60. Doesn’t Do Me Any Good #3
“No,” he exhales. “No, I ain’t mad.”
“I went into your bathroom,” I say, watching the colorful Christmas lights blink across his cheekbone. “Condoms are loaded with PFAS. Called a forever chemical. You know why?”
He brushes hair from my face. “Why?”
“‘Cause your body can’t break them down. So they stay in you forever…”
His eyes are everywhere on my face.
My forehead,
my nose,
my mouth…
I don’t know if he’s even listening,
so I continue,
“They give you low sperm count.
“Infertility. Liver issues. Cancer.
“So I trashed them all.”
His eyes jump to mine.
The corner of his mouth pulls.
“The whole box?”
“Yeah. Replaced them with the least-toxic ones I could find. In case you need them after me.” I shrug. “Now your dick’s safe.”
He strokes my forehead slow with his thumb. “You tryna tell me somethin’? Want me movin’ on without you?”
My eyes slide between his,
not knowing what to say,
or how to say anything, really.
So then we’re staring at each other, fingers tracing each other’s exposed skin, separate, but still somehow together.
“Andrew,” I whisper. “I’m missing you.” I drop my head to the couch, nudge the crown of my head into his chest, a little woozy still, can’t yet lift it without the room spinning. “Not in a cheesy quick I-miss-you text way… I’m missing you like… like… There’s a you-shaped hole in me.”
He smoothes my hair back with his fingers, and I feel the heat of his exhale brush my cheek.
“A draft blowin’ through it,” I whisper.
“Lettin’ in the cold.
“Lettin’ in this ache.
“Lettin’ in everything.”
Then I roll my head to look up at him.
“I think I’m addicted to you.”
His jaw clenches,
and he tucks hair behind my ear.
“I think you had too much wine.”
“I think I need you to fill me up again…”
His fingers along my hairline stutter.
But then he doesn’t move.
“Andrew,” I whisper.
“I need you right now. Bad.”
His lashes flutter,
his face breaking with the same ache,
then with hunger as I cup his jaw.
He lets me.
I pull him closer.
He lets me do that too.
His fingers grip my waist outside of the blanket, digging in desperation for flesh and bone.
“I need you to kiss me…” I add in another whisper, and his breath shakes out of him, touching my lips. “And I need you inside me, Drew…”
My mouth brushes the edge of his.
But then restraint floods his face as he stops himself. A small tilt of his head casts a cold shadow over me
before he’s backing away.
“Andrew—”
“I can’t—”
His eyes drown as he looks down at my mouth one last time, and God, he wants it. I see it. I feel it.
“I—I told you.
“I can’t do this anymore—”
He peels my hand off the back of his neck, inching back and looking away, as if he’s cutting himself out of me with his bare hands.
His spine hits the base of the couch,
and his knees pull up,
hands locking together.
Like now I’m a mistake, a regret.
And though I’m at his house
with him right here,
closest we’ve been in fifty-six hours,
it’s the space that spreads deadly,
more malignant than plastic,
plunging into my arteries—
a cancerous thing.
“Allison, this is a lot,” he says, a sigh.
“And it ain’t all you. It’s me, too.”
But as I’m lying here,
I still feel the kiss that didn’t happen.
That’s the sickest part about it.
I can fuckin’ feel it on my lips,
and my lungs forget how to work.
Inhale. Exhale. Stay alive. Basic shit.
But one rejection,
and it all goes out the window.
Is this how it felt for him every time?
He’s looking down at his hands.
“All this is crashin’ down on me,
“makin’ me face my own shit—”
“Like what?” I ask fast, trying to put more distance between us, digging my spine into the backrest of the couch, as if that’ll make all this hurt less.
Andrew’s head tips back on the cushion.
His hand comes over his face,
and he pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Jesus,” he says, voice shaking before it snaps in half. “Allison, it’s hittin’ me at once. It’s fuckin’ me up. I’m—I’m so over it.”
In an instant,
all the hurt I feel cuts even deeper,
but for him.
My heart kneels to his pain,
begs for mercy.
I don’t know what he’s referring to,
and either way,
I don’t think it even matters.
Whether he’s talking about us,
about me,
about everything that surrounds us,
it all spears the same—
blade sharp, scary, and unsparing.
The old me would’ve run, put up walls,
but the girl lying on his couch tonight
is locking her arms around his chest
and pressing her face
into the side of his neck.
His chest goes tight against my arm.
For a second, I think he might break.
But he doesn’t.
He grabs my arm, the grip doing two things at once: pushing me away before I destroy him completely, and holding me tighter so I don’t leave.
Then he swallows his next shaky breath down so hard I hear it. Like bone going back into place wrong.
“Andrew, let it out,” I say.
“Nah,” he grits out. “There’s too much fuckin’ shit. Shit I haven’t told you about.”
I can feel it, right under my palm, weighing on his chest. “Then get it out.”
