Chapter 3 #2
Cursive&Caffeine: Yes
Wild@Heart: I’d unbutton it. One button at a time. Slow enough that you feel the air hit your skin before my hands do.
Holy fuck, he’s good.
Wild@Heart: I’d slide it off your shoulders. Then pull the straps of your bra down and unclasp it. No need to have that uncomfortable thing digging into your skin.
Once it’s off, I'd start at your neck and shoulders—you carry everything there, I can tell.
You're the type who holds it all in her body because she won't let herself fall apart.
I’d work out all that tension with my hands, kneading your muscles with as much pressure as you need.
Oh god, he’s right. I carry everything there.
Wild@Heart: I'd have you lay on your stomach, and then I’d massage down your spine. Firmly. Varying my movements enough to make you groan and melt into the mattress.
I'd find every knot, every tight spot, and stay on it until your body relaxes.
I’m breathing through my mouth now, my eyes half-closed, and my body heavy in the best possible way…sinking into the mattress, under his hands.
Cursive&Caffeine: You're really good at this.
Wild@Heart: I’m glad you think so.
Wild@Heart: Once your back is loose and you're all soft and warm, I'd press my lips to that spot right at the top of your spine. Lightly…to watch the goosebumps appear.
Goosebumps break out across my body. IRL. From a text message.
Wild@Heart: Then I'd roll you over. Onto your back. So I can see your face and the rest of your beautiful body.
Wild@Heart: I'd begin at your throat, tracing my fingertips downward. Over the gentle curve of your breasts, and the tender undersides, where the skin is the softest. Barely touching. Watching your skin prickle and hearing your breathing go ragged.
I feel every word—following his fingertip as it draws a slow line across skin that hasn't been touched in sooo long.
Wild@Heart: Then I'd drag my fingers down your sides. Over your ribs—one by one—down to your waist. Finding out where you're ticklish.
Cursive&Caffeine: I am extremely ticklish and you would be playing a dangerous game.
Wild@Heart: Is that a dare?
Wild@Heart: I'd brush over the swell of your belly to the hollow of your navel. Feather-light to make your muscles jump.
And I'd hover there—watching you twitch, listening to you gasp, feeling you try to hold still. Then I'd do it again, to watch you squirm and hear you giggle.
I want to be the reason for that joyful sound.
I press my lips together, but a grin breaks through anyway. My stomach muscles are clenching, his ghost-fingers are already there, tracing patterns over sensitized skin.
Wild@Heart: I want to learn your body. Where you laugh, where you shiver, and where you moan. What kind of touch makes you squirm and where it makes you cry out in pleasure.
This man…
Wild@Heart: I’d trace my fingertips from your collarbone down between your breasts. Slowly. Watching your eyes get heavy and your lips part.
Wild@Heart: You still with me, gorgeous?
Cursive&Caffeine: Barely…
Wild@Heart: Should I keep going?
Cursive&Caffeine: Hell, yes.
Wild@Heart: Mmmm, good…I’d caress your breasts, drawing circles toward your nipples. Your back would arch as I get ever closer. But I’d tease you, until they're stiff and aching before I'd brush over them just enough to make you whimper.
A sound catches in my throat. My nipples are pebbles against the fabric of my bra.
Wild@Heart: Then I’d have mercy and give each of those tender peaks a gentle massage until you’re moaning my name.
Jesus.
Wild@Heart: Eventually, I’d move my hands down your stomach. Over your hips.
I'd undo your jeans and peel them off, taking my time doing that too, since I want you impatient.
I want your hips lifting to help me, knowing I made you want this.
My hips shift against the mattress in a restless roll that I couldn't have stopped if I tried.
Wild@Heart: And then I'd look at you. Every sexy inch. I think you've forgotten what it's like to have someone look at you as if you're the sexiest thing in their life. And I'd want you to see it on my face—what you do to me—before I touched you again.
