35. Cry #3
And I feel his cock, hot and heavy, tucked between my thighs, using my pussy for a pillow to rest its head, as if I'm a safe place.
As if I’m going to keep him.
But I don’t keep things.
Even when I want to.
And I want to keep him, I do.
There's something about us.
It’s more than like,
but it’s not love.
So maybe it’s half of both.
A part of like,
a part of love,
that’s why this feels so a-li-ve.
As if without him,
that part of me will die.
And my heart’s looking at me,
sweating, wide-eyed,
scared, and pale,
shaking her head, whispering,
okay. This isn’t fun anymore.
She gestures to Drew sleeping on my chest like—what the fuck did you do? He’s in here,
she says it, pointing at herself.
This wasn’t the plan.
I squeeze my eyes shut,
but all I see in the dark of my mind is him walking out of the Astor lobby, the door swinging behind him.
It’s all I ever see.
Andrew’s back.
Another door.
Another end.
Again and again.
Then the timeline unfolds like a funeral program—
A week from now, no texts.
A month, he’s pulling away.
A year, he’s changed his mind.
Or worse, something unexpected,
something cruel.
Him gone in a way I can’t undo.
Some freak accident.
A light turns red,
and he doesn’t stop in time.
Boom—he’s gone for good.
And then I’m at another funeral,
crying-shouting into a casket
that can’t cry-shout back,
him not breathing into my skin,
then standing at another grave,
this one with his name on it.
Andrew Joseph Harding.
I can’t do it. I can’t wake up with him on top of me—chest to chest, alive and breathing—and then one day, he’s… not.
I hate this part of me that destroys everything. The part that sees ghosts where there’s still breath and warm blood. Because now here it comes: panic climbs up inside me, digging behind my eyes.
My chest locks up,
and if I let this exhale go, I’ll cry.
So I hold it inside me tight.
Until my lungs start screaming.
Heat hits my face.
My stomach floats with butterfly wings made of blades. I glance at the open bedroom door.
I picture running,
picture leaving.
I want to move.
I want to stay.
I want him gone.
I want him closer.
I want to disappear.
I’m still holding my breath.
I have to decide—
breathe and cry,
or suffocate and die.
And the second I pick life,
the tears rip out of me,
violent and hot.
My hand comes over my face.
I’m crying and I’m fucking pissed, mad at my eyes for being so weak. Mad at my heart for letting him in.
I’m silently sobbing into my hand, hating how I let us get this far.
I slip out from under him as if I was never there, every inch between us measured in guilt, barefoot and gone before morning rises up.
Brandon rises up from between my thighs, sits beside me, pulling me into his lap. His kiss catches me, his lips still dripping with my pussy. “I’ll never get over it,” he mutters, dazed. “Don’t think I’ll be able to eat pussy again without comparin’ it to yours. That’s a fuckin’ tragedy.”
He tears open the condom wrapper with his teeth and slides on the rubber. “Sure you wanna—”
I cut him off with a fist around his cock,
line him up, and slide down fast,
so there’s no time to back out.
My pussy stretches around him,
hardly wet enough to drown.
He groans, biting his lip ring,
neck snapping back,
tattoos writhing across his stomach.
There.
He’s inside me.
It’s done.
He grabs my ass with both hands, moaning while I fuck him hard, as if I’m trying to punch holes into these feelings.
I leave Brandon’s right after.
Night winds slip through the cracked window as Staten Island spits me into the steel mouth of the Verrazzano.
EZ-Pass lights glow blue and green above. The bridge is empty, only me and eighteen-wheelers. I’m halfway across before realizing tears are leaving my eyes.
Djarum smoke sits thick in my lungs, like a lullaby laced in arsenic, while the clove burns slow between my fingers. The heater vents are on full blast, but I’m still shaking.
I’m still tasting the bile
from when I puked in the grass.
I’m still feeling Brandon on my skin.
I’m still smelling the scent of sex.
Not the scent of sex with Andrew,
but the scent of sex with someone else.
I didn’t know that was possible, that Andrew and me could carry a different aroma, and a smell with someone else could make me sick.
But I tell myself it’ll pass.
I’m wearing no bra,
only jeans and a sweatshirt.
My panties are still damp in the glovebox, proof I can fuck the feelings out.
BQE’s half-shut for overnight construction, but I take it anyway. Fifth Avenue’s maybe thirty minutes if traffic stays dead.
She’s sleeping, this city.
Music’s on low.
A Cigarettes After Sex track.
The voice in the song sounds drunk.
Ash flakes across my thigh.
I don’t brush it off. I don’t care.
My heart’s slumped in the passenger seat, refusing to wear her seatbelt, mascara staining her cheeks, looking out the window.
She won’t look at me.
“I had to,” I mutter.
She’s disgusted. She knows what I did and shakes her head, like—Okay, okay—we’re monsters. Got it, as she stares straight ahead, as if a part of her doesn’t need amputating.
Hope it was worth it.