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Authors: Michaela Wright

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BOOK: Catch My Fall
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“What do you want me to say?”

She took a deep breath and tossed her hair with her hands. Her hair fell in perfect ringlets, as always.

“Faye, I’m going to quote you, alright?”

I nodded.

“It was good, yes? Cole was a sexual dynamo, right? Except for the fact that you told me yourself he didn’t always take the time to give you an orgasm, yes? Sometimes he just assumed and rolled over. And, then to top it off, he hardly ever put out, am I right?”

Zing. I was beginning to resent her for being a good listener. Didn’t she realize I just wanted to wallow in self-pity for a while? Christ.

“He was the best I’d ever been with -”

“Which isn’t saying much, hon. Even if he was the greatest lay on the planet, if he refuses to actually put out, it doesn’t do you much good, now does it? Especially if that’s all he’s got going for him.”

Fuck me. Hearing her say it brought a tumble of bad memories back to the fore. I remembered lying beside him at night wondering why he didn’t want me, feeling disgusting because I’d gained twenty pounds since we first met, and thinking it must be my fault that he didn’t find me attractive anymore. Somehow, I’d failed to acknowledge the nagging sense in the back of my mind that maybe I had been the cause of his meandering. If I’d just taken better care of myself, if I’d just gone to the gym more often, if… if only.

Meghan leaned toward me and gave me a hug, softly muttering expletives. Only then did I realize I was tearing up – yes, again. Fuck!

“I can’t help but feel like it is my fault.”

Her expression went stony and for a split second I thought she might punch me. Still, she let me speak. I began to hear her words in my own mind, and I let myself recite them. “Ok, I know. Don’t blame the victim.”

She rubbed my shoulder. She’d tried to get me to do this exercise over the past few weeks – remember the bad about the relationship so you can let go of it. Somehow, I’d found that chore impossible.

“He was mean. When we fought, he didn’t get agitated or excited, he just walked away like I meant nothing, and I would have to go find him to fix things, even when it was his fault –“

She nodded and gestured for me to go on.

“He never let me keep my stuff at his house. He never let me decide the restaurant when we went to dinner, and we really didn’t have anything to talk about when we did. It was like those miserable middle aged couples who should be divorced, but they don’t have the balls to admit it -”

“Right?
Right?

“He hated children. Said he’d rather die than be a father.”

She threw her hands up. “Thank Christ that prick isn’t going to procreate!”

“Whenever anyone made a comment about us getting married, he changed the subject, instantly. It was like he was offended by the prospect, I swear.”

Meghan scowled. This was the longest she’d ever let me speak in our entire friendship.

“He didn’t like my friends.” That comment inspired a raised eyebrow from Meghan, but still she didn’t speak. “He hated Stellan. We got into so many fights since I moved back home because I was spending time with Stell and – oh God.”

Meghan’s expression went stern. “What is it?”

I stared at the table, then at my hands. “I almost feel like a bad person for admitting this out loud -”

I stopped.

Meghan gestured for me to go on. “Honey, just say it. You’re not betraying the fuck bag, by any means.”

I took a deep breath. This memory needed lead in, but the lead in? How could I betray this knowledge to anyone. I felt like I’d somehow become a bad girlfriend, and he’d been the one to cheat and abandon me. “He couldn’t always get it up,” I said, and exhaled. It felt like release to say it out loud. “And I did everything I could to make him feel better about it, but he would just push me away, tell me I’m obsessed with sex. Then he goes and has no problem fucking some other girl?”

Meghan shook her head like a guest on the Maury Povich show. “Oh honey, no.”

“I mean - it makes me think, was it me?”

“No!”

Finally, I was ready. I’d built up to it, letting it out, piece by piece, but now I was ready.

“I was afraid to initiate sex. I was fucking afraid to ask for sex from my fucking boyfriend. I’m the most passionate person I know – no man has ever been able to keep up with me. I thought that made me a fucking treasure, but I would never even try because after we’d been together for just a few days, he decided he ‘wasn’t in the mood’ for the first time, and when I tried to
get
him in the mood, he pushed me away.”

“What a cunt.”

“He left bruises.”

Meghan straightened in her seat, rage so clearly etched on her face, I feared she’d catch fire. “What?!”

