38. Sophie
THIRTY-EIGHT
SOPHIE
Once I start, I can’t seem to stop talking. I tell Foster about every shitty thing I can remember Gregory saying to me or doing during the five years we were together. Things I’ve never told anyone else and never planned to talk about. All the ways he didn’t know me, always obvious in the gifts he gave or the way he touched me. Gifts and touches I accepted with a big smile on my face or a perfectly timed moan. Bits of my story that leave me wracked with shame for staying and anger for allowing him to control so much of my life.
I’m a solitary figure standing in a field of waving red flags in every single chapter Gregory was in. If I knew my friend was in that kind of situation, I would have forcibly removed them. Instead, I dug in because there was no way the logical part of my brain could be right about any of it. I was studying this kind of thing; obviously I’d know better.
Foster hasn’t said a thing, and he hasn’t moved a millimeter. When the last word finally leaves my mouth, he looks as if he’s going to set fire to the world. Like he’s going to avenge my lost years and somehow bring them back to me to redo.
I wait in the silence of the room for him to say something, but he just stares at my shoulder. It’s not until I finally roll onto my side that he looks up at me. I expect to see wet eyes, but I only see the anger burning within.
“I never wanted to be this woman,” I admit. “I was that woman on campus with a sign, yelling ‘fuck the patriarchy.’ Then I let the patriarchy fuck me. I think I’ve stayed quiet because I’m embarrassed.”
Foster’s eyes snap to mine, somehow hardening even more and causing me to recoil. When he notices, his face immediately softens.
“You have nothing to be embarrassed of. You’re human, and you’re going to be impacted by the same stuff as the rest of us. Your education doesn’t negate that. Life still happens, and it’s always harder to see and admit things to ourselves.” His left hand cups my cheek, and it warms me to my bones. “Thank you for telling me. I wish you had nothing to share, but I’m honored you felt comfortable enough to share things about your past with me.”
I sigh, feeling suddenly lighter for sharing things that have been weighing my heart and mind down. Pieces of debris left over from an emotional atomic bomb finally swept away.
Reaching up, I mimic him by laying my hand on his cheek, which earns me a tiny smile. “Thank you for being a safe place for me.”
“Always, sunshine. I’ll always be a safe place for you.”
“Can you do me a favor?” I ask.
“Anything.” He may regret that.
“Tell me something I don’t know about you? Or don’t, you don’t have to, I just–”
“I feel like I’m never going to be good enough for my family or…” he says, quickly before trailing off when his gaze meets mine.
I’m confused. I know his uncle has issues with him, but his family seems fine. “What do you mean?”
“My parents make comments here and there about how I could have been a teacher. How I should be a teacher, because men are teachers, not”—his fingers curl into air quotes—“‘helpers.’ They act like I’ve settled into a job because I’m incapable of being more.”
The audacity of the fucking patriarchy.
“More than what? Someone who makes the lives of kids easier? And the lives of teachers, for that matter? Someone who shows up every day and ensures that no child is forgotten or feels invisible? Someone who not only encourages dreams but dedicates himself to helping a kid achieve them? I don’t know how you could ever be more when you’re beyond enough.”
He’s looking at me like he wants to kiss me. His eyes keep dipping to my mouth, and his breathing is more ragged. It would be so damn easy to roll into him and press my lips against his. Let all our feelings of inadequacy, shame, and anger evaporate. But I don’t want him to kiss me while my face is stained with tears and he looks about ready to implode with too many emotions. I don’t want him to kiss me while we carry the faint smell of a vet’s office, all antiseptic and sterile.
I want him to kiss me while I’m laughing at something silly he said because he can’t hold himself back any longer. I want him to twirl me in a circle and then hold me in a way that feels like forever. I want all the things he’s done to make me feel good, wanted, and safe to be real.
Scooting closer, I wrap my arms around him and tuck my head under his chin, breathing in his scent and laughing when the faint odor of sweat hits me.
“I told you I stink.” He laughs, pulling me in tighter.
“I don’t mind,” I whisper, my lips moving across his chest, only the thin fabric of his shirt separating us.
