by Shey Stahl
There’s no “do you want to” or hesitation. I reach for his shoulders, needing his heat back. Asa reaches between us and eases himself inside me. “Oh, God.” He groans, his breath hot and heavy, crashing against my lips.
He holds still. He gives me a minute to adjust, his eyes on mine. I squeeze mine shut. He fills me completely, stealing my breath with each thrust. If only he could make me whole with this alone, but it’s enough, for now, to have him like this.
Behind my closed lids, I push the flurry of feelings building and hold onto him anywhere I can.
“Look at me,” he begs, and I didn’t realize I broke eye contact with him.
I open my eyes, drinking in his body, the way his shoulder muscles flex as he moves above me. I flatten my palms against his chest, sighing, my eyes fluttering closed again.
“I said look at me,” he whispers, lowering his chest to mine. My hands fall away, and one of his moves to my cheek. “Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not,” I assure him. I try to tell myself I’m not, but he’s Asa, and he can see through me even when I can’t.
“I love you,” he pants, and the way he says the words, they come out like an apology, an “I love you, so you have to be whole.” An “I love you, so please, love me back.”
And I do, so much, but I don’t say it. Instead, emotion creeps in, and I wish I was different. I wish I could be anyone else but myself. I wish… for the giddiness those girls had for myself. Instead I have this, his body on mine, his heart begging for mine and I give it, but I’m not sure if it’s enough.
His thrusts quicken, pushing into me two more times before he comes, his head buried into the pillow beside me, his grunt muffled by the fabric.
I cling to him, my body trembling, unwilling to let him go. He lets me, stays, covering my body with his. He breathes in, turns his head, and kisses my cheek, neck, collarbone… anywhere my skin is touching his. His kisses are tender and loving, everything I need, softly moving over my body that’s broken.
I sigh. I breathe in and out, and for a moment, I’m at ease.
He pulls out and moves to the side, facing the wall. After a moment, he props himself up on his elbow and runs his fingers over my ribcage. I smile and watch his face, curling into him. He pulls his jeans up over his waist but doesn’t button them. He leaves them open and it’s sexy.
I smile again, because he’s so damn adorable with his messy hair, flushed cheeks, and eyes full of excitement. Sex looks good on him.
With a sigh, Asa’s eyes lift to my room. “Where’d you put the candy?”
I raise my head off the pillow. “I dropped it over there.” I turn back to him. “I’ll get it.”
Prying myself from the bed, I reach for them on the floor and bend over in front of him giving him a clear view of my naked body. Turning, I toss them at him. He catches them midair and then groans, his head hitting the wall with a thump. “That wasn’t fair.”
“How so?”
He motions to the bulge barely concealed in his boxers. “I’m nineteen. Clearly I can go two or three times in a night.”
I laugh at his expression. It’s between need and annoyance. “Well, give me a minute and I’ll be right back.”
He winks. “Hurry.”
I go to the bathroom, and when I return to the room, Asa’s eyes are strangely focused on my desk next to my bed.
His eyes are colder. Something’s up. He looks… mad. My heart thuds in my ears, the light next to my bed creating a disturbing shadow over his face.
Reaching for his jersey on the floor next to the bathroom door, I swallow over the dryness in my throat. “What’s wrong?” I slip the jersey over my shoulders, sensing the mood in the room has changed.
Asa sits up and runs his hands over his face. He looks… broken. His eyes shift to mine, and then my desk. I follow his stare. It’s Roman’s sweatshirt draped over my chair.
He thinks…. No, he couldn’t think that, could he?
His jaw flexes, his lips pressing together and narrow on mine. “Whose is that?”
My words come out shaking. “Roman’s.” I don’t lie to him. “We were studying the other night.”
“He was here alone with you?” There’s a sharpness to his words I don’t understand.
“Yes.”
He nods slowly and then I notice he’s breathing heavily. “I don’t want him here, ever again. You’re not to be alone with him.”