“I didn’t wear sleeveless shirts for a week after because I didn’t want anyone to ask how I got the bruises. It was fucking August.”

She stared at me. She hadn’t known this fact. No one had. It had embarrassed me so desperately when it happened that I never wanted anyone to know about it. Now, it felt imperative to admit it to someone else. To be made to feel that unwanted – I’d never wish it on anyone.

“You stayed with him.” Her tone was soft, almost disbelieving.

“I took it to be my fault.”

“I didn’t realize Cole was such a delicate flower.”

Letting myself rage a moment was fueling something. Words were coming that felt like fire on my tongue. “Stellan’s right, I deserve someone who can’t keep their hands off me -”

“Stellan’s right? What about me?”

“I deserve someone who can’t wait to meet my family, who doesn’t get angry at the prospect of potentially getting married, or having kids for that fucking matter. I want babies someday damn it!”

“Jesus, how are you two not suffocating from all the Estrogen in here?”

Meghan and I both startled at the voice.

He might be fucking huge, but the man can be light on his feet. Meghan and I turned to find Stellan as he came around the table.

“Fuck you, primate,” Meghan said.

“No thanks. I’m not a fan of crabs, oddly enough.”

This was their relationship. In private, if you were to ask either of them what their opinion was of the other, their words were only positive – affectionate even. Yet, put them in a room together and they were merciless.

“What do you mean? It would go perfectly with the ‘Head up your ass’ disease you’ve always suffered from.”

“Hey, I’ll take that over your Herpes, anyday.”

I hissed at both of them to shut up. I was too emotional to listen to the two of them banter, especially since I’d come so close to actually expunging all of my bull shit in one sitting. Being interrupted felt offensive and a part of me wanted to send Stellan away so I could finish my rant. Somehow, I felt as though I’d been close to some revelation, some epiphany that would have released me to sleep filled nights without the endless bouts of crying and the morning headaches. Now, I just felt deeper in it.

“I can come back later if the two of you want to cry and hug some more.”

“You’re a fucking asshole,” Meghan said and unlike her usual assaults, at that moment, she meant it.

“I know,” he said and reached down to rub my knee. I patted his hand and smiled up at him. There was something to his face that looked different, almost pained. I was suddenly mortified. He’d heard. Of all the people I’d considered telling those details too, Stellan was nowhere on the list. Somehow, admitting to him that my boyfriend was appalled by me enough to leave bruises – felt completely humiliating. I squeezed my eyes tight and willed Stellan’s sad look out of my mind.

Meghan went back to complaining about work. I was grateful for the noise. Despite her monopoly on the conversation, when Billy Idol’s “Flesh for Fantasy” came on over the speakers, she caught the lyrics and had an opinion.

“Wait, did he just say ‘You’ll see and feel my sex attack?’”

“Yes, yes he did,” Stellan said.

“Are you kidding me?”

“I don’t think Billy kids when it comes to sex attacks, Trotsky.”

She shook her head. “You’ll see and feel my sex attack? Really?”

Stellan started singing along, soulfully.

I forced a smile, despite my mood, and looked across the table to Stellan, who was leaning back in his chair, his hands behind his head. When he sat like that, his arms up and on display, the definition of his biceps was apparent. I’d always been curious about Stellan’s martial arts training, some part of me in awe. I’d never admit it to him, but I’d always wanted to see him get into a fight. My gaze caught his attention, and he glanced at me, winked, then returned his attention to the roaring oven fire.

My face burned for a moment.

The waitress took our order, her demeanor cool and drowsy, and then went her merry way. Stellan kept his attention to the fire burning high in the oven, watching one of the employees chop wood in a corner.

I listened to Meghan, but my attention was drawn about the room. Every dark haired man, every couple seated at a table near us drew my eye.

My thoughts were traitors. What if he comes here? What if I see him out in the world?

The thought made me feel itchy.

They brought Meghan and I our salads, and I began picking at my food.

Come on, Faye. Your friends are buying your meal, the least you could do is eat it. I took a bite. It was delicious.

Meghan didn’t let her full mouth stop her from speaking. “Hey, you considering going to the Lambert Halloween party?”

