Page 27 of Love.V2
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, watching me pull away from him. “I’m fine. This is fine…of course…” He glanced at his lap, and my attention followed his. Apparently, his desire had fled as quickly as mine did. I drew the sheet tighter around me as he scrambled off the bed to locate his pants, babbling as he pulled them on.
“You are perfectly…I mean, obviously you don’t need permission to…”
I’d never in my life seen Dylan babble, and any other time, it would have been funny. For now, though, it was just a reminder that things were different.
Dylan babbled, and I kept condoms in my bedside drawer.
“I’m sorry if—”
“Don’t apologize. You have done nothing wrong. I’m the one…” Abruptly, he knelt on the bed, hands skimming down my arms. His fingers felt cold. “We weren’t together. You…can…sleep with whoever…I mean, you could have…youshouldhave…”
“Ishould have?”
He pinched his nose, rocking back onto his heels once more. “That’s not what I meant.”
“No?”
“No!” His denial was sharp and immediate. He looked slightly ill. “But, I mean, we weren’t together, and if you chose to…do that, then I would have no place to comment on that. Or…judge. Obviously.”
“Right.” I wanted to ask if he’d been with anyone else since I left, but it felt weird to talk about this. I had never worried about losing him to another woman before. Just a corporation.
“Everything is fine. I just need a minute here…just a minute.” He was repeating himself, shoving his hands through his hair and glancing wildly around my apartment, searching for something I wasn’t sure he’d be able to find. I only had to look at the foil packets on my bed to know everything wasnotfine.
I curled my knees tighter into my chest. “If you need to leave, you can.” My voice sounded small. Ifeltsmall, and I hated that. Logically, I knew I had done nothing wrong. The unapologetic feminist in mybrain screamed, holding a big“my body, my condoms”sign, telling me he could fuck off if he had an issue with me exploring my sexuality as a single person.
But I knew the condoms weren’t the problem. It was what they represented.
“Leave?” Backlit by the dim lights over my oven, I couldn’t see his face well, but he sounded lost. My hands fidgeted in my lap.
“Maybe.”
He knelt in silence for a few more seconds. I couldn’t see his eyes. Couldn’t see what he saw. Me? The condoms? The dingy, dinky apartment I’d run away to? Possibly to have sex with other people?
Slowly, like the stomach-lurching start of a roller coaster, he shook his head back and forth, gaining momentum. “No, Tess. I don’t want to leave.”
Eight Years Ago
Dylan
“No, I told you togoleft, so you need tocutright!” Tess dragged frustrated hands through her ponytail. This morning, when we’d loaded everything into the U-Haul for the hours-long trek to our new Nashville apartment, I’d thought she looked gorgeous. Cut-off jeans and a tank top, perfect for moving day—the day after graduation, when every possibility seemed like it could be ours.
Now, though…
“Use the right terminology, otherwise this will never work,” I hollered, so frustrated there was probably steam coming out of my ears, adding to the blistering heat in the truck.
She threw her hands in the air. “It’s never going to work because we’ve somehow gotten ourselves squeezed into an impossible spot and if you move three inches to the left, you’re going to hit that dumpster, and any further to the right, you’re going to take out that car.”
“Funny howwe’vegotten into an impossible spot whenyouwere the one in charge of directing me.”
Half an hour ago, it had seemed easy to back this truck into the gated parking lot of our apartment building. The good news, our truck was at least inside the fence. The bad news, something had gone horribly wrong. The back door was too close to a wall, so we couldn’tunload and, for some inexplicable reason, the damn truck was incapable of moving more than two inches in either direction without hitting something.
“Hey, this is a team sport, dude! You’re not listening. I told you backing it up more was a bad idea,” she shot back.
“You’re right,” I called, jerking the key out of the ignition and tossing it out the open window at her feet. “If you’re so fucking smart, why don’t you figure it out?”
Her shoulders rose and fell sharply before she picked up the keys. “Fine. I fucking will.”
“Great!” My eyes narrowed as she turned on her heel to walk away, toward the security gate.
