Chapter 12
Sloane
Iwake up to blood pumping in my ears and the dazzling blue of the morning light shining on the wall beside my bed. I should close the blinds, but they look expensive and difficult to use. I do not want to tell my mom I damaged them within a week of being home.
The bed is damp with sweat, and my thighs are sticking together uncomfortably.
It takes a full sixty seconds to realize I’ve had another dream.
Not the falling kind, or the “show up to class naked” brand of nightmare my brain likes to offer up several times a month.
No, this was the other kind. The Eden kind.
I try to lie still, but my muscles are tensing as I reconstruct the dream sequence before it evaporates.
It was vivid as hell in color and sensation.
I recall Eden’s mouth parted in a crooked smile as she looked down at me.
Her tongue licking the corner like she always does when she’s about to say something inappropriate.
Then I remember how her hands, soft and warm, bracketed my shoulders like I might float away if she gave me any space. I remember the shock of her thigh between mine, then the ache and the friction and—
I don’t breathe for a long time because my mind is soaking it all in, waiting for the images to dissolve.
But they don’t. If anything, they sharpen.
Oh, Jesus, I can smell the musk of her deodorant and the sound of the headboard tapping the wall as she took me higher and higher. Oh, god, the way she said my name!
The whole thing is so intensely physical, I half expect to roll over and see her there, limbs tangled in my disaster of a comforter, hair sticking out in all directions.
Of course it’s just me. My body…my sweat…
my regret. Not discounting the bitter aftertaste of wanting something I told myself I’d never have again.
There is a moment, half a breath, maybe less, where I think about getting up, dousing myself in ice water, putting on my running shoes, and being the version of Sloane Bishop who has her shit together.
The one I’ve been fighting for all these months.
But the ache in my stomach and the wetness between my legs are so intense and so involuntary that it’s almost cruel to pretend I can do anything but relieve myself of the building pressure.
I stare at the ceiling, watching the pool’s reflection. I feel my pulse thundering in my wrists, my throat, and my pussy. I press a hand to my chest, as if I can force my heart back to its resting rhythm.
I can’t.
All last night, as I tried to unwind in front of garbage TV shows, I told myself that how Eden and I had acted was just nostalgia, adrenaline, and carbohydrates. Nothing more. But that’s a lie, and I’m so over lying to myself. Dr. Chen would be proud.
I slip my left hand down under the elastic waistband of my pajama shorts, the cotton already slick with morning sweat and something more desperate. My fingers graze my lips and the noise that comes out of me is more of a whimper than anything else.
I clamp my jaw shut. The walls are thin, and while my parents are in a separate building, I’m not ready for the conversation where my mom asks if I could close my windows. Or worse, where she wants to tell me how proud of me she is that my sex drive is back.
I move slowly at first, just tracing the outline of myself.
But the feeling is ramping up, and I’m already surging toward the place where thought and sensation fuse together.
I close my eyes, and the dream picks up where it left off: Eden’s tongue licking her bottom lip as her hands knead my thighs.
I picture her above me, knees nudging themselves between my legs until I’m spread wide.
In my dream, Eden is just as cocky as she was—is—in real-life.
She knows exactly what I want, and she gives it to me with this infuriating patience that makes me insane.
She doesn’t say anything at first, just looks down at me, her goddamn smirk tugging at the side of her mouth.
“You want me to stop?” she asks, already knowing the answer. My brain recreating her in perfect detail.
“No,” I breathe, barely audible. My hand moves faster, two fingers slipping easily over swollen, wet folds. The shudder it sends through me nearly has me arching off the bed.
I think about the first time. How nervous I was, even though I’d been ready for that part of our relationship to happen before Eden. I remember how Eden was so perfect with my body. I remember how I nearly melted into a puddle of overwhelming love and sensation.
The memory hits me so hard I have to bite down on my fist to keep from crying out.
The hand in my shorts is frantic now, palm grinding into my clit as I enter myself roughly with two fingers.
There’s a tension in my back, my thighs, my jaw, like I’m holding on to the edge of a cliff and can’t decide if I want to hang on for dear life or let go.
“Let go,” Eden says. “I’ve got you, baby.”
Her voice is so real that I almost answer her.
Instead I gasp, and my body tightens almost painfully.