I’m caught off guard by his demand, and it is a demand. By the way each word is carefully intricate, it’s definitely a demand. “Asa…” I sigh. “We were just studying.”
He moves from my bed, standing before me, his body taut and on edge. I watch as he zips and buttons his jeans, the way his muscles flex, the way his stomach ripples. But then I think, crap, what a mood killer. There’s a good part of me that realizes the reasons for Asa’s annoyance with having another guy in my room, alone, but the other part wonders why. I’ve been friends with Roman just as long as Asa. Clearly he wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. Finally, he confirms my thoughts and growls, “I do not trust him.”
I look at the sweatshirt, and then Asa. “So I can’t have any other guy friends but you?”
He snorts, shaking his head, and a vindictive smirk pulls at his lips. I’ve never ever seen that look before. He reaches for his sweatshirt on my bed and holds it in his clenched fist. “I’d like to say no, you can’t, but you and I both know you never listen to a goddamn word I say.”
I blink, shocked, and nod. My throat tightens. My eyes water. It builds and builds, and I feel as though I’m suffocating. “Because I won’t file a police report,” I deduce.
He stares at me, our breathing harsh and uncontrolled. His eyes water, his jaw clenches, and his brows pinch. He’s struggling and wanting to say so much more, but settles on, “Please, for me, fucking report it.” He’s begging. “Do it so we can have closure.”
We’ve been over this for the last year and a half. He wants me to file the report. I want to forget it even happened. “For you, or me?”
“Us,” he snaps. “Us. I was there, Barrette. Yeah, I didn’t experience what you went through, but I’ve been there every step of the way for you, and you can’t say that I wasn’t. I saw firsthand what they did to you. Wouldn’t you want them to pay for what they did?”
I can’t stop from crying now and whisper, “If you want to break this off so you can see other girls, you can. I won’t be mad.” It’s not what he was implying, but I don’t know what else to say.
“Goddamn it. That’s not at all what I’m saying. I don’t want anyone but you.”
I’m not hearing anything he says. In my head, I’m on the after and trying to push away the pain. “If I’m too much for you, here’s your out.”
“I can’t,” he says, reaching for me. His head dips, catching my eyes. “I can’t leave you alone. It’s impossible for me. I love you and I’m here. Like it or not, I’m fuckin’ here.”
My tears wet my face and I think I’m shaking, but I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore other than this room feels a thousand times smaller than it did ten minutes ago. I try to pull away, but he doesn’t let me. “You can let go, Asa. And you should.”
He holds me against his chest securely and I can feel the tension rolling off him. “It doesn’t work that way. I love you. Don’t you see that? I can’t just walk away.”
The truth is, he’s dying too, and I feel it. It’s radiating from him. I’ve shattered the innocence in his heart. It’s in his violent posture when I see him and the way his hands shake when he reaches for me. “You can, and I won’t hold it against you.”
And then he gives me his truth, for once. “I wish… that I could.”
I pull back, afraid of what I’m going to say next, but I say the words I’ve been thinking for seventeen months. His eyes are on mine, a storm of emotions on his face, but anger the most prominent. “I wish you would have left me to die.”
His eyes narrow, his bre
aths coming hard and fast. He drops his hold, his eyes roaming over my face. His hand rises to my cheek, his thumb brushing over the scar. His hands are protective and good, and everything he is inside, and I hate that it’s not enough. His eyes are frantic, and I know I’ve scared him. For several seconds he waits before speaking. “And I would have died, too.” He closes his eyes and exhales a shaky breath.
He’s hurting, too, and I don’t know what to do about it. I don’t know how to make it better because the one thing he wants from me—I can’t give him.
“Barrette,” he says in a pained whisper. “Damn it.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and pull away. “I can’t give you closure, Asa.”
He exhales slowly, his voice is pleading when he whispers, “I know.”
Reaching for Roman’s sweatshirt, he kisses me once and then he leaves, the door closing softly behind him. Tears of shame hit me. Why can’t I just be better for him… for me?
