Chapter 18 #2
She frowns and points at the two vertical lines that appear between her eyebrows. "Your elevens. They show up when you're upset."
"Maybe I'm just tired from Connie's torture session."
Layla snorts. "Okay, biyotch. I wasn't born at night or last night. Spill."
Raina leans against my shoulder. "We’re your friends. You can talk to us. We may not be able to do anything, but we can listen."
"My friends," I say, fighting emotions. "Ugh, god, the emotions! When will I stop crying at the drop of a hat? Fuck!" I scrub my face.
"Maybe," Noelle says, "you're suppressing your feelings and they're trying to come out."
"I'm not suppressing anything!" I protest.
"Okay," Lainey mocks in a voice indicating a distinct lack of intelligence. "Whatever you say, girlfriend."
"It's the T-B-I,” I argue. "Emotional dysregulation is one of the symptoms."
Layla scoots toward me and takes my hands in hers, going so far as to set my plastic cup of iced tea aside. "Sweetie, we love you." She twirls a finger to include all five of us. "This here? This is our girl gang. In this gang, we don't lie to each other or ourselves. We pull up our thongs and face the hard shit like the powerful boss bitches we are."
"How do you know I'm wearing a thong?" I ask.
She snickers. "Well, it was a turn of phrase. But also, leggings that tight with no panty line? Either you're commando or you're wearing a thong."
Raina makes a face. "I don't know how you wear those things. I absolutely cannot handle having my butt-crack flossed all day long. It's like the underwear version of toe socks." She shudders. “Ick. No. Nope. No way. I'll go commando before I wear butt floss."
I shrug. "I dunno. You get used to it."
She shakes her head vigorously. "Lies. I desperately wanted to be a sexy girl who wears thongs, so I wore nothing but thongs for a month except during period week and I hated every single second of it. The first thing I did the second I got home was take it off."
Noelle shoulders me. "Raina, you're letting Ember sidetrack the conversation."
I splutter indignantly. "Excuse the fuck out of you! She hijacked the conversation talking about butt-floss, not me."
"Actually, it was Layla," Raina says.
Lainey claps her hands. "Ladies. Enough. Ember, just spill already. Is Felix being mean or something?"
"Felix doesn't have a mean bone in his body," I snap. Then, I cover my face. "Yikes."
The girls all laugh.
"Okay, someone is defensive," Layla says, cackling.
I sigh. "No, it's not Felix." I tilt my head to one side. "Well…it is Felix. But not…he didn't…ugh!" I shake my head, blinking hard. "See? I cry—all—the—time! I'm sick of it!"
Noelle eyes me. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were pregnant."
"Oh hell no," I say. "No. No way. Not possible, first of all. I haven't had sexual intercourse since before Dutchie got sick and that was nearly a year ago. So unless you can get pregnant orally, it's definitely not that."
“Orally?" Noelle says. "When did this happen? And…with Felix, I hope."
"Yes, with Felix," I answer. "Before the accident. We…we messed around a little bit."
Lainey rubs her hands together. "Deets, bitch, deets. I had the most embarrassingly huge crush on him in high school."
Layla snorts. "Every straight female in Three Rivers between the ages of puberty and death has had a crush on Felix Crowe at some point."
Raina bites her lower lip, grinning. “It was Riley for me when I first moved up here." She looks away, covering her face. "Still sorta do have one, actually. But you can't tell him that."
I mime zipping my lips closed. "Your secret is safe with me, babe."
Layla sighs. "Oh, Rain, you poor thing. You gotta get over that. Riley is a horndog. Yes, he's hot as sin, but he'll only break your heart. Ask me how I know."
"How do you know, Layla?" Raina asks.
"Because I hooked up with him once, a long, long time ago, and he moved on faster than I could get my clothes back on." She rolls her eyes. "He's a good time and that's it."
I frown. "I don't know if that's true anymore, actually. He came over to drink beer and watch football with Fee last week. I was in my room doing homework, and…well, Riley's voice carries."
"And?" Raina demands when I don’t continue.
"And I heard him saying that he's losing his touch because he's not hooking up like he used to. I think he might be starting to think about settling down." I shrug. "I dunno. Just what I heard."
Layla waves her hand. “Don’t say that too loudly, Ember. You'll have half of Three Rivers chasing Riley Crowe down Main Street throwing their panties at him."
Raina doesn't say anything, but her gaze is speculative.
Noelle taps my knee. "You're not escaping the question that easily, Ember."