He starts playing with my hair, and the simplicity of the action has a few fresh tears slipping down my face. I asked him to show me what intimacy could be like, and he has managed to do it at every step. I spent years missing out on the most mundane yet pleasurable things. I never knew it was possible to feel like the center of someone’s world simply by the way they touched you, at least not until Foster opened my eyes to all the could-bes.
“Soph?” I wake to the smell of coffee and gold-flecked amber eyes. A girl could get used to this. “The vet called.”
I sit up so fast that Foster has to jump back to avoid a broken nose. “Is he okay?”
He nods, a soft tired smile stretching across his face. “He’s still out of it because of the drugs, but they got the elastic. Apparently they won’t know how things are until he poops.”
“Classic.” I yawn and rub my face. “When do you get to pick him up?”
“Tomorrow after work, most likely. They’ll keep him a little longer for observation.”
I study him for a minute. His hair is damp, which means he showered. Which means he was naked. Which means he was naked in the same space where I currently am. I’m woozy for a second as all my teenage fantasies come roaring back.
“Coffee?” he asks, and I rip my gaze from his hair back to his face. My god, his face. How is it even better now than it was back then?
“Coffee, yeah. Coffee would be great.”
“Did you have plans today?” Foster asks as I stir some cream into my mug.
“Well, yes and no,” I admit. “I was going to tackle the mess that is my bedroom. Remember when I said that was the room I hadn’t cleaned? Well, it’s still the room I haven’t cleaned.”
He shrugs. “We all have one of those.”
I look around and scoff. “Foster, this place is pristine. Like your bedroom as a kid.”
An eyebrow goes up as his mouth is pulled to the right in a cocky grin. “You remember my bedroom as a kid?”
I remember every inch of that room. Including the time I saw him reading on his bed in only his boxers when he was seventeen.
“Barely,” I lie, taking a sip and immediately burning my mouth. Anything to avoid admitting my obsession with him for most of my life.
“I don’t have one of those rooms because I don’t have space for one of those rooms.” He spreads his arms toward the rest of the apartment. “It’s three rooms and a closet.”
“Three clean rooms and a closet,” I tease.
“Breakfast?”
I turn back to him and shake my head. “I came to support you, not to have you feed me.”
“I like feeding you,” he confesses, with his head inside the fridge. “It’s way better than feeding only myself.” He pulls out a carton of eggs, a brown paper bag, and the rest of the goat cheese we got last weekend. “I’m going to make you the best omelet you’ve ever had.”
“Big words.” I pull out a stool so I can sit and watch him cook for me, yet again.
“Do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Think up a K date for today. Make me forget about Gary.”
Kiss. No, that’s not a date, that’s a thing I want to do. But we could kiss in different places. Maybe try different kinds of kissing in different places. Kiss in the kitchen. French kiss at a crepe café. Butterfly kisses at the botanical garden. The possibilities are endless. A kissing scavenger hunt could be fun. Kissing also seems like a good way to forget about the cat, especially if we do a really good job and get lost in them.
“Okay, but I’ll have to get home and change first.”
“Oh wow,” Foster says in awe. “I didn’t even know these existed here.”
We’re standing outside a twenty-four hour karaoke bar. I can’t sing, and the thought of doing it in front of anyone, let alone Foster, has the partially digested omelet in my stomach doing loop-de-loops.
“In Korea, we’d go into one of these at like ten at night after drinking for a few hours and emerge after seven a.m.” He mimes walking out of the darkness into the sun. “Just a bunch of hungover people staggering out onto the quiet street to drag ourselves home.”
“Sounds… fun?”
“It was actually,” he assures me, leading me through the front door into a sleek reception area with black leather couches and shiny surfaces. This place would be a nightmare to keep clean. They probably go through more Windex in a week than most people go through in an entire lifetime. “Hey, we’d like a room for two, please,” he tells the receptionist.
I hand over my card, and then we’re being led down a narrow hallway with doors on either side. It looks like a place where nefarious deeds would be carried out, not just terrible singing.
“If you want anything from the menu, hit the call button beside the door,” the attendant says. “The catalog is all digital, and the remote is here.” They pull it off the wall and hand it to Foster. “You’ll be given a five-minute warning. If you’d like more time, select the option on the menu. And”—they suddenly look uncomfortable—“no sex.”
Great, now all I’m going to think about is all the things Foster and I could do that are not sex exactly but definitely sex-adjacent.