My legs snap together like I’m trying to trap the feeling and never let it out.
The orgasm is powerful, formidable, like it wants to punish me for not thinking of her sooner.
My eyes sting, and I realize I’m crying.
Silent tears leak into the pillowcase as I ride out the aftershocks.
A buildup of longing, guilt and regret bursting to the surface with my excitement.
When it’s over I just lie there, hand sticky and heart racing. The birds outside are louder now, and somewhere in the main house my mom has started banging pans for breakfast. My phone buzzes on the nightstand, and for a second I dare to hope it’s Eden.
It’s not. Just a calendar notification about my therapy session at 10 a.m.
I start to laugh hysterically until I can’t tell if I’m laughing or crying. Probably both, that’s sort of my brand nowadays.
Dragging myself out of bed, I wipe my face and try to arrange my features into something that won’t set off any parental alarms. In the bathroom, I stare at myself in the mirror, wondering what Eden would see if she looked at me now.
I smirk as I picture her smug grin, because she would absolutely be proud as a peacock for what dream Eden just did to me.
I brush my teeth with more force than necessary, and take an extra-cold shower. There’s no point pretending this isn’t going to happen again, so I don’t bother vowing to stop. I just hope next time I can have her for real.
Back in my room, I find a clean set of running clothes folded neatly on my bedroom chair. I really need to talk to Mom about my laundry. I don’t want her thinking I can’t look after myself.
As soon as I’m dressed, I check my phone again. Nothing from Eden. I almost text her something dumb and offhand, but I don’t. We’re still in a precarious stage of our relationship, and I don’t want to push her. It’s best I wait for Eden to come to me.
I make my bed, flushing at the wet patch I created. I open the window wider to let in some fresh air. If Mom is prone to coming in here, I don’t want it smelling of sex.
At exactly 9:55 a.m., I’m in my computer chair, legs bouncing with adrenaline…or the aftershocks of unresolved horniness. I kind of hoped Dr. Chen would be early because I’m almost bursting to talk.
Dr. Chen appears a few minutes later, her smile warm.
“Good morning, Sloane.” Her dark eyes crinkling as she sips from a mug.
It’s herbal tea, which I know because I asked her once.
I was concerned that she spent all day in sessions drinking coffee.
She told me she only drinks herbal tea, so there was nothing for me to worry about.
“Good morning. Although it feels like I’ve been up for half a day already. I…um…I had trouble sleeping so I thought, why fight it? It kind of sucks,” I reply with a laugh.
She laughs along with me. “Sleep issues have a habit of resolving when the mind is in motion. Have you been busy?”
“Uh,” I say, weighing how much of my morning to disclose. “I’ve been productive, if that’s what you mean?”
She gives me the look. The one that says, “Try again, but with less evasion.”
I smirk. “Okay, if you must know, I spent the morning imagining the rest of my life.”
There, is that less evasive for you, Doc?
Dr. Chen’s eyebrows flicker, but she doesn’t interrupt. “And?”
“It…looks good. I can see friends, and a job I think I’ll really enjoy, and…um…running. But mostly I see Eden.”
For the first time since I started therapy, Dr. Chen looks genuinely surprised. “That’s a significant shift, Sloane. What changed?”
It’s a fair observation and question. Although I’ve spoken of Eden often in my sessions, and I’ve always held on to the hope I might one day see her again, I never let myself believe I could be with her again, not in the way we were together.
I think about last night. The way Eden’s hands held me by the hips as we crossed that finish line. The way she hugged me. The way our text exchange made my insides turn to jelly, even though it consisted of silly banter and nothing more.
“I don’t know,” I say, but that’s not the truth. So I add, “I think…I think I’ve given myself permission to want her without feeling guilty. That’s also true for my future, too.”
Dr. Chen nods like that’s the answer she was hoping for. “It’s normal to feel hesitant about moving forward after trauma. But it’s also normal and even healthy to want things again. It’s what recovery looks like.”
I look down at my lap, fidgeting with the seam of my shorts. It hits me, hard, how starved I’ve been for wanting things to be better instead of just less awful.
“What happens if it blows up in my face?” I ask, eyes on the edge of my laptop.
