by Leanne Davis
Anand outright laughs in my face. His hand flinches before going slack as he finds my pleading with her so hilarious. “Oh, please. Listen to the little pussy begging for the little whore. Please, my big hairy ass. I’d slam her over a—”
He keeps talking but I totally tune him out and ignore him. My eyes are still glued to Melissa’s. She never glances at Anand but slowly nods and swallows. She’s paralyzed with fright and white as a ghost. She puts her hand out towards me. I see the huge breath she inhales and I know she’s as scared as I am. Our tender scene manages to catch the entire house’s attention. It’s eerie and quiet when Anand eventually trails off after neither of us react or even listen to him. She grips my hand and I pull her forward until she is next to me. I stare down into her face and touch her cheek. “I’ll never leave you here.”
Her face crumples. Anand still stands there, his gun now flopping downward in his limp wrist. What happened? Perhaps, by ignoring the gun, we snatched all of his power away from him. “You should,” she whispers. Her face is bursting with color. Fear turns to shame and relief. She grabs me and holds my torso, burying her face against me. Her trust fills me with renewed strength that I didn’t know I had. I stand up taller and glare at Anand. “Move,” I say simply. I don’t add another word and he finally swears but lumbers off, as if we aren’t worth his time. I’m pretty sure, somehow, my skinny butt just humiliated him, a tiny bit. Just enough to make him retreat.
I have no idea why Melissa is there, but I hope it is not to punish me, because this isn’t something I plan to repeat in my lifetime.
We run as soon as we shut the door on the ramshackle house. We don’t look back. No one bothers us, but in a tacit agreement, we don’t dare stop or try to analyze what happened. I nearly throw her into her car. “Go!”
She nods. Her hands are shaking, but she manages to start the car and put it into gear. She idles in the driveway until I get behind her. We both roar out of there and I hope this time, it is for good. Forever. I can’t do this again.
Now I must decide if this girl is worth having a gun barrel pressed into my face.
We enter my apartment but there are no words to speak now. She stomps up the stairs and I stomp right after her. We are strained, stressed, and completely confused. What now?
She whips around and snaps, “How could you just come in there like that? You knew what kind of crowd was there. How could you be so stupid and just walk in there?”
“Me? How could you? How could you do that, Melissa? You knew better than I do. But low and behold! How comfortable you seem when you’re with them.”
“I do. Okay? I do. They don’t scare me.”
“They should. They could overpower you or rape you or beat you or leave you for dead. What the hell were you thinking? Better yet, what were you doing in there? Why? Just tell me. Spit it out. Let’s just end this… this farce right now. I know you can’t be faithful to me. Why don’t you just admit it?”
Her entire body stiffens. Then she shudders. “What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t go there to have sex with anyone, especially Anand.”
“Then why? I leave town for one night and find you there. With him.”
She shakes her head. “You thought I was freaking out and went there on an impulse, huh? To punish you by fucking him and you believed I would really hurt you that way?”
I run my hands through my hair. Her tone is so quiet. Subdued. It doesn’t match the words she speaks. I really detest those words. “I hope not,” I finally reply.
“But you don’t know.”
“Could you just tell me? Quit with the riddles. You and I both know you have a history with them. You were pissed at me, and you tend to act out when you’re pissed. So could you just tell me what you were doing?”
“Not fucking him,” she answers. Her eyes look tired and I wince at her choice of words. Not often does she speak that way in front of me now. She changed a lot of things for me. I realize that as I dig my hands into my jeans pockets, slouching my shoulders and sitting on the couch. For several minutes, silence fills the space between us. Finally, she comes over and sits near me. Shaking her head until her hair falls down thick and long enough to keep her face hidden from me, she sighs. “This. I went there to beg him to take this down. I’m sorry, Seth. I’m so sorry.”