He drags a hand down his face.
“This ain’t yours to deal with.”
I clutch him harder, pull him closer.
“Make it my shit. Please,” I say in his ear.
“I’ve made all my shit yours.”
He tips his head back against the cushion again.
I sweep my hand through his hair, pushing it back and off his forehead as he stares at the ceiling. “Andrew. When I tell you I want you? I mean all of you.”
His eyes flick to mine. ‘Cause he knows. They’re the same words I told him at Type that night. “You’re safe with me, too,” I remind him.
Then all I can do is lie beside him and wait, rubbing his chest as if I can erase it for him.
“Allison,” he says, lifting his head.
“Shit—this is so fucked up,
“I don’t even know where to start.”
He stares at the Christmas tree, eyes unfocused, lost in his head, seeing all the mess he’s been keeping locked up.
“Tammy—Mrs. Robinson—she had a son,” he tries again. “He was my best friend. We played ball together, and he—uh…” he squints as he says it, “he had feelings for me?” Like he didn’t know how else to put it.
“We never talked about it. Wasn’t mutual.
I ain’t into men—I ain’t gay. Loved the kid.
That was my boy. But not like that. And I wasn’t about to put him on the spot, force him to talk about it, risk losin’ my best friend over it.
So when that shit went down with his mom, I had so much fuckin’ guilt.
‘Cause I knew he was into me like that. And it felt like… the thought of him finding out? I dunno, like it’d hurt him for real.
Like I could come between him and his mom?
But, shit. I didn’t fuckin’ ask for any of it. ”
He scrubs his palms over his knees.
“Roger was messed up over a game one night, real bad. He was drunk off his ass. Cryin’. The whole nine yards. I was tryna be there for him. But wires must’ve crossed, ‘cause next thing I know, my best friend’s makin’ moves on me…”
He’s shaking his head,
like he doesn’t want to say it.
“I couldn’t fuckin’ say no.
“Wanted to,
“but I like physically fuckin’ couldn’t.
“Didn’t know how without hurtin' him.
“Didn’t wanna make it worse.
“Wasn’t his fault. Not like he pressured me or forced me—didn’t go down like that.
It’s ‘cause I’m fucked in the head. Thought maybe I owed him after that shit with his mom.
Like that’d make up for what I did.” He’s still shaking his head, he speeds through the next part, hoping if he says the words fast enough, I won’t absorb any of them.
“So I gave him what he wanted, got him off, got the fuck outta there, never talked about it to no one. Rodg never brought it up and acted like it never happened. And I been holdin’ on to that shit for ten years… ”
He pauses,
waiting for me to say something,
ask him more questions,
label him,
judge him,
call him out,
anything.
All this time I questioned if he really was some fuckboy addicted to pussy and maybe I was too blind to see. Turns out, Andrew’s never learned boundaries—never thought he could have any.
“Then earlier this year, Rodg died.
“Drank himself to death. Alone.”
My chest tightens as I’m staring at the side of his face, Christmas lights blink in his eyes as he looks straight ahead—red, gold, green, gone.
“Drew…”
I’m afraid to do or say the wrong thing.
“I’m so sorry. I wish—I wish you didn’t have to tell me like this.”
His eyes swing to mine. “Like what?”
“Like what happened with his mom,
“then what happened with Roger,
“then his death…” I shake my head.
“They all happened to you,
“but that’s three different graves,
“three different types of grief…”
He nods, knee bouncing as he looks at me. “Guess you’re right.”
He wipes under his nose with his knuckle, eyes moving back to the tree.
“He was funny,” he says. “Roger. He was goofy as hell.” He tries to smile, but it’s too heavy to hold up. “Used to do this stupid fuckin’ announcer voice durin’ games. Had me and Petey crackin’ up.”
He wipes his nose again.
“But that ain’t the point.
“Point is—since day one, sex equaled the thing I had to get through to get out.” He shrugs.
“Somehow it always became my responsibility to make people happy, and that shit got a whole lot easier when I realized all I had to do was make girls come.” He swipes his palms together, like dusting them off—problem fixed.
“I can pack away my shit. Ain’t gotta kiss nobody.
Ain’t gotta let nobody fuckin’ touch me. Slip the mask on, get ‘em off, then go.
“They’re smilin', they're taken care of? They’re good. Ain’t gotta feel guilty about shit.
Next thing I know, I’m turnin’ twenty, and fuck and already went down on my boss ‘cause she broke down one night—got fired the next day. Got with some rich, sixty-year-old woman while her husband watched—made twenty grand—”
“With your mouth?”
“And my dick.”
My throat swells.
My teeth snap down on my tongue.
“I was desperate for cash,” he says. “That’s how I lost my virginity. In some hotel room with someone’s grandma, with an audience.”
I’m trying really hard not to stop him, but I don’t know how much more I can take.