She folds her hands and leans toward the camera. “Then you pick up the pieces. That’s all any of us can do. However, if that happens, you’ll already have the tools you need to get through it. And the people.”
It’s a concern I needed to share, but I’m not afraid the same way I was a few years ago. Recovery 1, Anxiety 0.
We talk for fifty minutes about the next steps in my life plan.
Dr. Chen smiles brightly when I tell her about my business idea.
She never once makes me feel like I won’t cope, and that’s why she is a great therapist. I word vomit my business plan.
She recaps our session on boundaries, which is helpful.
My boundaries are super important for my prolonged stability.
Once that subject has been exhausted, we talk about Eden and how she always finds a way to reappear when I need her most. I feel raw, but not in a devastated way for once.
At the end of the session, I promise to keep her posted, and when the Zoom window closes I don’t linger. Instead, I open up the group chat and start typing.
The crew is already nineteen messages deep on team slogans they want printed on t-shirts.
Most of them are unprintable. Scrolling back through the conversation, I get to the part which explains the need for team shirts in the first place.
Apparently, we’re going to run every LGBTQ+ charity race within a hundred-mile radius this summer.
I’m so excited we’re doing this! I jump into the conversation. “Okay, but if we’re doing matching shirts, I only approve if there are dad jokes on the back.”
Within seconds, the replies pour in, one right after the other.
Bella: JOGGING MY MEMORY
Pia: FAST BUT CURIOUS
Becca: GAY FOR THE FINISH LINE
Eden: RUNAWAY brIDES
I do not, for even a second, miss the Eden typing bubble after I send my contribution. “How about ‘CAN’T EVEN RUN STRAIGHT’ but in Comic Sans?”
I cackle when Eden tells me I’m a monster. I’ve thoroughly offended the artist Eden with my comment. She passionately hates Comic Sans.
I reply with a cheeky and somewhat flirty, “Only for you, Sawyer.”
She gives me a smirk emoji and then tells me I’m on night before race pasta duty again.
I can’t wait.
The week rockets forward. My days fill up with training runs, in-depth job research, and morning masturbation. Now that my libido is back, she’s making her presence known…a lot.
I make a spreadsheet of gyms and physical therapy centers within a 20-mile radius. I take a chance and cold-email one of the local therapy places about mentoring, and to my shock, the owner writes back with an invitation for coffee.
On Thursday, Eden texts me a photo of her new painting. It’s a street scene in the city, but there’s a girl running through the crosswalk in neon sneakers. There’s no caption, just the picture. It’s beautiful.
The day of the next agreed upon race arrives and I’m up at dawn. We’ve got an hour to drive, so it’s an early start. My mom makes pancakes and fresh fruit because that’s our thing now. I live in the pool house but have breakfast with her. Sometimes Dad is around, which is always nice.
When Eden honks the horn, Mom follows me to the door to wave at the girls.
The drive is oddly loud for the hour. Pia regularly texts us for updates. She’s on the verge of exploding and Todd didn’t want her traveling. Pia wasn’t happy, but she listened when Eden sided with Todd.
As with our last race, the area is decked out in rainbows and flags. I love being around so many queer people.
Becca and Bella promise to run the entire course this time, but I’m not convinced. I’ll bet a dozen donuts they stroll across the finish line with powdered sugar and a loaded excuse.
At the starting line, the crew is wired and full of enthusiasm.
Bella’s hair is dyed with temporary blue streaks, Becca has glitter on her cheeks, and Eden looks like a nineties workout guru in her loud yellow shirt and even louder running shorts.
I love the neon sweatbands wrapped around both wrists and head.
She jogs up beside me, swinging an arm around my shoulders. “Ready for this?” she asks, eyes sparkling.
I nod, unable to speak for a second. I don’t trust my voice or what words my mouth may decide to throw out there.
“Let’s do this,” I manage to reply.
We line up next to each other. The crowd swarms and buzzes, and someone hands me safety pins for my bib. Eden does it for me, eyes lingering on my chest. I smile to myself in satisfaction.
The starting gun goes off, and the crowd lunges forward. We’re holding hands for the first fifty feet before Eden lets go and edges ahead, turning to throw a smirk over her shoulder.
“Catch me if you can!” she yells.
And I do. I’ve always outpaced her.