I beat my hand against Roman’s dorm room door. I tell myself, don’t kill him. Your chance at going pro is over if you do, but it’s tempting. It’s so fucking tempting I imagine it in my head. It sits there and stirs. I find pleasure in it. Look, I’m mad. Not at her, okay, maybe a little, but Roman, I’m fucking furious with him.
He opens the door and immediately groans. “What?”
I slam his sweatshirt into his chest with my fist. “If I ever hear about you alone with her again, I’ll break your fucking face.”
His jaw snaps closed. “I’d like to see you try, golden boy.” And then he smirks, a bitterness to the end of his words. “What, are you afraid she’ll be on my dick soon? What makes you think she hasn’t already?”
Don’t react. Don’t!
I know Barrette hasn’t been with him. She wouldn’t. That’s not what I’m upset about. I’m mad he had the nerve to say something so derogatory about her knowing damn well what she went through. How could he? Why would he?
Because he’s fucking Roman, and pussy is the only thing that matters to his pathetic ass.
Anger hits me so hard I can barely stand. His words, they’re off. They hold meaning and power. They’re vindictive and push venom into my veins. It courses through me, stirs to life and takes every single ounce of self-control I have not to snap his neck. I doubt I could, snapping someone’s neck certainly doesn’t sound easy, but God, I want to. I shove him back against his door, my fists gathering up the front of his shirt. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
He laughs again, and Codey surfaces from the room, a beer in his hand, along with two more of our running backs on the team. They try to break it up, as does campus security who suddenly surfaces out of nowhere.
They pull me away from him, threaten to call the coach, but I raise my hands and back up, shaking with pent-up frustration. Behind them in their room, I notice a girl on the floor, naked, sleeping. Something about the way there are four men in that room, alone with her bothers me. I look at security, and then Roman. I eye the security guard holding me back and point inside the room. “Do your goddamn job and make sure she’s actually coherent.”
His eyes shift to the girl, then the guys. “Is she awake?”
Roman smirks. “She’s sleepin’, dude. Nothing’s wrong with her.”
“Yeah, right.” And then I do something really idiotic. I send my fist through the wall outside their door and think, after the fact, what a horrible idea that was. I swing my dead eyes to the guard. “Do your fucking job!” I scream at them, basically losing my shit over the girl lying on the floor. “Go in there and make sure.”
He does and kneels down after covering the girl up with a sheet on the floor. “Ms.? Wake up.”
“She’s fine,” Roman repeats, following the officer. He reaches down and shakes her shoulder.
At first, she doesn’t move, but I can tell she’s breathing. It’s instant when it happens, and just like I can’t help the nightmares about that night, I can’t help the memories that flood through me in flashes. Barrette. Her face. The black and blue. Me carrying her from the woods. It’s all too much and I can’t take it. I shake. I scream at them to do something. I lose my shit over a girl I’ve never met before because I can’t get out of my own head long enough to know this girl, she’s not Barrette.
After five minutes, the girl wakes up, smiling. I don’t know whether I’m relieved or disgusted. She sees me by the door, swaying and slurring her words as she asks, “Holy moly guacamole. Did I fuck Asa Lawson?”
Jesus Christ. Bile rises in my throat. “No,” I snap, backing away from her. Besides the sheet on her now and campus security flanking her sides, she’s still completely naked and no way I want her near me.
Roman and Codey laugh. “He wishes,” I hear Codey mumble.
I don’t even look at them, or her. Fuck this shit.
I hold my throbbing hand and walk away.
I fight the urge to return to Barrette’s dorm. I want to see her. No, I think I need to see her, and for that reason, I shut my phone off so I don’t text her. I can’t always be the one who saves her. At some point, she has to want to save herself, and I need to let her.
And she can’t give me closure like she said.
I CAN’T GIVE you closure.
Those words stick with me. I can’t shake them just like I can’t shake the idea that for a week, I haven’t seen Barrette. I don’t have time between studying for finals, practice, game reviews, and my hand is a problem, but I text her every single day so she knows I’m thinking of her. Wednesday, Coach Benning pulls me aside in the weight room. He’s worried about my hand.
