enough for the next morning, always got tired of his games and walked away. You, however, were something special, he had to change the rules for you, had to bend and contort himself as you spun circles around him on the board.

An empty feeling in his chest made its home. Nothing a bottle of cheap rum, a girl with daddy issues, or shooting at cans in the woods could fix.

He missed you.

Not in a loving way, but in the way after you shoo a cat, and they hide under the bed and won’t come out no matter how many fish toys or cans of cat food you wave at them.

Desperate longing, but with the sliver of hope they’d come crawling back.

And there you were under the neon lights, a middle finger to his very existence. Sauntering in, no fake id needed since the shithole doesn’t card, with a tall skinny blonde guy on your arm that he could probably bench press two of. He eyes your outfit, black ruffled tube top and a cutoff cargo miniskirt, the converse he used to untie first slowly and delicately before he took you, and he sighs signaling the tired barmaid/waitress for two more shots.

He watches it all play out, your cute laughing at his off-color jokes that he uses as humor tests on new prospects, his hands on your waist guiding you as you shoot a dart, knowing damn well you can get a bullseye without any help. It doesn’t hurt. What hurts is how you kiss him like how you used to, that little thing your nose does when he leans in, how you laugh if the kiss was good. The shaky breaths you used to pass between the two of you like an inside joke.

Beanpole wasn’t a boyfriend, he could tell, boyfriend territory would have meant you would have his stolen-valor work jacket that he’s wearing around your shoulders, sitting and talking splitting a cheap slice and a pitcher instead of putting a display of “steal me away from this douchebag” by the dartboard, playing pool.

Message received.

He waits until Lurch goes to wait in the absurdly long line for the bathroom and approaches you with the subtlety of an axe to the head.

“10 months. 10 months and this is how you come back.”,he says lowly, sitting at the withered stool beside you as you flag the bartender for two more beers.

“I told you I’d be back by July. It’s July now.”, you reply coolly, not wanting to cause a scene.

“And you didn’t tell me you were back.”, he grabs your wrist, forcing you to look into his eyes.

You planned to call him of course, once you were in your hometown and he couldn’t play mind games with you without you snapping the phone shut to cut off his stream of bullshit, or if he got ballsy and showed up at your house, he’d have to deal with your parents, which would have opened up a can of worms for both parties involved.

“I didn’t feel the need to. I’m just passing through for the week.”, you say plainly, mouthing a thank you at the bartender as you crack one bottle open, throwing back the amber liquid that gives you extra ammo to exchange words.

His jaw clenches and he snatches the other bottle cracking it open, downing half of it and slamming it down on the table.

“And you found someone to fuck you for the time being.”, he says, low, accusing, eyeing the same outfit he was pitching a tent over with pure revulsion.

“I don’t see why you care, Jimbo. You moved on too. I can tell. You got that look in your eye.”, you let out a snide mean girl laugh. “The thousand cunt stare.”

He laughs, not at your insult, but at the fact what he says next will work like a charm. Wouldn’t just secure a bathroom rendezvous but start a whole new round with you.

“Yeah you’re right. But they’re not you.” He lets out a bored sigh like using and abusing girls was as mundane to him as getting his teeth cleaned.

He takes another sip of his beer, staring at you over the condensation-cool glass.

“They’ll never be.”

Self-sacrificing tendencies are once again hit with sniper precision. When he leads you out into the warm night air, cicadas buzzing in the distance, honeysuckle in the breeze, you think about taking one for the team.

The beer bottles on the bar top lay abandoned half-finished.

He kisses you in the parking lot, blacktop under your feet, petrichor air floating around like heady air freshener. Every fiber of your being felt it, it felt like hope, like broken promises being glued back together slowly, and then you thought of everything else, and you pushed him away.

His lips felt like they would boil you alive and there would be nothing left but your shoes in the humid July air. Pure temptation like wanting to put your hand on the iron when you were a kid, even though there were a million signs and reasons why it was a horrible idea. You wanted to melt into him, to give everything to him, even if you lost yourself in the process.

Love is sacrifice after all.

“What are we doing?’, you smooth out your ruffled top as if your dignity was worn on your chest and not in his hands.

“We’re finishing what we started.”, he replies, leaning in again, hand wrapping around your waist like second nature.

You push his hand away, despite that warm fuzzy feeling in your chest and between your legs coming back with a vengeance. Butterflies in your stomach replaced with a stampede of wild horses.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t.”

“Won’t.”

You turn to walk back towards the bar eager to return to your catch of the week, and you see him leave with a girl, hand in the back pocket of her rhinestone-encrusted jeans, and you sigh, turning back to him, and he closes the distance.

In your head, the little figurine of your subconscious, dressed in a pencil skirt and blouse crosses out a whiteboard that says:
“Days since On Again Off Again Boyfriend” and changes the number to zero with an exasperated sigh.

Chapter Text

cw for the r-slur, implied rape

You never thought you’d not cry at your wedding. It was expected even. Imagining yourself in white standing across different figments of fantasies that should have never come to fruition as well as innocent crushes, the boy next door that showed you how to kickflip even though you sprained your knee, some random male model on a catalog, your junior year math tutor, the one with the buzzcut that he somehow made work and now Curly's sidekick with dilated coke eyes.

The face of a man who was told no, but treated it as a suggestion.

The deed your parents signed for the house was for a horrendous McMansion to get lost in. It had too many rooms and too many arches, and a bay window where you often curled up, as well as a study where he would shut himself in. It came in a dusty, grey-green box, tucked between your pharmacy photo booth ID pictures, college ID, French braids, and doe eyes. As if to say, “Look at the wasted potential. Have you no shame?”.

