Perfect Ten #2
I got my food in the café before I spotted Becca, Destiny, and Dolly at a table in the corner. I made my way over slowly, my stomach tight with dread. Dolly had her head down, and I thought she was crying.
She couldn’t still be in pain from what I’d done. Could she?
I swallowed the sick feeling in my throat, suddenly not hungry. But I couldn’t walk away. I would face it like a man, find out what I didn’t want to know.
I slid in across from them. “What’s wrong, Doll?”
Dolly shook her head, covering her face and letting out a little hiccup.
“This is girl business,” Destiny said, giving me a warning look.
“Yeah,” Becca said. “Can’t you see she’s upset?”
“It’s okay,” Dolly said, sniffling and wiping her eyes. “He can stay. Just tell me if Carmen’s coming. You know she can’t keep her mouth shut, and I don’t want this getting out. Preston won’t talk.”
“What happened?” I asked, pushing my plate away and reaching for Dolly’s hand.
She pulled it away to cover her face, her shoulders shaking as she started crying again.
“She and Devlin hooked up,” Destiny said. “It did not go well.”
I swallowed past an ache in my throat, the blood draining from my face.
It was because of me. She was still crying.
Not because of the physical pain, but the other kind, the one I hadn’t even thought about.
I’d hurt her in a way that was much worse than physical, one that didn’t go away.
I hadn’t just betrayed her. I had damaged her.
I could never undo what I’d done, give back what I’d taken.
There was no happy ending here where she realized I was the one for her.
“It’s not like I expected my first time to be a perfect ten,” Dolly said, her voice high with tears. “But I didn’t think it would be a zero.”
I flinched, looking down at my plate and hoping no one noticed the blood that had rushed back to my face. My ears were ringing with the waves of shame and humiliation crashing through me. I’d known it was bad, but a zero?
“Come on, it couldn’t have been that bad,” I muttered.
“He was beastly,” she said through her tears. “I thought he loved me.”
“He does,” Destiny said firmly, wrapping an arm around Dolly’s shoulders. “He just didn’t know what he was doing. I’m sure he’ll get better.”
“Yeah,” Dolly said, nodding and sniffling. “You’re probably right.”
“It was his first time, too,” I said, unable to stop myself. “He probably couldn’t help himself. I mean, look at you.”
I caught Dolly’s friends raising their brows and giving each other those girl looks that communicated things only they knew.
But I knew enough to see I’d fucked up. I needed to shut my mouth and stay out of it, like they’d told me.
Because I was defending Devlin, but I was really defending myself.
My pride could only take so much, even if it meant missing a chance to tell her that Devlin just didn’t care about her, that she should dump him.
Because then what?
Even if she went out with me, and even if she somehow couldn’t tell once she slept with me that I was the one who had taken her virginity, she’d still think I sucked. She hated the way I’d fucked her, and that wasn’t going to change. Not unless I changed.
So I sat there and shut my mouth the way she liked, more humiliated than I’d ever been in my life, and I watched her slip away.
I wanted to die as I watched her convince herself that Devlin cared about her because it wasn’t fair to say he didn’t.
I fucking loved her, and I’d lost all control, after all.
Devlin cared for her too, even if it was a different kind of love.
In his own way, as much as he could, he did.
Maybe it would never be the way I did, the crazy obsessive kind of love that consumed him, but maybe that was a good thing.
If my kind of love made me hurt her, then she deserved better.
She deserved Devlin’s calm, measured kind of love.
The kind that made him do the right things because that’s what she wanted.
He cared about her, would make her comfortable.
He wouldn’t lose control and fuck her like an animal.
He would be slow and careful, asking what she liked and giving it to her.
Devlin wasn’t the kind of man who was driven by passion, who lost control and got in fights and fucked a girl until she screamed.
He was cool, even in his love for his girlfriend.
And that’s what she deserved. Someone who would put her first, ask what she wanted, and give it to her.
A sweet boyfriend who would take her to prom and hold her hand.
A boyfriend who doled out his love in perfectly leveled teaspoons instead of blasting her with it until it tore her apart.
Not someone whose love raged out of control, whose passion blazed like a wildfire that consumed her and burned her to dust.
I should have fucked the whore Dad got me. I should have learned what I was doing first.
I couldn’t change what I’d done, but I could be better the next time.
Dolly would never know I was the one who did that monstrous thing to her.
I just had to talk to Devlin, make sure he didn’t mention it.
I’d tell him to just say, “Sorry about the other night.” He’d think he was apologizing for falling asleep and not showing up, and she’d think it was for what I’d done.
I had to accept that they’d try again, fuck again. They weren’t breaking up. Even if it killed me to do, I had to step away and let him have her. Not because he deserved her, but because she deserved better than me.
He deserved better than me, too. Devlin was a man of principle, and I’d fucked his girl.
He would never forgive me if he knew. He’d stood up for me, made it clear that I was to be treated like I was as worthy of respect as he was.
So I would be. I would work to be the cousin he deserved, the friend he thought I was, a brother to him like he was to me.
I would never touch his girl again, never even flirt with her.
I would let him have what had been his all along, and I wouldn’t stand in their way again.
Someday, they’d break up, and I might have a shot.
But as long as he was her boyfriend, I would back off and concede defeat.
I was shit, as worthless as Dad always said.
I’d tell him he was right, that I needed more practice.
I could tell him I wanted the same woman back, or even someone closer to my age.
I would learn what I was doing, learn to control myself so that when I slid inside Dolly the next time, I didn’t lose my mind.
I’d make it as good for her as it was for me and then some.
And I would be so different that she would never guess that I was the same boy who took her virginity so brutally.