“What’d you do?”
I shrug. “It’s fine.”
“I didn’t ask that.”
“I know.” I chew on my lip and contemplate a lie, but resist. “I punched a wall.”
“And our upcoming bowl game never crossed your mind in the process?”
He’s not mad, but he’s not happy with me either. Two weeks ago, I told him I wouldn’t make mistakes like this, and now here I am trying to deny it. I make eye contact and push myself away from the treadmill I had been on. I reach for my towel and scrub it over my face. He’s still waiting on an answer. “No, sir, it really didn’t at the time.”
He nods, unpleased. “I get that you boys have lives and girlfriends and all that, but the next time you get wrapped up in it, remember that you came to this school to play football and get an education. There’s plenty of time for all that other crap later.”
All that other crap? Like saving your girlfriend from going down a really dark path? He has no idea what goes on in my personal life and I get it; it’s not his job. His job is to make sure his starting quarterback doesn’t break his throwing hand a week before their biggest matchup of the year.
“I hear ya,” I say, walking past him. Usually I wouldn’t be so abrupt with him, but I’m just not in the mood.
I decide to call Barrette when I’m leaving the gym.
She answers eventually, sighing. “Hey.” I wait and try to make sense of her words, the mood she’s in. Her voice is lighter. “How was practice?”
I walk slower, my phone pressed to my ear. “Rough. I’m dragging ass this week.” A group of girls walk toward me, all of them staring at me and waiting. I smile at them, and when they try to stop me, I shrug, point to my phone and continue walking. I hate being rude, but this girl on the phone, she deserves my attention for at least a few minutes. I feel bad that I can’t spend more time with her when she’s all I think about.
Another sigh and I can hear her moving around her room. “I bet. I can barely make it to class and back without being tired.” She laughs, the sound sparking my own. “But today was okay.”
I swallow over the lump forming in my throat when I think about our last conversation. “I….” I breathe out slowly and stop walking. I look up at the sky, wishing the hazy black sky held answers. “I’m sorry about the other night.”
“Don’t be.”
“No, I should be.
It was wrong of me to assume. I just don’t want you around Roman.”
“I know, and I won’t. I get why you were mad. I do. He’s not… he’s Roman, and you’re right, I shouldn’t trust him as much as I do.”
Something in her tone, or maybe just the words she uses that sends a shot of adrenaline through me. I wonder if he said anything to her about the other night when I returned his shirt. But I don’t get the chance to ask before she sighs into the phone again. “I get why it’s hard, Asa,” she says, her tone soft and gentle. “You’re just looking out for me, and I’m just that girl… one mental break down from being Britany Spears in 2007 and shaving my head.”
I laugh.
“What?”
“I’m trying to picture you with a shaved head.” I let out a low whistle. “It’s pretty hot.”
“You’re the worst.” She laughs and I hear a zipper sound in the background.
“What are you doing?”
“Well, I’m sucking on those Sour Patch Kids you got me, and packing.”
I stop walking. “Are you going home for Thanksgiving?” I’d been nervous to hear what her plans were.
“No, I’m going to Bellingham with Joey. I guess her mom makes a mean smoked turkey. She’s picking me up in a few minutes.”
“That sounds like fun.” I sigh in relief. That makes me feel so much better. She hasn’t been home to Boston Harbor since she left last August, and I don’t think she ever plans to return. I can’t say I blame her on that one. I certainly didn’t want her on campus without me here, and then part of me wishes she would come with me to my dad’s.
Barrette’s gentle breathing brings me back to the moment when she asks, “You could come with us.”
“I’d love to, I really would, but I promised my dad I’d come home this year.” I hate that I made that stupid promise. What the fuck was I thinking? Dinner with him, or dinner and possibly sex with Barrette someplace other than her fucking dorm room. I’m definitely not just thinking about sex. I’m not, but… it’s unfortunately at the forefront of my mind a lot of the times. It’s irritating.