She is holding my phone in her hand. I paid no attention when she took it off my kitchen counter. I glance at it, then up at her. She’s crying. Tears leave wet tracks down her cheeks and fall inside her mouth. She nods at the phone. I have no idea where she is going with this. Maybe she is having some kind of episode. I don’t really know.
Taking the phone in my hand, I swipe the front. Uploads… pictures. Oh, God. I stare down at Melissa. She is naked and looking over her shoulder at her bare ass as she clicks a selfie of it. Her boobs dangle down, and her mouth is pouting. I close my eyes, shocked. Seriously sickened and shocked.
She’s an internet porn star.
I really don’t know what to do now. I throw the phone down and it clatters to the floor. I get up and walk around the back of the couch, gripping the edge of it, staring blindly. I squeeze the fabric in my hands hard, until my fingers turn white.
“Seth…” Her voice calls out to me, pleading.
I put my hand up. “Just give me a fucking minute, okay?” I’m breathing hard. I don’t even hear what I say. My ears are literally buzzing, my emotions are so raw. I turn and walk into the bathroom. I never expected that. I admit, I entered a relationship with her cautiously because I was worried about Anand and sex and her prior life. But never porn.
I smack the bathroom sink with my fist. Then I have to shake out my hand and fingers because they hurt. I let the water run before splashing cold water all over my face. I stare in the mirror, shaking my head.
I step out. She’s up now, and unlike her picture, she is wearing an oversized sweatshirt and cuddling up in it.
She stares at me. “I started getting gross texts the night you left. I finally found the website today. He put me up on one of those porn sites where you can post pictures of your ex and get my contact information with a click. Name. Phone number. Address. There I am.”
“Did you give him those pictures?”
“Yes,” she answers clearly. Her voice full of regret as hot tears slide down her face. “I did.”
“Surely, that’s illegal.”
“I don’t really know. It’s new for me, okay? To my knowledge, I’m not naked on the internet anywhere else. I know he technically owns the pictures. It seems like… There’re a lot of young girls on this site. It’s right here. A few clicks away for anyone.”
I stare at her and see she is hurt, scared, and upset. Now the thing is, so am I. Her history and her previous life before us has all kinds of repercussions. She always lived so carefree, like nothing bothered her, but eventually, that lifestyle carries a harsh lesson with it.
I walk forward and wrap my arms around her. She looks so woebegone and hurt standing there, she even looks smaller. Her body jerks with surprise at my touch. Her arms creep around my back. She leans her head on my chest. I can’t help myself, and despite my better judgment, I kiss the top of her head. “It wasn’t worth you going over there and risking a confrontation with him again. Promise me you’ll never do that again. Nothing is worth your, or for that matter, my safety.”
She leans back, sniffling, and wiping one eye, then the other. “Why did you come in there? You’ve seen that crowd before, how could you risk it?”
“Because of you, Missy. I only thought of you.”
“I know,” she whispers. “You about made my heart explode when I saw you. And then when he ordered you to leave and you defied him for me? Oh, Seth, that was just stupid. You totally ignored his command to leave. What if he decided to use the gun? You pretended it wasn’t even there. How could you manage that? The barrel was right in your face and you didn’t even flinch. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen anyone, including Anand, d
o. Tops everything crazy that I ever did. But… then, when you wouldn’t leave me, I had no idea you could be so brave.”
“You were pretty brave by getting in between us; not so great for a guy’s ego, but pretty convincing when you were screaming at me. I almost believed you. But then…”
“Then?”
“I looked into your eyes and saw the fear, not anger, and I knew you were acting.”
“Unlike how I was when I went there, which was in a state of total anger.” She shakes her head and releases me. Slouching against the counter, she sighs. “Only you would take a moment to look into my eyes and read my motivation. Anand doesn’t even know what color my eyes are. How could you really believe that I went there… after what… all we shared…”
“I didn’t know what to think.”