God, I’m so wet. Full-on, aching, swollen-between-my-legs wet. He’s just…unwound me. Peeled back every layer of armor and exhaustion like he had all the time in the world and the only thing on his agenda was me.
Wild@Heart: I'd slide my fingers up the inside of your trembling thigh…and I'd trace the edge of your panties.
Cursive&Caffeine: You are killing me right now. I need you to know that.
Wild@Heart: Good. Now imagine that feeling, and multiply it by what I'd do if I actually had you in front of me.
Wild@Heart: But that's a conversation for another night. Sweet dreams, trouble.
And then—nothing. He just leaves me lying there in my bed with my pulse running wild and my skin on fire and my whole body screaming come back here and finish this!
I’m vibrating like a tuning fork.
The absolute, calculated, devastating audacity of that man.
I could finish what he started myself, but no. I want to sit in the need. Feel it. Because it has been so goddamn long since I'd felt anything close to this that even the frustration is delicious.
I roll over, press my face into the pillow, and laugh…the breathless, giddy, slightly unhinged laugh of a woman who just got ruined by a text exchange from an online mystery man and loved every second of it.
Monday comes and brings Simon's latest masterpiece of adolescent destruction with it.
His science teacher, Mr. Hansen, calls me during my lunch break. I'm eating a sad yogurt at my desk and mentally rehearsing this afternoon's lesson on fractions when my phone rings with his school's number.
My stomach drops. It’s never good when the middle school calls you during the day.
Simon talked back in class—not just a little under-the-breath mutter, but a full-volume "this is stupid bullshit and I don't care" that stopped the room.
His grades are slipping. He didn't turn in two assignments last week. And when Mr. Hansen pulled him aside to talk about it, he said he didn't need anyone lecturing him about his behavior…that he’s just expressing himself.
Apparently, my twelve-year-old doesn’t need anyone to be concerned about his education or his well-being.
He can't operate a can opener, but he's got opinions about pedagogical boundaries. He can’t figure out how to put his dirty clothes in the hamper.
But sure, kid, you've got the whole self-governance thing figured out.
I handle the call with my teacher persona—calmly, professionally, and collaboratively. Yes, I'll talk to him. Yes, we'll come up with a plan. Yes, I appreciate you letting me know.
Then I hang up, walk to my car during my remaining four minutes of lunch, get in the driver's seat, and scream.
I parked close to the surrounding forest. People will think it’s a moose.
I don't cry. I'm close, but I don't.
It's not just the behavior that’s bothering me, it's what's underneath it.
Simon is angry, and he's been angry since the divorce, even though it's been years.
He directs it at me since I'm safe. I'm the one who stayed put in Deepwood so he could continue in the same school with his friends.
His dad moved to a different town, which means I'm the one who gets the shrapnel.
I know this. I understand the psychology.
I've read the parenting books and talked to his school counselor and done everything I'm supposed to do.
Maybe he needs more help. Therapy?
But even knowing why your kid is hurting doesn't make it hurt less when he pushes you away. Understanding the anger doesn't cushion the bruise.
I give myself another couple of minutes. Then I fix my face, go back inside, and teach fractions to my students despite my heart sitting in my stomach.
That night, after the inevitable fight with Simon when I told him he was grounded for what he did in science class, he went to his room and slammed the door, meaning he’s not coming out until morning—I curl up in bed and open my phone.
Cursive&Caffeine: Bad day. My kid got in trouble at school again. Talking back, not turning in work. His teacher called and I handled it like a rational adult and then sat in my car and screamed into my steering wheel. Mom of the year over here.
His response comes fast.
Wild@Heart: First of all, you ARE mom of the year. You handled it, you let off steam, and you're still standing. That counts.
Wild@Heart: Second of all—and I say this with the deepest respect for your son—being twelve is basically a psychological disorder.
You wake up every morning furious at the concept of existence.
Your body's doing things nobody warned you about.
