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I don’t have to tell him anything, because he comes apart in me a moment later, his thrusts slowing before they cease altogether. He doesn’t even pull out of me before collapsing on top of me and tilting my mouth to his, stealing another kiss. This one is softer, not as hungry, or as desperate.
I close my eyes, focusing on his breath as it evens out, afraid to break the spell. But one of us has to, eventually. So, I take the moment.
“I quit taking my birth control.”
He lifts his face from my chest slowly, his eyes round with shock as he wonders whether I said what he thinks I did. “You—what?”
“I quit.” I tell him calmly, watching his eyes narrow as he shoves off of me and slides out of me at the same time, leaving me uncomfortably cold. But I don’t move. I need the cold after the heat of the moment we just shared. I need to feel empty for a minute, because at least that will help prepare myself for the transition.
“Why would you do that?”
I can’t tell if he’s annoyed because we’ve been fucking without protection, or because I’ve stopped poisoning myself. Maybe both.
I don’t answer him, standing up without meeting his gaze. My stomach is twisting with what I know is about to happen, but I bombed this moment on purpose. Whatever this has been between us, it’s past its expiration.
And we both have to let go.
I shimmy into my shorts and straighten my top so that I can pretend I’ve got some dignity to hold onto as he watches me, his jaw tense. “I’m not trying to trap you, if that’s what you think.” I tell him, ignoring the way I can feel his cum slipping between my thighs. “It was tainted.”
“Tainted?” He scoffs, like he has no idea what that means. And maybe he doesn’t. I’d suspected Elaine of being the one to poison me, slipping a little anthrax or rat poison into my drinks little by little. Maybe it was her who switched my birth control, though I don’t know why she would possibly want to do that.
“Mm.” I nod. “Tainted. I stopped taking it this morning. We’ll be fine today, I’m sure. But that’s the last time.”
He glares at me in confusion as I try to stalk past him, snaring my arm and making me face him. “What the hell?”
He thinks he had me. He thinks we can just keep destroying one another as if we’re infinite and not so easy to shatter. Maybe he’s not, but I am.
“You told me before you’d never love me. So why do you care if I go?”
It’s a brutal question. He flinches when I ask it, but I deserve an answer. I don’t understand what force threw us together, but it doesn’t seem to be cupid’s arrow. There was just as much hate as love in him when he threw me on the bed in the boat and fucked my ass.
“I don’t know.” He says, with an honesty I can’t fault him for.
I can’t explain it either. But I do know that regardless of who I am or who I’m going to be, there’s no world where we make this work. We’ve lived in a bubble the last few weeks, isolated from the world, from responsibility. I have school to think about, a future to plan, a life to create for myself. And I’d never be able to do that if I’m living for what he gives me. I already know he’ll never give me the one thing I want more than anything, the one thing he blanches at the mention of despite all those pretty promises about giving me everything. “I want a family.”
He doesn’t miss a beat, which further proves that I’m right in this. “You have a family. Rhea… me.”
“And I love her.” I tell him, my pulse thundering over the word love as I focus all my energy on making sure the last word comes out right. “But she can’t give me what I want.”
As brilliant as he is, he’s thick enough that he stares at me like he can figure out what I want just by looking at me. “Kids. A family.” I shake my head, trying to deny the pricking at the back of my eyes.
“Kids?” He laughs, like the idea had never even crossed his mind. “You’d bring children into this world, even knowing how wicked it is?”
The question feels like an accusation, like he’s telling me I’m selfish to want something so trivial. It hurts worse than I could imagine. My chest feels heavy, and it’s like shards of glass are flying around inside my ribcage. “I have no one in this world. I’ve always felt like half a person, like something is missing. If you hadn’t found me before Wes got me on that plane—”
“But I did—”
“And if you hadn’t, the only person who would have missed me was Rhea. There’s no one waiting up for me to call to let them know when my plane lands safely. There’s no one to tell me to not stay out all night, to give me a band aid when I’m hurt, to—”
“To put you back together when you break.” His voice is low, quiet without the outrage from moments earlier. Understanding starts to dawn on his face, slowly. “I could be that person for you.”
“No, you can’t. It’s too late for that. I already told you, I can put myself back together. I may not get it perfect, but I can do it. But I want to be that person for someone else. I want to be the one that tells them things they already know, that demands a call so I can know they’re safe, that puts band aids on knees and puts people back together when they break. Or better yet, I can keep them from breaking at all.”
He looks like he wants to argue, but he presses his lips together instead. “You want to be a mother.”
“It’s the only thing I know about myself definitively.” I nod. “And you don’t want to be a father, right?”
I don’t think he’s said as much. He hasn’t had to. This isn’t the kind of home you raise kids in. This isn’t the sort of life you bring a child into.
