by Sophie Stern
Fuck.
I’d love to take Emilia into the backseat and fuck her until she’s begging me to stop and keep going at the same time. I’d love to kiss every inch of her body and just lose myself in her, but that’s not what tonight is about.
Tonight is about her.
It’s always about her.
“Gavin, I’m close.”
“Are you going to come for me, pretty girl?”
She nods, closing her eyes.
“You look so fucking hot like this.”
“More,” she manages to say.
Slipping my fingers out of her pussy, I start to rub her clit. I move faster and faster until her entire body tightens and then she opens her mouth in a silent scream as she orgasms. The pleasure washes over her and her entire body shakes. She’s whispering and groaning and quivering all at the same time, and watching her come apart is the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.
It’s so hard for me not to come right in my pants like a damn middle schooler, but I manage to hold back somehow.
When she finally comes down from her high, I kiss her once more. The gesture is tender, and I slide my fingers out of her panties and back to her thigh.
“You are so beautiful,” I whisper.
She looks at me for a second. Her eyes are still hazy with arousal and I think, for a second, that she might say she loves me. I want to say that to her, all of a sudden, which is crazy. It’s Emilia Riley, and love isn’t in my vocabulary.
Watching her come apart, though, was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced, and for the very first time, perhaps, I feel like maybe, just maybe, I could have a chance at the life I’ve lost.
When I was a kid, I always figured we’d end up together. She was always the person I adored more than anyone else in the world. My dad dying kind of made me realize just how short life was, though, and I felt like I wasn’t good enough. It seemed like I’d never be able to have a good life after that, but now?
Now I just want to know what she’s thinking.
Is she thinking about me?
Is she wondering why we waited so long to do this?
Does she want more?
But when I look at Emilia, I realize she doesn’t look happy. In fact, there are tears filling her eyes, and one slips over the edge of her eyelids and moves rapidly down her cheek.
“Emilia?” I whisper.
“You win,” she whispers.
What the hell?
What does she mean?
“Emilia, what are you talking about?”
“You win, okay?” She turns and glares at me, as though I didn’t just have my fingers inside of her pussy. She’s looking at me like I’ve betrayed her somehow, only I’m not sure what I’ve done to get that look.
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“I’m done, Gavin. This never should have happened, and I’m done. Now take me home.”
She turns and looks out the window. I’m hit with a feeling of shock and horror as I realize that she is, in fact, completely done with me. Either I’ve lost my touch, or this wasn’t the incredible experience I thought it was.
“Yeah, of course,” I whisper, and I start the engine. I turn on the lights and then, horribly slowly, the windshield wipers begin to clear the rain from the front window. I take a deep breath to try to calm myself down, because all of a sudden I feel a little bit dizzy and a little bit lost.
Pulling out of the cemetery, I make my way back to the main road and head back toward school. The entire ride, Emilia just stares out of the window silently. She doesn’t say a word. She’s quiet. Even her breathing seems to be completely silent and with Emilia, that’s a first. Usually, her asthma makes her breathing a little bit rough and loud, but not this time.
For the very first time, she has nothing to say to me at all, and the feeling hits me in the gut.
It’s like she’s punched me and I don’t know what to do.
What do I do?
Chapter 8
Emilia
I DON’T SAY A SINGLE word on the drive back to my dorm.
I can’t.
I mean, it’s super rude of me. I probably should find something to say to him. After all, Gavin did just have his fingers nestled inside of my pussy. I’d say we’re far past being polite acquaintances at this point, but I still can’t find the words to say anything to him at all.
So instead, I stare out the window and watch the world pass us by. The lights blur past the car. They couple with the raindrops sliding down the window and the world becomes a hazy criss-cross of light and sadness.
And fuck, if I don’t feel tears pouring down my own cheeks.
I can’t believe I just did that.
I came apart for him, and it’s the most horrifying thing I’ve ever done.
My body reacted to Gavin’s touch like it was made for him. I came completely apart like I was meant to be doing just that. He shouldn’t have had such an incredible effect on me, but he did, and it’s embarrassing and horrible.
Gavin didn’t know about my dad.
He didn’t know about the deal, but I don’t know why.
Why didn’t anyone tell him? How come I knew, but he didn’t? I hadn’t meant to tell him that at the cemetery. I hadn’t meant to let any of that slip out, but it had. I mean, I kind of thought he already knew.
He didn’t, though.
He had no clue and the information just hit him like a bomb. He didn’t even have time to process it before the rain started, and then he was busy being a gentleman.
Gavin had no responsibility to me. It wasn’t his job to take me home. It certainly wasn’t his job to get me so fucking horny that I was practically begging him to let me come.
Making out with him wasn’t on my plan for the day, but it happened, and I don’t really know what to do now.
Shit.
What do I do now?
He stops the car in front of the dorms.
“Emilia,” he starts to say. I look at him and he’s gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles are white.
