Page 47 of The Truth About Love

I slip my hand between us to draw lazy circles over her clit with my finger as I continue to move inside her. Her strangled rasps turn to gentle sighs. I can feel the fluttering of her pussy around me as the pleasure builds. It makes everything tighter, makes every sensation more intense.

It’s as if my whole body is burning. I’m alight with glowing flame, my skin tingling and hypersensitive as my orgasm draws closer. I rub at her faster. My hips snap against her harder and more urgent. I’ve lost control, my body totally overcome by instinct. All I know is the euphoria of being surrounded by Summer-Raine and the sound of our synchronised gasps.

Her body tenses.

Her eyes snap shut.

Her pussy squeezes me impossibly tight, pulsing and quivering, as she comes around me, forcing an orgasm from my own body. With my face buried in her neck, I spill myself inside her, chanting her name over and over against her skin.

Afterwards, I clean her up and pull her naked body flush to mine. Our skin is slick with sweat, our bodies still hot and flushed. Her fingers stroke tiny circles on my bare chest as our eyelids grow heavy and sleep promises to pull us under.

“Happy Birthday, pretty girl,” I whisper into the starlit night. And together, we fall asleep, my palm cupping her cheek and her hand covering my heart.

***

Much of senior year passes the same way. She comes to my football games, wearing my number on her back as she cheers me on from the stands. We go together to the afterparties where she hangs out with my friends and drinks cheap beer, before we bow out early to go home and make love until morning.

I take her to drive-in movies, though we never make it beyond the opening credits before we’re fucking in the back of my truck. It’s a wonder we haven’t been thrown out of one yet.

We go for breakfast with Fred and Mia and I introduce her to Auntie Rosie, whom she falls in love with instantly.

She even spends every other weekend at my house and deals with Mama’s episodes like a seasoned professional, reading her moods and behaving accordingly. When Mama’s psychosis convinces her that the house is under attack again, Summer-Raine hides with me in the living room for hours without complaining. And not once does she ever pass judgement.

I ask her to be my date to senior prom. We talk about corsages and what colour my tie should be to match her dress.

She laughs at how much different she is now than when we first met. She credits me for the change in her confidence, for encouraging her to break outside of her comfort zone and try new things. She seems to forget that I’d still love her even if she was the same reclusive girl with heavy boots and fresh scars on her arms that I’d met way back in September.

We’re so in love, it feels like I’m constantly walking on rainbows and for a while, everything is perfect.

Until, one day, it isn’t anymore.

Chapter Twelve

Summer-Raine

I don’t know when it starts exactly.

It creeps up on me so quietly that I don’t even realise it’s happening until it’s too late. The darkness seeping in at the corners of my vision, the feeling of emptiness that begins to swell within me like a growing wave.

It isn’t until one night when I’m in bed alone, staring at the ceiling and unable to sleep, that it even occurs to me. The sound of Auden’s breathing has always acted as the perfect lullaby, so it’s not unusual for me to struggle when he’s not here, but not to this extent. Never this badly.

Because it’s not just the silence that’s bothering me tonight.

It’s the unbearable numbness that has smothered my soul, suffocating my ability to sleep, to feel, tolove, even.

Of course, I know that I’m still in love with Auden. I know it because my heart tells me so, but that sensation of lightness and warmth in my chest that was always so dominant before has been engulfed by a blanket of nothingness.

That’s the crux of it, I guess.

That I feel nothing.

Even when, for the first time in nine months, I take a blade to my skin and slice a deep line across the width of my arm, I feel nothing. I can imagine Auden’s face when he sees what I’ve done, the pain that will be there, the disappointment, and still…

Nothing.

I should have known better than to think falling in love would magically cure me of my sickness. Up until this point, loving Auden has had a more profound impact on my mental health than any medication I have ever taken.

And I thought he’d sent the monsters away.

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