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Rolling over, I reach for my uncapped water on the nightstand. I take a good long drink, then put it back down and start to roll back in Dare’s direction. Before I can, he grabs me and pulls me beneath him. Then he situates himself between my legs so my body is flush with his.
I look up at him, and he gazes down at me.
The dark room visibly brightens, and my gaze shifts to his phone on the bedside table.
Earlier tonight, my only thought would have been that it’s probably fucking Vanessa using her drunk-girl privilege to make stronger come-ons than she would sober, knowing tomorrow she could laugh it off if he didn’t respond with interest.
But now, I’m aware of a new possibility. One much less insignificant.
It could be Hannah.
I lick my lips and look up at him, unsure I want to acknowledge it, but tempted to.
The room goes dark again as the new message becomes a missed notification.
Finally, my curiosity wins out, and I ask, “Who was it?”
Dare leans down over me, his palms sinking into the pillow on either side of my head. My heart pounds at the prey-like sensation he triggers when he closes in on me like this, but the fear and dread have passed for tonight. I’m more relaxed with him now, so it doesn’t spook me.
My heart beats a little faster with the anticipation of hearing his answer. If it’s Hannah, maybe he’ll tell me because he’ll want to taunt me a little, but I don’t know. The idea that it could be her just makes her feel closer to me in an odd way. Normally, there are so many barriers between us that she’s completely inaccessible, but Dare can’t get mad at me if she’s messaginghim.
I’m not sure it makes sense; all I know is how it makes me feel.
I almost hope it’s her.
Then the topic is open for discussion, and I can usher in a different perspective. I can tell him how she made me like him again when we joked around about his prison island and the piranha cage. Maybe he could start to view her more as an ally than a nemesis.
I realize they aren’teasyallies because they don’t want precisely the same thing. They both want each other out of the picture.
But it really worksfor mehaving both of them.
Dare breaks my heart, and Hannah mends it.
He traumatizes me, and she heals the damage.
Dare wraps me in his darkness, and Hannah lifts me up out of it to give me the fresh air and sunshine I need when it feels like I’m close to suffocating.
Hannah is essentially his cleanup crew, and he’s too busy trying to eliminate her to see it.
So I want that message to be from her.
I want him to tell me.
I want to be able to talk about it.
Unfortunately, Dare is nowhere near that page.
When he leans in and kisses the corner of my mouth, instead of answering my question, he murmurs, “Who cares?”
I care.
But I don’t say that.
I accept his disinterest in whoever isn’t in this room with us tonight and let him wrap me up in him. In his suffocating love, but not his darkness. He leaves that out tonight. He knows I’m just on my way back to him, and he shouldn’t push too hard.
At least, that’s what I figure his motives are and why he’s willing to go so slow for me tonight.
But then it occurs to me how heavy my limbs feel, how thick the fog of exhaustion is, and I know I’ve felt this way before.