"I'm not avoiding." I sigh. "Fine, I'm avoiding. Connie made it seem like I'm taking advantage of Felix by living with him and letting him do everything he's been doing but not…being with him."
"Do you think so?" Raina asks.
I shake my head, pause, and shrug. "I don't know. I didn't until she said something. And now…yeah, I do. I mean, we talked about this, Felix and I, the day I left the hospital. I told him I needed time to sort my life out."
Layla touches my hand. "Honey, of course you'd need time. You went through hell. Your husband dying, and then dear old sweet crazy Faye, and then the accident?"
"I think it's getting to be really hard for him though," I say. "We talked a little on the way here, and I think he's hurting. It's taking a toll on him, and…I'm worried I'm gonna lose him."
Lainey shakes her head. "He wouldn't do all that and then be like, nah, forget it, too much trouble."
"He said that he was just doing what he'd do for any of his friends, like Cole, Nyx, or Riley." I sip my iced tea, grimacing when I discover it's just watery, vaguely tea-flavored ice-melt.
"Well, what you have to understand," Layla says, "is that those four are not just friends. It's more like family. They've been best bros since pre-K. All three of them visited Riley in prison every week, together. So putting you in the circle with his boys?" She shakes her head. "That's a big statement from him."
"You know him pretty well, huh?" I ask.
She shrugs. "It's a small town, babe. We all know each other. I was a year above them in high school and had a lot of the same classes with Felix. We were never friends, exactly, but I know him well."
"But what do I do? I needed the time. I'm still kind of a mess about Dutchie, but I'm doing a lot better. I don't fall apart as much when I talk about him. I just…it feels like there's a gap between us, now. I just…" I sniffle, groaning. "I don't want to jump into bed with him just because. There are real feelings between us. He…" I hesitate. "When I was upside down in that SUV, I texted him. And he wrote that he loves me. I don’t know if he even realizes it. And he almost said it when he dropped me off. But I want…I want it to be real. Not just hot sex."
Lainey grins at me. "But the sex is hot as fuck, right? It has to be."
Layla shoves at her sister. "Lane! God, get a grip."
Lainey sticks her tongue out. "Oh fuck off. I haven’t gotten laid in months."
"Dan Hibbard last week doesn't count?"
“No, because he went down on me, which was great, but then he had whiskey dick and passed out. So no, I didn't actually sleep with him. Sadly."
"No take two for poor Dan?" Noelle asks.
Lainey shakes her head. "Nah. I can deal with you getting whiskey dick once in a while if I’m, like, really into you, but if it's a hookup and you give yourself whiskey dick? Sorry, no. That's the ick, and there's no getting past it."
Noelle takes my hand, clasping it in both of hers. "None of us are here to tell you what to do, honey. No one can. Only you know what's in your heart. If you have real feelings for him and you're worried you're gonna lose him, then what are you waiting for? And I don't mean just sex. But, for what it's worth, sex may be the best way forward— if you're sure your feelings for him are more than just physical attraction."
A bell rings somewhere inside, and Lainey pops to her feet—a little too quickly, perhaps. "I got it."
Layla rolls her eyes as she watches her sister head inside to take care of the customer. "Lainey is allergic to feelings. Any discussion of true love makes her run for the hills."
"Commitment-phobic?" Raina asks.
Layla shrugs, shaking her head. "Not commitment-phobic so much as once bitten, twice shy. That's her story to tell, though, not mine."
"I think we've all been there," Raina says, her gaze distant as if remembering something unpleasant.
Noelle ignores this side conversation, focusing on me. "Hey," she says, nudging me with her elbow, her expression warm and understanding and compassionate. "I get it. I mean, my husband didn't die, he just treated me like garbage and cheated on me a bunch. But I get what it's like to be scared to let yourself fall in love again."
"It's not just that," I whisper. "It's everything. Being with Felix represents a whole new way of living for me. I've been a nomad my whole life. I've literally never lived in a house this long in my life. Every day and more so as time goes on I have to fight the urge to just fucking leave. I really do care about him. I have very real feelings for him. But I just…I don't know if I'm cut out for the whole…stationary, domestic thing." I shake my head, sighing. "But I gotta ask, what do you mean, sex may be the best way forward if my feelings are real?"
