I let the silence stretch, content to float in this strange, placid aftermath, until it’s interrupted by the sound of a smoke alarm and the smell of something burning.
Our heads snap to the kitchenette, where the hookah coals are well past hot, one apparently having caused a nearby rag to catch fire. In a surprisingly gentle move,Manny throws me to the side as I watch his naked, dripping form rush to move the now flaming towel to the sink and douse it with the tap.
A laugh rips from my throat so joyous and unburdened I don’t recognize it. The moment the panic on Manny’s face passes, he joins in, his own massive frame dwarfing the tiny sink.
I collapse back on the bed as he turns off the stove and returns to me, eagerly seeking my embrace. I tenderly stroke his hair, his head curled into the crook of my armpit like I were soothing a lost beast that only I could tame.
“Good material for your next book?” I whisper, my voice husky and raw.
He’s quiet for a long moment, likely still trying to collect his wits before finally managing to mutter, “I could win an award.”
The idea of me, my existence, no longer a sideshow, but as part of a story for the ages, earns a lazy, contented purr from deep within my chest. He nuzzles toward the source, pressing a soft, open-mouthed kiss to the skin along my ribs. The feeling of him, the way just his words can send my mind racing with hopeful ideas, becomes a reassuring anchor in my usually turbulent mind.
“An award-winning novel…” I muse, my fingers still caressing him. My mind races trying to imagine the title. “How To Build A Goddess? A Monster Walks Into A Bar. Cadaver and the Beast?”
Each terrible title earns a weak chuckle from Manny. Yet, the idea that this transcendent, world-shattering experience could be distilled into ink on paper for others to consume is both thrilling and terrifying.
I prop myself up further, my hair cascading around us, creating a dark curtain against the world. I trace the lines of his smile with my fingertip, my expression turning serious, my eyes searching his.
“Just make sure the dedication is correct,” I murmur, my voice a low, possessive hum. “For Franky,” I dictate, tapping his chest on the blossoming bruise over his heart. “The girl who trashed my body and unleashed my soul.”
I give you a wicked grin, then a softer, more genuine smile. “Because I hope you didn't just get a story tonight, Manny. You got a whole goddamn epic."
As if to call my bluff, Manny’s face goes from soft, unburdened ecstasy to mild trepidation as he looks up at me. I worry he’s going to tell me to get out, even though I have no good reason to think that, but for some reason, what he says next feels so much worse.
“I know you are only in town for the weekend, but what if I don't want that?”
The simple, raw vulnerability of the question hits me harder than any frantic thrust or bruising grip. The playful conqueror vanishes, the smug goddess retreats, and I am left, suddenly and terrifyingly, just Francesca. Not evenFranky. The hopeless, romantic girl who chases unworthy men without a second thought.
My breath catches in my throat, and the world outside our tangled limbs seems to creep back in, cold and unforgiving—one day, maybe twelve hours. The countdown clock, ticking in the back of my mind, screams in the sudden silence.
I slowly, carefully, extract myself from him, the loss of our intimate connection leaving an aching void. Kneeling beside him on the bed, my own skin smeared with fluid and sin, I look down at him. I don't answer right away. I study his face—the beautiful, honest concern etched there, the faint purple bloom of a bruise settling on his chest like a painful souvenir.
Suddenly, so much of my life snaps into sharp clarity. How much of my life has been spent on weekends like this, where my own inner voice is a small thing I can barely understand. I follow guys wherever they want, and then they just dispose of me with the trash. That's why I came here, to get away from a guy, only to run right into the arms of another one.
I gesture vaguely to the space between us, to the wreckage we've made. “I can't keep doing this, Manny. I can't keep chasing guys who just throw me away.”
He reaches for me, but I pull back ever so slightly. I want him to take me, I want this so bad, but there’s something inside me, that stupid tightness, V’s echoing words, tellingme this is all some sort of trick. Even as he stares at me with those deep brown puppy dog eyes, mouth agape in a look of longing, my mind keeps telling me I’m an idiot to stay here, that he’ll tire of me any moment now.
He tries again, this time not for an embrace, but a gentle interlacing of fingers, and I give it to him, another compromise. For a moment, I let myself pretend that his fingers are a fortress, sheltering what little of my soul I can fit in my palm from the inevitable.
Slowly, that ease spreads up my arm, into my shoulder, helping me relax just enough that I no longer want to flee, but not so much that I’m not terrified of the moment. I drop, rolling into him, head resting on his arm as he finally pulls me in to a tender embrace, that fortress expanding to the size of a titan generous enough to share a cigarette with a panicking lunatic.
“I’m so tired of running,” I whisper into the sheets, the words muffled and raw. “Tired of being the spectacle. The wild story. The 'one-night adventure.' The idiot chasing foolish dreams. I just want to be the last chapter. Not a juicy footnote.”
He pulls me close, as if he wishes he could force me inside him, let me wear him as a suit of armor to protect him from the horrors of the world. The words he whispers in my ear are so kind and full of promise, they burn all the way to my heart. “You're not a story, you're an epic, andI want to read every page.”
The burning behind my eyes, the pain that started when he asked me to stay, finally oozes out as unexpected tears, tracing a hot path down my cheeks and soaking into the skin of his arm. It's somewhere between sadness and release. The breath I didn't know I was holding rushes out of me in a shaky, relieved sigh. I nuzzle back into him, wishing there were some way to be closer than the border's skin creates.
“An epic. That's what you called me. Not a cautionary tale. Not a tragedy. An epic.”
“I mean every word.”
For some reason, it’s not enough; those stupid voices in my head are still screaming at me, telling me that he’s just like Chad and all the others. That even if he is the kindest, sweetest fruit I’ve ever tasted, he’ll sour eventually, just like they all do. I pull myself up so I can look at him, my hair a disaster, my body slick with our mingled fluids, and yet despite the truth of the moment, the doubt is still there. So I do the only other thing I’m good at, I lie, trying to pull the rug out from under myself before he can do it for me.
“I have to go, I have... obligations.”
Without a moment's hesitation, something hardens on his face. “Then I’ll follow, I’ll chase you if I have to.”
