Chapter 23 #2
She grunted. “Yeah.”
“Are you close?”
“I can’t—”
“Cherry, I’m—”
“Unzip me,” Cherry choked out.
“What?”
She tried to pull herself up by his shoulders. “Unzip me.”
Russ looked alarmed—he reached behind her, under her sweater.
The zipper wasn’t hard to find, and it only got stuck twice on the way down.
Russ unzipped it all the way, past her waist. Cherry collapsed onto her back.
The dress immediately fell open around her shoulders and breasts.
She was taking deep, gulping breaths. She was wearing a red push-up bra.
“Fuck,” Russ said. He was still inside her. He checked the condom and started pushing again. Cherry inhaled down to her navel.
Russ was coming, and Cherry was almost coming—the oxygen rushed to her head.
She watched Russ finish—his hair was in his eyes, he bit his lip. She loved it. She wanted to eat it with a spoon.
When his face cleared, he grinned down at her. He held the condom with his left hand while he pulled out, and immediately
slid his right hand into her. He rubbed her clit with his palm, then swept two fingers around it. Cherry always got the feeling
that Russ had a repertoire, a few moves he’d try until something worked. She liked it. “Like that,” she’d say. She said it now, closing her eyes.
Russ laughed, he sounded happy.
“Like that,” she said again.
“Yeah,” he said. “Like that, Cherry, come on.”
Cherry squeezed her eyes shut. She dug her heels into the bed—she’d forgotten she was wearing shoes.
“Like that,” Russ said as she came.
They were lying in Russ’s bed. The top of Cherry’s dress was down, but she was still wearing her bra and cardigan and one
high-heeled pump.
They’d made love again. It was too soon for Russ to come, but he’d rubbed Cherry until her clit felt fat and tender and she
was squeezing her thighs closed around his forearm. Until her orgasms had started to hurt.
His fingers were still inside her vagina, lazily petting, and his head was resting on her shoulder. She was playing with his
hair. They’d both been quiet for a while. She wondered if he was falling asleep. Cherry was too hungry to fall asleep.
Russ sighed. “I can’t believe I didn’t have you ride me in your cowgirl dress . . .”
She giggled.
He pulled his hand out of her pussy and lifted his head to kiss her, then dropped back down to her shoulder, wrapping his
arm around her waist.
Cherry stroked his hair. She felt good. Tired. Hungry. Happy. Far away from the worst of her problems.
There was just one thing . . . a question scratching at the back of Cherry’s throat . . .
She tried to swallow it.
It wasn’t a productive question. Or a useful one.
It had been scratching there for weeks, and she’d always managed to swallow it so far. It wasn’t, as Meg Jones would say,
a progress-oriented question. (Meg loved people who sped things up and loathed people who slowed things down. All of Cherry’s promotions
were tied to how well she moved shit forward.)
Cherry cleared her throat.
Russ kissed her shoulder.
The question started to tumble out of her mouth, with momentum all its own—“Russ?”
“Hmm.”
“When you said earlier . . .” Cherry spun a lock of his hair around her index finger. “I mean, when you’ve said before . . .”
He kissed the top of her breast.
“. . . that you fell for me the night we met . . .”
He rubbed his face into her.
“I just . . .” Her chin was already trembling. She tried to still it. “Well, it makes me wonder why you didn’t . . . make
a play for me.”
Russ was slow to lift his head. When he did, he looked serious.
Cherry pressed her lips together. She tipped her head to one side and winced, like she was asking him to spare her feelings.
(But if she wanted to be spared, she wouldn’t have raised this issue.)
Russ shook his head—and then said, “Because I was immature.”
Her chin wobbled. “Immature, how?”
He looked pained. “That was so long ago, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“But you do want to talk about it,” Cherry said. “You keep talking about it. You keep telling me how much you liked me back then.”
“I did like you.”
“But you didn’t, Russ.” Her voice broke. “You didn’t ask me out. You didn’t date me. You dated my best friend instead.”