Noelle laughs. "Well, I mean…" she glances at the sky, sighs, and starts over. "Sex is complicated, right? I mean, it seems simple, but it's not. Like, on the surface, it's part A goes into slot B, right? And if you're hooking up with someone casually, I can see how it would seem pretty simple. I wouldn't know, as I've never had casual sex. But…in a long-term relationship, sex changes. It's not static. It's not like…spicy and intense all the time. Sometimes it's more of an emotional connection than a physical release, if that makes any sense."
I nod. "It does. That's what it was for Dutchie and me—it was for more of an emotional connection than a physical one." I cover my face. "That's part of my hangup. I've been avoiding this topic because of how tricky it is."
Noelle frowns. "Can you elaborate? You don't have to, but I guess I don't really understand what you mean."
I shoot to my feet. "Yeah, but I need to walk. Wanna walk and talk?"
Raina and Layla are deep in a conversation together, and barely notice as we exit the outdoor seating area and stroll along Manitou Boulevard next to the Crooked Trout River, away from Main Street.
"I love this part of town," Noelle says, grinning happily at the sun overhead and taking in the admittedly picturesque area.
The river is narrow but deep, a good eight or ten feet below the street—the water is dark with tannins, flowing rapidly enough to churn white around a few huge boulders at the edges. Willow trees line the opposite bank, their long, dangling fronds twisting and swaying just above the river surface. Here, Manitou Boulevard is actually a boulevard, with two lanes in each direction separated by a median planted with a profusion of colorful flowers and low shrubs.
"It's beautiful," I say. "I only had one sexual partner before Dutchie—my first, and it was…well, not to put too fine a point on it, but it was fucking horrific. I didn't have sex again for years after that, and it took Dutchie months to get me to trust him enough to go there."
Noelle rubs my back. "Girl, you’ve been through some stuff, haven't you?"
I sniff a laugh. "Yeah, I guess so." I shake my head. "Dutchie healed me. He…he gave me the time, space, love, and safety I needed in order to learn how to enjoy sex."
"But?" she prompts.
"But in the…oh god…six months to a year before he got sick, I was…I wasn't content. With him. Sexually." I swallow hard, feeling my eyes burn. "Fuck, this is hard."
"You need a minute?" Noelle asks.
I nod. "Yeah, thanks. I…"
She rubs my back again. "Hey, you're okay. Take your time. I can fill the silence, trust me."
I sniff a laugh. "Go for it."
"My ex-husband Brennan barely looked at me. He wanted to control me. Wanted me to be the good, dutiful, obedient little pastor's wife." She laughs bitterly. "He expected me, sooner than later, to stop working and focus on being his wife, pop out a couple kids for him, and submit to his every whim."
I retch, and it's not exactly faked. "Fuck that noise."
"Right? The sad thing is I went along with it until I found out he was having sex with a bunch of women from the church."
I give her a wide-eyed glance. "No shit?"
"Three of them at once. Well…not at once like a foursome, but three different mistresses while with me he acted like forty-five seconds of missionary in the dark with his T-shirt on was all I should ever need or want."
"Oh. Wow. That's…"
"Hypocrisy upon hypocrisy? Yeah. And he made me feel like a shameless whore if I ever expressed interest in anything more. I left him, and eventually I met Bear."
"Who's the sweetest man I've ever met, by the way," I say. "I admit I was a little scared of him at first, but he's just a giant lovable teddy bear."
She smirks at me. "Oh, he's a teddy bear, all right." She wriggles her eyebrows at me in an expression she probably meant to be suggestive but was really just silly, cute, and funny. "Let's just say he's not always a sweet teddy bear, though."
I cackle. "If you could never do that with your eyebrow again, that'd be great."
"Oh, shut up," she teases. "My point is, I was scared to trust Bear. And I know, he's scary at first, and that includes in bed." She leans close, lowering her voice. "The answer to the question everyone always asks me is yes. He's…" she trails off with a shy but sly grin.
"Big everywhere?"
She nods. "Yes. Big, and…not always gentle, but in the best way possible." She covers her face with both hands. "I don’t talk about this stuff with others much."
"You don't have to if you're uncomfortable."
"It's fine. I don't, like, gossip, you know? Like talk about our sex life just for giggles with the girls. It's private, and, honestly sacred to me. But this conversation with you, it's different. It's not just for fun."
"No, I guess it's not."
"Bear made it okay for me to not just enjoy sex but to feel confident in expressing my desires. I can be exactly and fully myself with him. I mean, look, we're not into anything weird or kinky. But he makes me feel safe being…a little wild, I guess. It's a part of myself that I can only show him, and it's…" She shrugs, sighs. "It's a vitally important part of our relationship. For the seriously hot sex, yes, but more importantly because of the freedom in it. I can open up the deepest, most uninhibited parts of myself and not be judged. He returns it—he accepts it, loves me for it all the more, and gives it back to me just as passionately and openly."
