I sit in silence for a long time.
I can’t stop seeing her.
Tabitha, lying beside me. The warmth of her breath, the way she looked at me like I was worth saving.
And I let her walk away.
The stew cools while I stare at the wall. I should eat. I should nap. Instead I pull the past over me like a blanket and let it smother me.
Over a week ago now, but I remember every second like it was yesterday. In this room, we were frantic. But later, in her guest room…
I wanted to rip her clothes off right then and there and fuck her hard and fast, like we’d done before.
I was dying to. And I could have done it.
She wouldn’t have stopped me.
Her nipples were hard and protruding through the silky fabric of her dress.
Instead, though, I cracked open the door to her room, looked deep into those amber eyes, and said, “Please.”
And she nodded.
She nodded ever so slightly.
I squeeze my eyes shut and remember.
The slope of her shoulder, the tiny pulse at her throat, the warmth when I cupped her breast. I undressed her, kissed every inch of her gorgeous flesh. She begged me to go faster. I answered with a stubborn slowness that made both of us shiver.
I learned her breaths, quick and then quicker, learned the way her fingers splayed against my shoulders when I found the exact pressure that turned her body from tense to wildfire. I let the heat build like a storm. When she gasped and grabbed for me, when she said my name, the brokenness in me dropped away and there was only her, only the shape of how she fit against me.
I wanted—God, I wanted—to flip us hard, to chase the edge with the same ferocity we had before, to be rough enough to satisfy the part of both of us that liked our sex a little wild. But I kept a hand at her back and the other at her jaw, and I moved like we had all the time in the world.
Because I knew it was all too good to last. That I couldn’t give her what she deserved.
I pulled climax after climax out of her, and eventually she pulled me with her.
And when I released, for a split second I believed in a version of us that didn’t hurt, the kind where I didn’t wake up and say things like no future because I was afraid of what I might take from her if she gave me too much.
After we finished, she curled on her side and snuggled into my shoulder. I lay on my back and watched the ceiling and counted my breaths. I told myself that I was fine, that I could hold this little piece of perfection without breaking it.
In the morning, while she still slept, I slipped out.
Without saying goodbye.
Now, a week and a big old scar on my head later, I sit with my memories and a bowl of stew I haven’t touched and those old trophies looking down at me with judgment. The ache in my head is the good kind today. I feel it healing me, reminding me I’m alive.
The ache in my chest?
That’s different.
Footsteps in the hall. The heavy clunk of my father’s boots. He opens my door a crack. “Son?”
“Come on in, Dad.”
He eyes the stew still sitting on the tray with the biscuits and iced tea. “You going to eat that?” he asks.
“Eventually,” I say.