“Well, maybe you could try having a little more faith in me. The first crisis doesn’t mean that I’ll go screw my ex. My mean, nasty, crude, scary ex, who wanted to share my body with his buds so he could upload the video. I told you I never wanted that, and would never have consented to it. So to think I…”
“I overreacted. I was wrong. It’s obvious to me now, but Missy, you sometimes…”
Her narrow shoulders seem to collapse. “I know. I react crazy. Impulsively. I do things I shouldn’t before I realize that.”
“Yes. You react completely irrationally. You get so emotional, you don’t take even a second to consider the consequences. So I was wrong, I see that now, to doubt you. But then again, sometimes…”
“I do the same thing.”
“Yes.”
“And you don’t like that about me.”
Her tone is hollow, but accepting. My chest feels a stabbing. No. I don’t like how aggressive she gets when she’s emotional. But I love it when she’s passionate about things that are healthy. So it’s a double–edged sword. I like how she is with me and her animals and her family. I clear my throat and reply, “No. I really don’t.”
Her entire body turns from me so I reach out towards her and touch her hand with mine. “I actually love it.”
She swings around and her facial expression is incredulous. Her eyebrows furrow. “What?”
“I might not like some of the things always, but you could say the same about me. I react too logically to everything. I forget about emotions, yours as well as my own. I’m too analytical. So I might not always like your rash impetuousness, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love that part of you, because I love all of you. When I saw you in danger, no… It was before that. When I saw you with Anand, another man, I couldn’t walk away and let him have you. I had to try and protect you even if it meant I had to fight for you. That’s because I love you, Missy. I just never expected to.”
Her mouth compresses. “You saw the pictures.”
“Yes, I clearly did, yes.”
“How do you intend to live with that image etched in your brain? I can ignore it but I might not be able to change it. Imagine what your mother will say. Not to mention your friends. Your super–smart, high–achieving, accomplished friends. What will they think of that? People will find out; they always do.”
I suck in a short breath. “I’ll just live with it. As you have to. Didn’t something like this happen to your mother? Christina once told me about it. Your dad has to live with that, right?”
“Yes. I promised her on my life to never look for it or at it. I guess I’ll make the same pact. What a way to follow in my mom’s footsteps. She recently told me that I’m the most like her when she was young.”
“Was she complaining about it?”
“No. She said something about us being bold and emotional and strong and opinionated and things like that. She said I was like her before she grew up too fast and lost some of it. Looking back, she wishes now that she hadn’t lost so much of it.”
“Then I guess you should listen to her, and think of her as an example.”
“Seth, I’m a porn star on the internet. I don’t… I don’t want to be that.” Her voice cracks.
“We’ll fight it then.” I squeeze her hand tightly, staring hard into her eyes. “You’re not a porn star, Melissa Hendricks.”
“You kept me from your friends before. What’s gonna happen now? Come off it, Seth. It sounds good, but only when it’s just us. There are so many things that can’t work. Things like what I just did today. My impulsive behavior, and my inability to stop myself and be rational. How many times like now can you handle? Especially if it leads to a catastrophe?”
“What about all the times that benefit me? Like when I had sex with the one girl I never planned to. Look where that led.”
She sits down, and her posture almost deflates. “Oh, Seth, we are so different. What if we end up hating each other after enough incidents? Or enough arguments? Or enough time?”
I squat down directly in front of her. “Yes. We might. Or we might not. I don’t believe anyone knows what’s going to happen when they first start a relationship. Not even your parents. Their histories seemed incompatible, yet they made it possible. It isn’t crazy to aim for normal, and for the most part, your parents made it work. I think we’re up to the challenge. Sometimes being with you is a bit like the feeling of hanging off a mountain without any ropes. And you forget how much I like that feeling.”
“It’s a freaking adrenaline high. You think I’m some kind of cure to your otherwise ordinary life. An adrenaline high. That doesn’t make a relationship.”
