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“Are we?”
“I guess it’s been… days,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Still, that’s how it is,” he said, nodding. “When you get in a thing with a person, I mean. It happens fast and intense, and then you’re just in it.”
“Oh,” she said, biting down on her lower lip. “I’ve never really…” She looked away. “Really, it’s only been Tommy, and we’ve known each other since we were kids, and we got close during high school. So, maybe I’ve kind of never done this.”
“Oh,” he said. “I didn’t realize you’d been with him that long.”
“You have all this experience I don’t have, and you must think I’m so idiotic and—”
“No, no,” he said. “I don’t. I mean. I haven’t had girlfriends either really. Twice. There was a…” He furrowed his brow. “Should we do this? Should we talk about this? Because maybe it’s too soon—”
“I want to know,” she said, nodding. “Tell me. And anyway, youhavehad girlfriends, because everyone in town wants to tell me about them.”
“Those aren’t girlfriends,” he said.
“Oh,” she said, nodding. “Right. Those are just hook-ups.”
“So, when I was, uh, maybe nineteen, in college at Morgantown, I met this girl, and we started dating, and I was practically living in her dorm room and not doing my school work and not paying attention to anything except her, and then… I don’t know… I’m intense, right? So, I think I just smothered her. She cheated on me.”
“Oh,” said Dahlia. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s… it’s whatever.” He shrugged. “People cheat. Ask me four days ago, and I think I would have said something about how maybe it wasn’t natural to expect people to have sex with only one person for their whole lives or something.”
“Wait, you’re changing your mind about this because of me?” Her heart stuttered.
“Intense,” he said. “I told you. You’re kind of perfect, though?”
“I’m not,” she insisted. “No, really, there’s so much you don’t know about me—”
“Right,” he said. “No one’s perfect, but you’re fucking amazing.”
She couldn’t help but preen under his praise.
“So, anyway, after that girl, I ended up failing out of school, and I came home and…” He shrugged. “In retrospect, I can see that she was simply a kid, and that my intensity was too much for her, and that she cheated to escape as much as anything. But at the time, I, uh, I kinda went scorched earth, and I swore off all of it. Because, if a person could hurt me like that, I don’t know, it seemed stupid to open myself up to it again?”
“I guess I can see that.” She nodded.
“No, it’s dumb, because you have to try things to know if you like them. You have to try everything. And of course there’s risk involved, but that kind of makes it worth it, you know?” He shrugged. “I don’t like risk, but sometimes I get a charge out of it.”
She nodded slowly. “Sure, I guess I can see that. But you said two girlfriends.”
“Oh, yeah, I was in this longterm thing also. But, uh…” He chuckled ruefully. “I cheated on her.”
“Oh,” said Dahlia.
“Not once. Like a bunch of times. She found out. More than once. We tried to work on it. She should have left me, but she was really stubborn, and I think she had decided that this—what we had—wastherelationship we were going to be in and that we’d just make it happen, no matter what. But then I fucked her sister, so that… that ended it.”
Dahlia’s eyes widened. “Her sister.”
“I mean… I know.” He nodded. “Why would Idothat? I don’t have an answer for you.”
“Maybe you wanted out of that relationship. That woman sounds kind of controlling.”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Yeah, she kind of laid down the law. At first, I liked it. All through it, at points, I liked it. Commanding women, like, it’s hot.” He snatched up the loaf of bread. “Let me just put these away. I’m not trying to tell you to be commanding.”
