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I turn in my seat, letting the silence settle into the car. I lean toward him and I don’t dare look away. “Yes, Chase. I took the pill you sent me without any explanation. I let you control my body from afar because you revoked the consent you gave me the night before so desperately and –” My voice tightens at the base of my throat. I loved that he asked me. I loved that I could tell he might nearly beg me. That I somehow became a person worthy of that from him after all these years stewing in this schoolgirl crush. “Pathetically.”
Chase looks down. Wounded.Good.
“But, Chase, the joke is on you entirely. Because even if I hadn’t taken the Plan B, the likelihood of me ever getting pregnant by you in that way is slim to none.”
His forehead screws together tightly. “What are you talking about?”
I withdraw. This might blow everything up. But we have gone from zero to sixty in a matter of days. It might as well crash and burn in a spectacular way. “I have PCOS. And in case you don’t know what that is, which you probably don’t because you don’t have a uterus, so why would you –” I clear my throat, giving him a moment to jump in and prove something good about himself.
I get nothing.
“Basically, for your purposes, it’s very unlikely I can actually have children.”
“What about for your purposes?”
I do a double-take. “What?”
Chase’s expression is not as betrayed as I thought it might be. It’s sort of placid and unsure of where to go from here. I can respect that. “I mean, what is it? What does it affect you?”
“I… I get really bad cramps. I have weird and irregular periods. Sometimes I’m exhausted all the time, other times my skin breaks out like I’m fucking fourteen, other times –” I catch myself. “It’s unpredictable. And it’s awful.”
“Is that why you kept touching your stomach during breakfast? Cramps?”
“You noticed.”
Chase nods. “I thought you might be hungry and that Gram scared you out of eating which is why I ordered so much food.”
I can’t control the tiny smile that breaks out across my face.Pull it back. Don’t give him that. “That was nice of you.”
He shakes his head but doesn’t say anything.
“Yeah, it’s bad today.” I rest my hand on my stomach.
“Did the pill make it worse?”
“I don’t know. Quite possibly.”
Chase sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry if I made it worse.”
“You should be sorry for leaving me there and asking that of me. That was unacceptable.”
He nods. “I understand.”
“That was… I don’t know, I don’t expect that of you, Chase. Maybe I should have, but I –“
“Don’t expect what?”
I look into Chase’s blue eyes. How can I still want him after he’s caused me so much pain? All he does is misunderstand me. All he wants from me is the vessel of my body, whatever it means to be on his arm, to wear his grandmother’s ring. “That you could be so unkind to me. After I let you in like that.”
Into my home. Into my studio. Into my bed.
Into my heart.
“I’m sorry. I’m not the… I’ve never been the best with emotions.”
“Apparently not.”
We sit in silence. Still in the country club parking lot, the golf green sprawling out before us.
