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What? No. That can’t be right.
I try again and again, what feels like a thousand times of me demon dialing his number and hoping for a different outcome, but each time, I get the same sad message.
I have no how idea how much time has passed, how long I’ve been standing outside his apartment alternating between banging on his door and trying to call him, but eventually, there’s nothing else I can do but leave.
Tears fall as I walk to the elevator and take it up to my apartment. Freddie opens the door as I approach, but I can’t even muster a ”thank you” as I step inside to the dark loneliness.
It’s ironic, really, since people flurry around everywhere doing God knows what at this hour of the night. But I’ve never, ever felt this alone in my entire life. Not even when my parents and my brother, Luca, all left me behind.
Heidi stands from the couch and pulls me into her arms, showing me the first form of real affection I’ve had from anyone but Harrison in the last eight years of my life.
She hugs me tight, stroking my hair like I imagine a real mother might do.
“Oh, Raquel. I’m sorry.”
I shake my head against the pain and let the tears fall down my cheeks unchecked.
“He came here earlier.”
I jerk back quickly. “He did?”
She nods solemnly. “Just to say that he was leaving.”
“Leaving?” I question brokenly. “For good?”
Eyes full of pain and hands rubbing comfortingly up and down my arms, Heidi nods. And my world falls apart.
He’s been the one stable thing in my life since…well, forever.
He’s been there for me in a way that no one ever has. Not my parents, not my brother, not my team, and maybe most shamefully, not even myself.
I thought this baby would be one of the hardest things to deal with. I didn’t know how I would manage all the turmoil it brought to my life.
I never expected it would bring so much peace. But it did.
It brought me Harrison Hughes.
And I’m the idiot who pushed him away. Again.
The morning of August 16th, 7:30 a.m.
Raquel
Two orgasms from a real, live man with a Lion King penis and the kindest green eyes I’ve ever seen.
My freshly clean clothes feel warm as I pull them gingerly over my electrified skin.
Two orgasms, and a virgin I am no more.
On a night when I didn’t expect any at all.
Guilt niggles at me slightly as I start to comprehend the lies I told him—or committed by omission.
Good going, Raquel.
Not only did I leave out the fact that I’m a virgin, I actually implied I was on birth control when I am not. Granted, I’m a day shy of starting my period—at the very end of my mostly reliable cycle—and nowhere in the neighborhood of when I should be ovulating, but I still lied.
It’s freaking terrible, but I can only claim insanity fueled by the needs of a desperate woman. A woman trapped by her life and her circumstances with no way out. I couldn’t stop, not even for the drawer without condoms, and I wouldn’t change it even if I had the chance now.
This was what I needed—I actually feel free.
It’d just be better if I had a completely clean conscience when it comes to a really great guy.
A guy I know I’ll never be able to see in this way again.
Because for as much of a good time as I had, the perfect storm only happens once. I’ll never get away from my team, go about my night without being outed or discovered, or have the desperate drive of a publicly ridiculed virgin fueling me.
I move around his bedroom with ease to the pile of my clean stuff that he left and slip on my socks and shoes before sitting down on the bed and fingering the purity ring on my finger. I slip it off and drop it into the hollow of my palm.
It feels weighty in my hand, as if the expectations of my parents when they gave it to me are physically attached to it.
I set it down on the surface of the nightstand as a test, and everything they thrust upon me lifts away again.
I nod. The ring is staying.
I don’t want it, and I don’t need it.
And maybe, just maybe, when Harrison sees it at some point in the future, he’ll think of me and the perfect night we had together.
Resolute in my decision, I stand from his bed and make my way down the hall to his living room without looking back.
He’s standing by the kitchen island, drinking a glass of water when I arrive.
The instant he sees me, his entire face melts into a smile. I’ve never had anyone look at me like he does. It wraps around me like an actual blanket. I can’t believe how good it feels.