I can’t talk to him, though.
I can’t make myself say anything to him about what we did because it’s just humiliating.
He’s a bully and he’s mean and he’s got a soft side I’m not ready for.
I just wasn’t fucking expecting any of that.
And the worst part is that after I came, he was looking at me like he used to. That was a million years ago, though. The girl that he kissed all those years ago no longer exists. She’s dead now: to me and to the world.
The new me won’t fall in love with him.
I won’t say I love him just because he made me come.
Anyone can do that.
Hell, even my showerhead can do that.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and when our eyes meet, I can see his glistening with tears.
I made him cry.
“Don’t say you’re sorry.” I place my hand on the car door, but I don’t open it just yet.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” he says.
“Yes, you did, Gavin. Everything you’ve done for the last five years has been designed to do maximum damage, but congratulations,” I whisper, choking on my own words. “You finally did it.”
He finally broke me.
There will be no coming back from this.
No happy ending.
Nothing.
“Please don’t go,” he whispers, and I hate the way he looks so broken. He looks like I destroyed him.
I know that I’m being hard on him. I know that my reaction is totally uncalled for. I was begging him to make me come. I was fully participating in our make-out session, but I can’t shake the idea that it’s a trick. I can’t stop thinking that somehow, he’s going to try to use this to hurt me again the way he has in the past.
Our trust has been shattered and a few carefully stolen kisses won’t change that.
Not for me.
My heart feels like it’s choking when I look
away from him. I push open the car door, step outside, and slam it shut. Then I run up to the building and reach for my keycard from my jacket pocket.
“Shit,” I palm my pockets. My phone and inhaler are gone. They must have fallen out of my jacket pockets while I was in Gavin’s car. My keycard is in my phone. Crap. I turn around, but he’s already gone, and I don’t really blame him. He probably doesn’t want to be here anymore than I do.
I don’t know what time it is. I’m certain someone will still be awake who can let me in. I can’t call anyone since I obviously don’t have a phone, but that’s fine.
Instead, I reach up and start knocking.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
“Come on,” I yell. “Let me in!”
I’m starting to feel cold and the rain seems to be coming down heavier, but all I can think about is him.
I broke him tonight. I could see the moment it happened. I could tell exactly when he seemed to fall apart and I really hate myself for being the one who did that to him.
I should have behaved differently or at least figured out a way to control my emotions instead of totally shutting down, but I didn’t.
I bang on the door again, wishing that things were different.
“What the fuck are you doing?” A familiar voice finally says. Karen pushes the door open and grabs my arm, pulling me in.
“I’m sorry. I lost my key.”
“Yeah, I can see that. What the fuck happened to you?” She looks me up and down, obviously taking in my disheveled appearance.
She pauses when she sees my eyes. They’re probably red and swollen from crying.
Shit.
I do not feel like explaining anything to her.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Whatever. Come on.”
Karen drags me upstairs to the RA’s room and knocks on the door.
Felicity opens the door and gawks when she sees me.
“What happened?”
“I got caught in the rain.”
“She lost her key,” Karen sighs. “Can you let her in her bedroom?”
Felicity grimaces, but nods.
“Don’t tell anyone I did this,” she says. She fiddles around in her room for a minute and then comes out with a keycard. Together, we head down the hall. “I’m supposed to charge you for a replacement key. You know that, right?”
“I’ll pay you later.”
“Don’t,” she says. “I don’t know what happened tonight, but - and don’t take this the wrong way - you look like hell.”
“Thanks.”
We stop in front of my room and she swipes the card over the sensor to make sure it works. Sure enough, my door swings open. The keycard will let me into the bedroom, as well as into the dorms.
“Here,” she hands me the key. “If you find your old one, bring this one back. Like I said, you didn’t get this from me.” Felicity scratches her forehead for a second before looking at Karen. “Hey, take care of her, okay?”
“You got it.”
“And if you need me to report anything for you, you know where my room is.”
She leaves. Her bright red hair bounces as she walks: probably because she wasn’t caught in the rain tonight.
As soon as she’s out of sight, Karen and I step into the room and Karen closes the door behind me.
Wordlessly, I start stripping out of my wet clothes and throw them into my laundry basket. I rummage around one of my dresser drawers and pull out an oversized t-shirt and a pair of pajama pants. Then I pull them on.
Karen watches me silently as I change. She doesn’t judge me or say anything mean. She just looks at me.
Finally, I sit down on the bed.
“I made out with Gavin,” I whisper. I sort of blurt it out in a rush, but I feel defeated when I say it. I don’t feel aroused anymore.
“Woah,” she lets out a long, low whistle. “That was not what I expected you to say.”
“I loved it,” I whisper.
“Okay,” Karen says. She pulls out my desk chair and sits on it. Then she folds her hands in her lap and, looking very much the therapist, raises an eyebrow. “So what’s the problem?”