I swallow hard. "That sounds beautiful, Noelle. Really and truly."
She stops and leans on the concrete railing and gazes down at the rushing river. "It is. And that's what I mean, Ember." She looks at me. "It takes total trust and commitment to open up like that with someone. But if you can, and if he opens up to you like that in return, it's a thousand percent worth it. Because it's…it's a connection of your souls through your bodies."
This makes the tears drip down my cheeks. "I want that. But I'm…I feel guilty. Because I loved Dutchie—I still do, in a lot of ways. And it's just hard to accept that my sexual relationship with Felix might be…better, in some ways. More fulfilling. It hurts. It feels like a betrayal of my love for Dutchie, and I don't know how to reconcile that, or…or get past it." I let out a ragged groan, slapping at my cheeks. " UGH! So—sick—of crying! And I know I shouldn't feel that way. Dutchie—his last words to me were to extract a promise from me that I'd move on and fall in love again. I'm just…I'm stuck . I've been stuck since I met Felix and felt an attraction to him that immediately eclipsed anything I've ever felt in my life."
Noelle leans a shoulder against mine and rests her head on my shoulder. "There's no good or easy answer to that, I don't think."
"No, I don't think there is," I whisper. "So what do I do?"
"I think what I said back at The Alt is still my best advice, assuming you're asking for advice."
"I am," I confirm.
"I'm not sure there's any way past that hangup except through. You know, mentally, that letting yourself be with Felix, letting yourself fall in love with him—you know intellectually that it's not a betrayal. If anything, it's you keeping your promise to Dutchie. But it's…I dunno. I think it's just gonna hurt a bit at first. Sometimes in life the only way out is through. I don't mean just sleep with him and get it over with, just…"
I laugh even as I sob a little. "But you kinda are saying that."
"I don't mean just get it over with. I mean…" She throws her hands up. "Maybe I don’t know what I mean. I guess I just mean you might just have to face that feeling head-on. It's not going to just go away suddenly. If you care about Felix and if you want to have a relationship with him, you're gonna have to face that feeling and deal with it."
"I kinda hate you a little for being right."
"Sorry?" She says, wincing while making it a question.
I can't help but laugh. "No, you are right. I guess I'm just scared. I have to give myself permission to move on, and I have to give myself permission to feel what I feel and then be brave enough to actually feel it without running away."
"I do think there's one factor you're maybe not taking into consideration that may change how the whole thing ends up working out for you," she says.
I frown. "What's that?"
"You won't be facing it alone. That's the whole point. You're not really taking Felix into consideration."
I don't know why, but this stuns me. "Oh. Holy shit, you're right." I rub my face with both hands. "God, I'm a bitch."
Noelle rears back, glaring at me in total confusion. "What? I think you must have misunderstood me."
I blink at her. "I'm only thinking about myself. I'm not thinking about him—about how he feels in all this."
Noelle shakes her head, turning to face me and grabbing both of my hands. "No, no, no, Ember. That's not at all what I mean. While there may be some truth to that—and that's not for me to say—that's not at all what I meant."
"Okay, then what did you mean?"
"That you’re not factoring in Felix's understanding and support. You won't be going through any of it alone, in a vacuum. He'll be there with you every step of the way, if you let him. I don't know Felix super well—we're close in age but ran in totally different social circles and I went to the private Christian school connected to the church I grew up in. But I do know that he and Bear are pretty close, and Bear thinks a lot of him. And Bear doesn’t think much of most people."
"Oh," I breathe. "That's…very different."
"Just a little," she says, laughing. "Just take it one step at a time with him. Talk to him. Be honest with him. Be vulnerable. Put yourself out there." She gives me a side hug. "You have friends, now, Ember. We'll be here for you. So, whatever happens, just…don't run away. Okay?"
I nod, sighing. "Yeah, I…I'm trying." I give her a weak but genuine smile. "Thank you, Noelle. It's…honestly, it's a little weird having girlfriends."
We walk back to The Alt and rejoin the others; I engage in the conversation, which moves on to other lighter and less important fare, but my mind is on Felix.
For the first time since I met him, I'm finally feeling ready to…
Really try, I suppose.
It's time to talk to Felix.