He just shoved the box in the filing cabinet with his forged paperwork for flight school.

He said he never felt love in his life, but he swore he did when he saw you up on a step stool, painting an eggshell white room, pale baby blue, little decorations. Noah’s Ark, you decided. Something for both a boy and a girl when you knew that the crib would probably stay in the bedroom.

Convenience for you and guilt for him.

Married bliss was an oxymoron. You couldn’t keep the facade up. No matter how many cookbooks you read, how much you pissed away your makeshift dowry with expensive ceramic figurines and vases to fill the void of a home you’ve come to resign to, no matter how many fake smiles you practiced in the mirror. Hell, he was probably cheating on you in space anyway.

You got the letter in the mail, which had big red letters on it stating it was important, and although it wasn’t addressed to you directly. It was your home, to the finest letter of estate law, so you tore it open, wanting to strangle the overly cheery pony mascot in the corner of the page as you read the bold letters and fine print.

HR/ EMPLOYEE CREDITS DEDUCTED
REASON: INAPPROPRIATE CONTACT WITH A SUBORDINATE
PENALTY: PAID LEAVE FOR TWO WEEKS

The plucky girl persona, slightly waterboarded, itched to start a fight the second he came in the door. But there was no point in angering someone who came into the world pissed off, so you decided to make his favorite for dinner: chicken pot pie.

It’s always time-consuming and mathematical, kneading the dough for the crust, adding the right amount of cream to broth so it’s not too soupy, chopping the vegetables and bringing them to a simmer, the contemplation of dumping drain cleaner into the creamy filling, and watching him puke his guts to death at the dinner table.

By the time the door creaked open, the kitchen smelled like pure domestic heaven. There was a spot on the chicken pot pie where the gravy leaked out in perfectly placed pockets, mashed potatoes in a ceramic dish shaped like a swan, and fresh biscuits, straight out of the can, piled on a plate. A six-pack of beer beckoned him, his mug glistening in the soft, stained-glass light of the chandelier you picked out for the hardwood kitchen table. A pink apron hung over a chair by the kitchen island, and you were in a maternity dress.

“Welcome home.”, you said softly, mechanically.

He didn’t take his jacket off until he had a slice of pie. You worried down a slice and a biscuit with extra butter.

“So how was the trip?” you ask softly, biting back bile at your saccharine sweet tone.

“I got fired.”, he says curtly, breaking his biscuit into pieces and eating it in bites.

Your mom would keel over if she saw how he ate.

“What happened?”

“Some disagreement with some intern. Too big for his big boy pants. I called him a retard, and apparently you can’t say that anymore.”

He lied as much as he breathed.

You met the poor girl. She sought you out, found you in a phone book, and from the framed photo he kept of you in the cockpit. An innocent one, you’re in a simple Henley and tiny cutoffs, his aviators on your head as you put a hand in front of your face.

The other one, the topless one, Curly wouldn’t let him put up. Not even as a “morale booster”.

They put it up during the night shift.

You met her at a pasta chain restaurant. The kind with all-you-can-eat pizza. The smell made you want to vomit, but you sucked it up as you sat across from her.

“Christ, you’re young.”, she says coolly.

Brunette with sharp green eyes, a gaunt face. Late 20s, older than you probably by a year or two. In a red sweater that makes her look a year or so younger, pale blue jeans, and black boots.

“You’re one to talk.”, you reply softly, with no real bite.

“So you’re the wife.”

She surveys you, really looks at you, half-dead and gorgeous in an oversized sweater and peasant skirt, even as pregnancy sucks the life out of you like soda from a straw.

“You’re too pretty for him.” You beam at the compliment.

“So what do you want to talk about?”

“I I- I just want to get my story straight. He came onto me. Despite what he may tell you.”

“Oh, he hasn’t even told me.”

“And I believe you.”, you say softly, unsure of whether to take her hand or not. You choose not to, and she smiles at you gently.

That opened the floodgates, and you spent the rest of the night swapping stories about the horrors of the co-pilot.

She flags the waitress down for more wine. You wonder how she’s getting home.

“You know the Captain. Curly or whatever the fuck his name is.”, she sneers, voice lowered conspiratorially, finest red on her breath.

“He tried to bribe me to keep my mouth shut.”

“I’m not surprised.”, you say casually, picking out the tomatoes in your salad, to keep from the siren’s call of the bottle.

“He has a track record of cleaning up his messes.”

“That’s unfair.”, you say meekly.

“But I get paid leave. So they’re not outright firing me.”

He looks up from his beer mug, sharp stare your grounding force and saving grace from the homicidal thoughts floating in your mind like dandelions.

“Think of it as like a paid vacation. God knows I need one of those.”

You nod begrudgingly.

“Maybe I can help work on some stuff around the house.”

Not the chores, though, you think dryly, that’s women’s work and he knows it, he concludes as you leaves you with the dishes like always.

He noticed the opened letter by the hr-credit paid coffee table next to half-folded laundry and gives you a sideways glance that you know is a powder keg for the next screaming match.

“What would you do if we had a boy?” you asked him softly, curled into his side, practiced like one of those stupid plot devices of a wife who dies in his favorite action movies. Even have the stupid silk slip on in a shade of soft lavender.

“Probably take him fishing, teach him how to fix a car. The usual.”, he grumbles, his voice vibrating through your already tense body.

“What if we had a girl?”

The question hangs heavy in the air, and you feel him stiffen.

Clothing hanger. He thinks.

“Probably raise her right. Make sure she doesn’t turn out like you know.”

Sticking her stuck-up nose into where it didn’t belong. Ungrateful.

Like you.