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“I love waking up next to you,” I say with a hum as he grinds against me again with a deep groan.
“Then you should stay over more often,” he replies. “I could wake you up like this every morning.”
As my eyes peel open, I slowly slip out of that space of euphoric and ignorant bliss and into the sobering realization that something is missing. This happens every morning. And I know he feels it too.
Because instead of pulling down my panties and fucking me right here in his bed, he pauses, kissing me on the cheek and squeezing my fingers in his.
This has to pass, right? Over time, Clay and I will fall back into the same rhythm we were in before. He makes me happy. I make him happy. I don’t understand how one week with her could ruin all of that.
So we fell in love with a fantasy for a few days. So what? It wasn’t real. She wasn’t real.
Clay and I are perfect together, and we love each other, and that is real.
With that, I turn my head toward him and stare into his eyes. I sense the same heaviness in his expression, which means he’s thinking what I’m thinking. But instead of facing it and talking about it, he presses his lips to mine, and we slowly roll away from each other.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand at the same time he does. Then we both settle on the pillow and scroll through our notifications.
But we both freeze at the same exact time.
There she is, in our group chat.
I’m sorry.
And just like that, she’s back in the room. Not literally, of course. But her presence looms over us, driving a wedge between us and any hope of happiness in our future.
I glance at him and see that he’s staring listlessly at the same message I am.
“What should we say?” I whisper.
“I don’t know,” he replies.
“Do you believe her?” I ask before biting my lip.
“Yes,” he says with conviction.
“So what do we do now? It shows that we’ve read it. Do we just ignore her, or do we respond? I mean, is oneI’m sorryreally enough?”
He rubs my leg to stop me from spiraling. “You can respond however you want, baby.”
I’m chewing my lip as I stare at her message. How do I want to respond?
I want more. I want her to prove she’s sorry. I want to know if this is her attempt to reconcile what she broke or if she’s just saying this for her own conscience. Has she really changed at all?
“I’m going to make coffee,” Clay says before kissing the side of my head and climbing out of bed.
“Okay,” I reply mindlessly as I stare at my phone.
Be clear about what you want. Her voice is still in my head.
So while I hear Clay in the kitchen, grinding the coffee beans and filling the pot with water, I compose my response.
What are you sorry for? You didn’t want to be in a relationship, and now you’re not in one. Are you sorry for lying? Or are you sorry for being selfish? If I sound angry, it’s because I am. You thought you were so insignificant in our relationship that you could just remove yourself without breaking our hearts, but you did. You were never insignificant. We loved you. We still do. And yes, we all had our secrets, but we loved each other enough to overcome those. We still trusted you. But you weren’t even willing to try. So if you really are sorry and you want us back, we need more than a two-word text message, Eden. Prove to us that our hearts are safe with you, and they’re yours.
As soon as I finish frantically typing it, I hit Send. I don’t want to reread it and revise it and toil over it. I want it to come from the heart. She taught me to do that. She was the one who gave me the inspiration to speak up for myself. Not to mince words and stress over how it will be perceived. She wanted me to be unapologetic, and I am.
When I hear Clay’s phone chime with the incoming text in our group chat, I wait. His movement in the kitchen stops, and I know he’s reading it. My mouth goes dry as I worry that I was too harsh or too forward.
Then a moment later, he steps into the doorway. His expression is unreadable. Then he just softly mumbles, “I’m proud of you.” With that, he crosses the room and crawls into bed with me. Draping his body over mine, he kisses me, and I hum against his mouth.
