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“Really?”
“You seem surprised.”
“I am, a little. You seem far too in control of yourself to fall for someone who isn’t.”
“Well, I was young, and I thought we cared about each other. As it turns out, she only cared about my money. She still comes around from time to time to ask me for some. I’m sure you’ll meet her at some point.”
“You two still have contact?”
“Not at all. She goes through Anthony. Once she hears I’ve got a serious girlfriend, though, I’m sure she’ll show her face sometime.”
“I look forward to breaking her heart,” Christina says, and I just laugh.
“You don’t sound scared of her.”
“Exes don’t scare me,” she says.
“What about you? What’s your ex like?”
“Dead,” she says.
“Woah, I’m sorry. I was not expecting that. I figured you were just divorced, like me. I’m really sorry, Christina.”
She sighs, but doesn’t look like she’s getting scared or afraid. Sure, it’s weird to have this conversation at the beginning of sex, but it has to happen sometime. It might as well happen before the pleasure, rather than after.
“He was a military man. Deployed. I still don’t know the exact details of what happened. I’ll probably never know. All I know is that I had a husband, and then I didn’t. My little girl had a daddy, and then she didn’t. He was here and then he was gone and I was alone.”
“That’s why you refuse aftercare,” I realize, pointing out the obvious. “You didn’t want to get emotionally involved with someone who was going to leave you.”
“Exactly,” Christina says. “Getting over my husband’s death was…is…a work in progress. I have my good days and my bad days, even now. It’s been two years, and I still miss him.”
“You know, my father passed away when I was young,” I tell her.
“I’m sorry, Zack. That must have been awful.”
“It was,” there’s no point in sugarcoating this. Losing a parent is terrible, horrible, but it is not the end of the world. “I was very small and I don’t have many memories of him, but it was still hard, and it was hardest on my mother, but she gave me some very good advice.”
“What did your mother say?”
“She said the pain never really goes away. It fades a little, sure. Your open wound scabs over and turns to a scar, but you still have a scar, and you have it forever. You always remember the person you lost, and you always miss them, and you always ache for them, but you learn to deal with the pain, and you take it one day at a time.”
“That seems pretty accurate,” Christina says. She nods a little. I’m still standing next to the bed and she’s kneeling on it. That can’t be comfortable, so I help adjust her body so her legs are dangling off the side.
“Have you been with anyone since you lost your husband?”
“Yes.”
“Are you nervous about being with me?”
“A little.”
“Why are you nervous, Christina?”
“Because you don’t let me skate by,” she says. “You’re going to make me give to you. You’re going to make me be open with you, vulnerable with you.”
“And that scares you?”
“A little bit.”