“Cherry . . .”
“Why?” There. That was the question.
“Because I was twenty-three and half drunk,” he said, “and I took the path of least resistance.”
“I wasn’t resisting you.”
“No, I know. I—”
Cherry smiled at him. “Just say it. Just say you didn’t want to hit on a fat girl.”
He lowered his eyebrows. “That’s not true.”
She laughed. She was crying. “It is true. Don’t lie to me on top of everything else.”
“You weren’t even fat, Cherry.”
Cherry held her hands up by her head, palms out. “Okay. Let me up.”
“Cherry—”
She was already getting up. Russ moved off of her. She held up the front of her dress and kicked off her shoe.
“Cherry, please,” Russ said. “Don’t go.”
Cherry didn’t have anywhere to go—she was in no shape to walk out—so she went to his bathroom.
She closed the door and locked it. She turned on the faucet. She pulled up her skirts and sat on the toilet and peed.
Her head fell forward. Her shoulders started to shake.
Up rose all the feelings she’d been shoving down every time Russ talked about the past. (Cherry had feelings.) Every time he reminisced about how beautiful she was and how much he’d wanted to touch her.
Those were cuts not compliments. Why didn’t you touch me, Russ? Why didn’t you choose me?
Cherry knew why! Because she was too fat!
She was too fat for every boy who looked and acted like Russ Sutton.
The only way Russ was different from the others was that he’d considered Cherry. He’d toyed with the idea of her for a few minutes. He’d toyed with her.
She wiped herself and flushed the toilet, then got up to wash her hands. She left the faucet running. She sat on the edge
of the tub. There was a hamper in here, and a pile of clothes on the floor. A child’s dirty soccer uniform. Cherry was sobbing.
She took off her cardigan and pulled up the top of her dress, putting her arms through the straps. She didn’t bother with
the zipper.
“Cherry?” Russ sounded like he was standing right on the other side of the door. “Are you okay?”
She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. She was covered in snot. She reached for some toilet paper and blew her nose.
“Cherry, the night we met . . .”
She blew her nose again.
“. . . I thought you were gorgeous.”
She rolled her eyes, ignoring him.
“No, okay—” Russ sounded closer. He sounded miserable. “You know what? I didn’t think that.”
Cherry looked up at the door.
“Because I was young and stupid, and I thought ‘gorgeous’ meant something really specific.”
The door creaked, like he’d leaned against it.
“I thought I was supposed to be with a certain kind of girl,” he said, “the kind of girl that all of my friends and my older
brother would agree was hot . . .
“That felt like success to me.
“That felt like a medal I got to wear all the time.”
Fresh, hot tears spilled down Cherry’s cheeks.
Russ huffed out a loud breath. “When I was in junior high, my brother told me that if I was going to fall in love, I may as
well fall in love with someone hot. And I thought that was wisdom. I repeated it to my friends like I was the one who’d thought of it!”
Maybe Cherry hadn’t actually wanted Russ to be honest—he was making her sick.
He kept going:
“All the girls I dated in high school and college kind of looked alike. They didn’t look like you—I didn’t know what to make
of you. I liked you. I liked seeing you. I used to watch you in class, and then you showed up at the Galway, and I was half drunk . . .
“I don’t know, I was into you, Cherry. Then we started talking, and it got worse. All that really mattered in that moment was getting closer. We were
sparking, you know?”
Cherry pressed her palms into her eyes.
“But then, I don’t know. Stacia was there. And she was flirting with me. And you were playing kind of hard to get—am I remembering
this right? And all my friends were there, drooling over Stacia. She probably wasn’t wearing a bra. She never wore a bra . . .
“And I wasn’t really deciding anything, Cherry. I was drinking, and she was there. And you disappeared, I think? And . . .”
Something hard knocked against the door. Cherry jumped.
“And you were chubby,” Russ said. He sounded beaten.
Something knocked against the door again.
