“My sister says it’s fucked up.”
“Then your sister’s fucked up, not you.”
“My sister’s five-ten.She’s always making fun of me for being shorter than her.”
“I’m shorter than you,” he said.
“You’re perfect, though.”
“I’ve seen you naked, and I want to fuck you even more now than ever.”
“You’re my fiancé.You have to say that.”
“I didn’t have to get engaged to you.”He raised his eyebrows.“Three times.”
“Whatever.”
“Look,” he said.“I’ll get you prepared, help you pick out clothes.”
When we got back to the apartment, he went through my closet.He found my old baseball cap from when I played in a summer rec league.He put it on me with the peak facing backward, the way I never wore it, because I only ever used it as a sun visor.It pushed my hair into my eyes.
“Brings out your boyish charm,” he said.
“I’m twenty-three, not six.”I pulled the cap off.
He touched my left earlobe.“What happened to your ear?”
I thought he’d seen it before, but he’d been too nice to mention it.
“My sister and her friends thought it would be fun to pierce it.”
“I thought you said you weren’t into pain.”
“They didn’t ask my permission.I was five.Two of them held me down, and my sister stuck me with a needle.It bled everywhere.Hurt like hell too.Nearly tore my earlobe in half.It didn’t heal properly.”
“How old was your sister?”he said, with an edge in his voice.
“Eighteen.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“She got in trouble with our mom.”
“Eighteen.”
“She left home the year after.”
“Fuck,” he said.“The doctor couldn’t stitch it?”
“Mom didn’t take me to a doctor.She thought the doctor would report my sister, and she’d get in trouble.”
“She fuckingshouldhave.A grown ass woman doing that to a five-year-old kid.”
“You really give a shit, huh?”
“Of course I fucking do.I love you.”
“Even though I’m damaged goods?”