“What do you mean?”
“You loved making out with a hot guy, but you’re upset. You obviously cried after. Your eyes are red and swollen, and you were so upset that you left all of your stuff behind, presumably in his car. What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong is that he’s a dick.”
“He hasn’t always been a dick.”
“He was today.”
“And you decided not to turn him in,” she points out diplomatically. “Proving that you have feelings for him, at least on some level.”
“Okay, I know that your mom is a therapist, but I’m not a patient. You can’t analyze me.”
“I’m not. I’m just listening. What is it about Gavin that’s so under your skin?”
“He hurt me.”
“I’ve hurt you.”
“Not like him.”
“Well, you seemed to forgive him long enough to have his tongue down your throat.”
“Gross.”
“Can you think of a better way to phrase it?”
“We...fooled around,” I finally say, but that doesn’t really seem to do it justice. What we did was so much more than that.
Shit.
What we did was magical.
“I don’t want to like him,” I tell her.
“So you’re wrestling with your own desires. You think it’s wrong that you like him.”
“He’s been a bully to me for a long time.”
“Yeah,” she nods. “He’s been pretty brutal.”
“That’s it?”
“I’m not sure what you want me to say, Emilia. He’s a total jerk. He’s been cruel and mean and derisive. He’s been bad for you.”
“I got mad at him...you know, after we were done.”
“Why?”
“Because for a little while, it felt like I was hanging out with the old Gavin, from long ago.”
“You got scared,” she finally points out, and I don’t say anything for a minute because I don’t want to. I don’t want to admit that yeah, I was scared. I was scared of him and scared of my feelings and scared that I was going to do even more with him because I wanted to.
“A little.”
“It’s because you’re a virgin, isn’t it?”
“I’m not a virgin.”
Karen rolls her eyes so hard I think they’re going to pop out of her head.
“Of course you are.”
“Why would you say that?”
“Because I’m not an idiot, Emilia, and neither is he. You need to talk to him about what happened.”
“Yeah,” I sigh. She’s right. I need to talk with him. I should probably apologize for the way I ran out on him.
I definitely need to explain a couple of things.
But first...there’s someone I need to talk to first.
And I’m dreading it.
Chapter 9
Gavin
I MANAGE TO MAKE IT through my classes without talking to Emilia all day. It’s easy because apparently, she said she was sick and couldn’t come in. Her friend, Karen, catches my eye a few times, but she always looks away.
Okay, so she obviously knows what happened between us.
“Hey,” Jared asks me at lunch. “What’s with you today?”
“Nothing.”
“You seem crankier than usual,” Timothy adds.
I just shrug, and they both stare at me.
“You aren’t getting sick, are you?” Jared asks, worried. “Because we need you at the game on Saturday.”
“I’m not getting sick. I’ll be there.”
“Don’t skip practice today,” he adds.
“I won’t.”
Somehow, I survive all of my classes, a grueling football practice, and then I hit the road. My mom lives pretty close to cam
pus, but somehow, I never get over to see her. It might be because she doesn’t want to see me or maybe I’m just nervous about what she’d have to say to me. Either way, I roll up to her place at dusk and park in the oversized driveway.
The house looks terrible.
Somehow, despite everything that happened, my mother managed to hang onto my childhood home. I really have no idea how. Her father must have given her money or bought it outright from my father’s estate. It’s one of those things we never talk about.
The home has lost its luster, though. Years of neglect and depression have destroyed the once-beautiful mansion. Now there are no servants and no visitors. I haven’t been home in a very long time, and I’m a little caught off-guard by the overgrown grass on the front lawn and the unruly vines that are now climbing up the sides of the house. There’s a pothole in the driveway and the siding on the house looks like it needs to be replaced.
All in all, it looks like something out of a horror movie.
I half expect to have a zombie jump out at me as I get out of the car and walk up the once-beautiful walkway to the house. I climb up the steps to the porch and try to shake the feeling of dread that’s welling up inside of me. There’s a strange sense of danger mixed with disgust inside of me.
What has my mother been doing?
I knock on the door. It’s my childhood home and perhaps I should feel comfortable just walking inside, but I don’t. This place hasn’t felt like “home” in a very long time and I’m not about to make a mistake or irritate my mother by just walking into her home.
I know she’s here.
She’s always here.
Still, I knock three more times before I finally hear rustling sounds coming from inside the house. Eventually, I hear a lock turn and the door squeaks open.
She stands there looking up at me, and suddenly, my mother looks so very old. It’s been a lifetime since I’ve seen her: an eternity.
It’s been ages.
“Mother,” I say.
“Gavin.”
“May I come in?”
She looks at me curiously for a moment, as though she can’t quite believe that I’m here. Either that, or she doesn’t want me here, but I’m not sure which it is. My mother is a very strange woman: prim and proper to a fault.