“I knew my friends would make fun of me for hooking up with you.”
Cherry sobbed silently into her hands.
“Even though their girlfriends weren’t all hot! Corey was with a marshmallow girl—she puffed up as soon as they got married!
“Which is . . . not the point. I just, um . . .
“I made a mistake, Cherry. And it haunted me as long as I dated Stacia . . . every time the three of us were together. I was not a good boyfriend. I would have been all over you if you’d ever given me even a hint of encouragement. I was crazy about you . . .”
His voice trailed off.
Something bumped softly against the door.
Cherry waited.
“I made a mistake,” Russ said. “And I kept making mistakes. I married the wrong person, and part of that—a big part of it—was that I thought
we’d look good together. Like, I could see it, perfect pictures of us in my head . . .”
His voice was strained:
“I do things because I think I’m supposed to, and I’m not proud of it. It hasn’t made me happy. I don’t want to be that person
anymore—I don’t want my son to be that sort of person.”
Cherry wiped her nose hard on her palm.
“Cherry?”
She didn’t answer.
Russ didn’t say anything for a minute.
Then he said:
“When I saw you at the Goldenrod concert, I felt exactly like I always had. Like I needed to be close to you. You’re so gorgeous,
Cherry—and I get it now! I know what to call it.
“You’re not like the other girls I dated, but none of them were right for me. None of them made me feel like I feel with you.
“Please forgive me?
“Please give me a second chance.
“We’re so good together. You’re so good.”
He thumped against the door again. His voice dropped: “Also, you’re the sexiest woman alive.”
Cherry wiped her nose.
She stood up. And turned off the faucet. She threw her scrunched-up toilet paper into the wastebasket.
She opened the bathroom door.
Russ was leaning against it—he jumped back. He looked like he’d been crying.
“Your brother sounds like a douchebag,” Cherry said.
“He is a douchebag,” Russ agreed. “He’s also my best friend.”
She looked up into his eyes. “I knew,” she said, with new tears in her eyes. “That night, at the Galway, I knew.”
Russ winced, but he didn’t look away. “I’m sorry.”
“I am never losing weight,” Cherry said.
“Okay.”
“I’m probably going to gain weight because I’ve been too depressed to eat for a year—and now I’m not depressed, because you make me feel alive again,
and living people eat.”
He smiled a little. “I make you happy?”
“Not tonight.”
His smile fell. He nodded his head.
She folded her arms. “I just need you to know that I’m always going to be fat.”
“Cherry, you’re not—”
“Don’t say it. I swear to god.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
“When you say I’m not fat, what you mean is, I’m not ugly. But I know I’m not ugly.”
He closed his mouth. He nodded.
“Also, I might want to have a baby,” she said. “Someday. So, you should know that. You should take that under advisement.
That will make me even fatter.”
Russ nodded. His eyes were shining.
“I just have a lot of issues with my weight,” she said. “And I don’t want you to make them worse. I’m in therapy—that’s also
for the record.”
“I’m in therapy, too,” he said. “For the record.”
Cherry nodded.
Russ cleared his throat. “You should know that Liam has ADHD. And some . . . learning challenges. And he’s still really struggling with the divorce.”
Cherry cocked her head sympathetically. For Liam.
“And I never want to leave Nebraska,” Russ said. “I want to be governor someday.”
Cherry laughed. “Okay.”
“Be advised.”
“I’ve been advised.”
“Also, I have a receding hairline.”
“No, you don’t,” she said softly.
“I do.” He held his hair off his forehead. “It’s receding at the corners.”
She stepped closer to look. “It looks the same as it always has.”
He let his hair fall. “It’s gradual.”
Cherry brushed his hair off his forehead. “You’re very vain.”
He nodded. “I know.”
She stroked his hair. “What about your perfect girl for your perfect pictures? For all your campaign ads . . .”
“Are you kidding me?” He touched Cherry’s cheek. “We look fantastic together.”