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Neither Ryan nor I said a word to each other.
Awkward as fuck, like I said.
When I finally open my eyes, Ryan has already gone off to work. The sun has ignited the sky, and the house is so dead quiet, I can hear distant dogs barking in someone else’s backyard.
First thing I do is take a shower. I push away all the thoughts that try to drown me. I really don’t want to answer any questions. I don’t want to explain anything. I don’t want to even know what last night meant—not now, not yet, maybe not ever.
Right now, I just want to be clean.
That’s what I tell myself while the shower roars around me and the scalding hot water pours down my sticky body.
Clean.
In the kitchen, there’s a tiny note scribbled out on a green sticky on the refrigerator from Ryan telling me there’s hard-boiled eggs in the fridge and cinnamon rolls in the microwave.
The note makes me feel funny, like I try to picture Ryan after he woke up, saw my naked, messy body, then took his own shower and got dressed, came to the kitchen, and wrote me this note.
Still taking care of me.
What was he thinking as he wrote it? Did he wonder what the hell possessed me last night?—or him? Did he speculate on life’s purpose? Was he making lists in his head of what he’d need to do when he went into the office?
I peel the note off the fridge and cast it into the trash bin, then help myself to two of the eggs and a roll. Afterwards, I decide to go on a little neighborhood jog. I haven’t even hit up the gym since I got into town last week, so getting my body going feels like the right thing to do. Especially after having gotten my body going in a different way last night.
I really hope my selfish, experimental need didn’t just fuck everything up between me and Ryan. That wasn’t my intention at all. I just needed to … see.
I needed to know if there was something in me that could truly love him in that way.
When I close my eyes, I can still feel his tongue down there.
I’m so fucked.
Another half hour later, I’m in my gray joggers and a loose yellow tank top. I quickly shove my ear buds in, pocket my phone with all my pump tunes on it, then head off to get lost in Ryan’s strange neighborhood.
And to think it all began with a sore neck last night.
And a kiss.
And my ass.
I was stone sober, too. I knew what I was doing. I wanted to try it. All of it. I needed answers.
The problem is, I don’t know if I have any more answers than I did before the kiss. In fact, all I have are twenty more questions.
Maybe that means twenty more kisses to figure those out.
My heart flutters at the thought.
I’ve been straight my whole life. Girls, girls, girls. But I knew that my heart held a special place for Ryan. It always did. Even after our fallout senior year, I knew I loved him more than any other friend I had. The day we had our fallout, the first thing I did when I got home from baseball practice was close myself up in my bedroom and cry all of the tears I’d held in. My dad knocked on my door and, through it, asked what was wrong. In my most level, totally-not-crying voice, I told him that nothing was wrong. He left me alone, and then I cried the rest of my tears in silent, choking sobs, not wanting anyone to know.
Secrecy. That was my friend, always.
Even with Ryan.
There was always something … special … about us. Everyone knew it. Everyone except me—until that day.
I keep jogging and keeping my breath even. I turn the corner and start down another street. Trees and front lawns and houses pass by slowly as I go. An old man waters his front garden, then looks up and squints suspiciously at me as I jog by. In another lawn, an enormous dog is leashed to a fittingly enormous tree, and he just lazily lifts his head and watches me pass. There’s a woman with curly white hair watering her garden, and she peers over the shoulder of her pink blouse when I pass, her eyes narrowed.
I’m a stranger in this neighborhood. I don’t belong.
Yet I keep moving my feet. Running. Running.
Always running … but from what?
Turning onto another street, I catch myself thinking about all my exes for some reason. I think about the way girls taste. I think about how many breasts I’ve had in my face. I think about the sexy look in a woman’s eyes.
Then I think of Ryan’s, the way his eyes devour me when he thinks I’m not looking. It always excited me, noticing how much he … notices me.