School feels like prison. Your parents are the enemy…
sometimes for reasons you can't articulate because your hormones are going nuts.
I snort.
Wild@Heart: I remember being twelve. I was terrible. I told my mom I hated her cooking once and she didn't speak to me for two days. Her cooking is INCREDIBLE, by the way, and I still feel guilty about it.
I'm smiling now.
Wild@Heart: I also told my teacher her class was “boring as hell” to her face, in front of everyone. I thought I was so edgy. In reality, I was a scared kid who didn't know what to do with all his feelings, so he just…lobbed them at whoever was closest.
The smile fades into something that aches.
Cursive&Caffeine: That's exactly what he's doing. He's angry and I'm the closest target since I'm the safest one. I KNOW that. But knowing it doesn't make it feel less painful when he says he'd rather live at his dad's.
Wild@Heart: Ouch. Yeah. That’s tough.
Wild@Heart: But I know the kids who push the hardest are the ones who need you the most. And a kid who feels safe enough to be his worst self around you? That's because he knows you're not going anywhere. He's testing the one thing he's most afraid of losing.
I read that three times. My throat goes tight.
Wild@Heart: He's going to figure it out. It might take a while. It might feel like a million years. But any kid lucky enough to have a mom who cares this much—who keeps going? That kid's going to be okay.
I press my phone to my chest and blink at the ceiling. The tightness moves from my throat to behind my eyes.
Cursive&Caffeine: You have no idea how much I needed to hear that.
Wild@Heart: Then I'll say it as many times as you need.
Wild@Heart: For the record, I once tried to microwave a whole egg when I was twelve because I "didn't need anyone's help." It exploded. There was egg on the ceiling. My mom made ME clean it. The point is—twelve-year-olds can be dumb, and they all turn out fine. For the most part.
I laugh in my dark bedroom, wiping my eyes. The heaviness that's been sitting on my chest all day lifts.
Cursive&Caffeine: That's the best thing I've heard all day.
Wild@Heart: Glad my childhood shame could be of service.
We talk for another hour. He tells me about calling his mom last Sunday, and how she still asks if he's eating enough, even though he's a grown man who has been cooking calorically appropriate meals for years.
I tell him my mom would be horrified by what I feed Simon for dinner on the nights I'm too wiped to pretend. He says he’d gladly batch cook meals for me and even throw in his mom's enchiladas with a side of rice and beans.
Then I tell him about the time Simon was five and told an entire grocery store that his mom "toots in the bathtub." He sends me a laughing emoji and I reply with three.
It's so easy with him. There's no performing, no curating, no making sure I sound interesting enough to hold someone's attention.
I'm just…me. Tired, messy, overthinking me. And he shows up every time I need him. Not an obligation, but a choice. As if there's nowhere else he'd rather be than on my phone at midnight, making me laugh until my stomach hurts.
Eventually the conversation slows the way late-night conversations do—with longer pauses, softer words, and the energy shifting into something quieter.
Wild@Heart: Can I ask you something?
Cursive&Caffeine: Always.
Wild@Heart: What are you most afraid of?
I stare at the screen. My thumbs hover. I type something about spiders. Then delete it. I go to type something about Simon not being happy. No, that’s not it. I type something safe and vague about "the future" and delete it since it's a cop-out and he deserves better than that.
Cursive&Caffeine: That I'll always be the one taking care of everyone else, and no one will ever take care of me.
The typing indicator appears.
Wild@Heart: Then let me take care of you.
I stare at the words, my heart doing something it hasn't done in years—reaching. Leaning toward those words like they're a fire and I've been cold for a very long time.
I respond with a kissing emoji. As an acknowledgement to how sweet that was to say.
He responds with a simple goodnight and the same kissing emoji.
And somewhere underneath the exhaustion and the doubt and the sting of another hard day, that tiny spark of hope I felt the night I signed up?
It's not so tiny anymore.