I held my hand over my lips, cursing the law of the restaurant cosmos that someone must ask you a vital question right as you take a huge bite of your food. They then wait and watch you eat until you answer. I hate to be watched eating, let’s just be clear about that.

I swallowed. “I was unaware of such a shindig.”

She popped another forkful in her mouth. “You were invited though.”

I smiled. “Was I? That was nice of him.”

My words were sincere. After high school, Evan Lambert pursued a similar track to Stellan, but unlike Stellan, Evan’s father didn’t suffer a massive heart attack during his sophomore year at MIT, causing him to leave school to tend to his family. Evan left school for very different reasons. From what I’d heard – several billion reasons.

I glanced at Stellan for a moment in a surge of affection. He was still watching the fire.

Meghan her fork through a massive clump of goat cheese. “Your whole class was invited.” Well that deflated me quick. “It’s a costume party, which will be fun, and it isn’t on Halloween. I know you like to hand out candy.”

“That I do. When is it?”

I asked more out of manners than actual interest. I still hadn’t quite regained my interpersonal skills. Just the restaurant was practically giving me hives. The thought of going to one of my oldest friend’s houses after a decade of no contact, surrounded by every asshole we went to school with – some of whom had made Evan’s life hell – sounded almost less appealing than stumbling upon Cole and his Robo-vagina girlfriend.

“It’s October 15
th
- a Friday,” Meghan said through a chomp of carrot sticks. She watched me, and I realized I was expected to RSVP at that precise moment. I felt trapped.

“What are you going as, Trotsky?”

She glanced at Stellan, her perfectly tweezed brows raised.

“I haven’t decided yet. Was going to find out what Miss Faye was going as and decide then - and don’t call me Trotsky.”

Oh dear God, she should know better.

“Why not, Trotsky? Whatsamatter?”

It had begun.

Meghan glared. “Don’t call me Trotsky.”

“Oh, I’m sorry Trotsky, I didn’t realize I was.”

I stopped chewing and watched.

“How do you stand this asshole?”

“Come now, Trotsky. There’s no need to get upset.”

“You’re obnoxious, you know that?”

“Trotsky -”

“Seriously, if I could cut you -”

“Calm down, Trotsky.”

“- make me want to rip that mullet right out of -”

“There’s no need to yell, Trotsky?”

She wasn’t yelling. I stifled a laugh.

“If we weren’t in public right now -”

“Think of the children, Trotsky.”

Suddenly the waitress appeared at our table, balancing two pizzas. She managed to catch the end of a nicely colored tirade from Meghan, hissed with serious tenacity. The waitress smiled at Stellan who returned it with that traffic stopping smile of his. The waitress left our food, and Stellan made quick work to snatch a piece.

Meghan took a bite and moaned. “Oh god, I would curse the day you made me come here with this asshole if this weren’t so fucking good.”

“I know right?”

Stellan’s voice got bedroomy. “I tell ya, this pizza’s about to see and feel my sex attack.”

I coughed through my food, nearly spraying it across the weathered table. Stellan smiled up at me over his pizza, having taken half of the pie onto his plate. Stellan milked my discomfort, seducing his pizza with promises of what he was going to do to it with his mouth. Then he started asking if I needed a fork, a napkin, a glass of water, all in that same husky, sexual tone, with a ‘baby’ or a ‘yeah, like that’ here and there. I hissed and shrieked at him with each word. It was only egging him on, but god damn it, I couldn’t help it. Stellan is not supposed to be sexy. Never, never, never, never, never.

Meghan actually laughed, only to finish the jovial act with a declaration of Stellan’s lack of penis.

The conversation lulled as we finished, Meghan and I ordering a slice of Chocolate Chip Banana Bread for dessert. Stellan just sat and digested. When the act of gorging ourselves lost its allure, Meghan started back in on the Halloween party.

“Come on, Faye. How often do you get out of your mother’s house these days?”

I shrugged. “Not often.”

“See?”

Meh, just be honest, Faye.
“Yeah, and there’s a reason for it. I want to avoid exactly the kind of situation you’re asking me to get dolled up for.”

“You’ll love it!”

“Slight exaggeration there, Meg.”

“Oh come on! You can dress up like Pat Benetar-,”

Stellan and I made the same expression. I’m not a Benetar fan; he knows this.

BOOK: Catch My Fall
8.49Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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