“No. Nope, it isn’t anything at all like that. If I gave you that impression, then I’m doing something wrong. To solo climb takes a combination of confidence, concentration, as well as methodical planning and execution. I have to move very slowly, and with extreme caution. I’m hyper–aware of my brain and my body. The total opposite of an adrenaline high. When I’m with you, I want to enter a world outside of my brain. Without books or schooling. And maybe, Missy, I can help you in the other world a little more.” I lean forward, running my hands through her hair and cupping her face tenderly. She tilts her head into my palm.
“Are you saying we complement each other rather than clash?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t tell your mom about me.”
I close my eyes at the hurt I see in her brown eyes. “I didn’t.”
She smiles. “You’re supposed to give me your most valid excuse now.”
I raise my hands up, flopping them in the air. “I can’t. I should have but I avoided it. It would have been so simple, easy, and doable, to tell them when I went home, but I wasn’t ready. I knew she would react the way she did. Because...” I stop talking and rub my neck. How can I tell her that I’ve heard my mom rant about Melissa’s actions before? The ancient friendship between our mothers sometimes taints things.
“But she knows a lot about me. So do you. You had to learn how to understand me. I grew on you until you were ready to accept me. She doesn’t have the same perspective.”
My eyebrows rise at her soft, correct analysis. She’s so mature and reasonable. Her smile brightens when she glances at me. “You don’t have to be so surprised. I can be mature sometimes.”
I am surprised. “Look, I might not often show up with flowers or text you pictures of my penis like Anand used to. And I might not tell you the things you like to hear, but I will tell you the truth. I am always honest with you when we talk. I promise that will continue. I rarely share my personal life with anyone. Not my friends. Or the guys I climb with. Not even my parents. But I want to share it all with you. And not telling anyone else about us? It’s just because I don’t share much with anyone. I will from now on. But I promise to be honest with you whenever you ask me anything.”
She bites her lip. “I like knowing that you mean what you say. I feel I can trust you. I don’t need anything that Anand could provide. I like the things you do. I promise to be more discreet if you’ll promise to acknowledge my existence in your life.”
“I can do that.”
She nods
and leans forward, placing her lips on mine and giving me a small, chaste, sweet kiss. So opposite of all that happened today, including the things we did and said and the porn site. She is so close, I can feel her breath between our faces. “I love you too.”
I close my eyes.
“Seth?”
“Yeah?” I reply, smiling when her voice interrupts my relief and rapture.
“Can I move in here?”
I laugh out loud. “Not even close.” I kiss the end of her nose. “Maybe in a year.”
She sighs. “A year? If we make it that long.”
“I know we will.”
“Okay, in a year. You know, you shouldn’t go by the book. You’ll have to be more spontaneous if you intend to survive me.”
“And you’ll have to plant your feet on the ground once in a while if you intend to stand me.”
“We’re such opposites. We’ll end up driving each other nuts.”
“Or become like yin and yang, two forces who complete each other and need each other to exist. Did you ever think of that, Missy? Maybe we actually alleviate each other’s faults and capitalize on our strengths.”
She shakes her head and leans forward until she’s straddling me. I fall slightly backwards with the impact of her leap. “No, but it could be a hell of a ride. What’s better than that?”
I brush her hair out of our eyes as she leans over me. “A relationship without having any guns being pointed at you.”
Her smile is small as she touches my face. “That is a ridiculously low bar. We can do a million times better than that. And I promise to listen to the best version of me I can be.”
“I promise the same in return.”
“Then maybe we do stand a chance.”
The term eventually is popular right now with us. There is still so much for us to do and share and figure out together. But for some reason, deep in my gut, I feel like we got this. Together. Always. Without any scientific basis. There is nothing rational to explain it except that I have faith in her, and she in me.
“I love you, Seth.” When she whispers that into my ear, I allow my oversized brain to absorb it and let it spread through me. Love. It’s as valid and necessary and life–changing as all my schooling and smarts. And where I found it is the last place I ever guessed it would be.