Chapter 2 #2
The cold brick against my back was almost welcome, grounding me, tempering the heat flooding through my nervous body.
We were both breathing hard, our breaths turning to mist as they tangled in the crisp night air beneath a sky scattered with stars.
His forearm braced against the wall while his other hand settled low on my back, making my body ache with anticipation.
His body pressed against mine and I could feel his desire too. My mind was spinning. I had wondered about this moment for years, imagined it more times than I cared to admit. After so long of circling each other, of pretending we were only friends, I was finally here, held against him in the dark.
My heart pounded as he murmured, “do you know how fucking long I’ve wanted to do this?”
Then he dove in for a ferocious kiss. His tongue plunged into my mouth.
The arm on the wall migrated to the back of my head, his fingers raked my skull, then he tugged on my hair, exposing more of my neck.
He abandoned my lips, his tongue landed on my neck, and he licked me collar bone to chin.
The sensation shattered my nervous silence, and a loud, needy, high-pitched moan escaped my clutch.
He let out a breathy feral groan and began lifting my skirt.
“Wait,” I said, breathless.
He froze instantly, concern flickering across his face. “Out here?” I whispered. “What if someone sees?”
His answering smile was wicked and unapologetic. “I kind of like the idea of getting caught,” he murmured.
In one smooth motion, he lifted me, my legs instinctively wrapping around him as my back met the brick again. His grip was firm, possessive, anchoring me there. Every part of me burned with want, my body betraying every thought I had tried to keep buried.
There was no mistaking it anymore. I wanted him. Badly. “Fuck, you are already so wet for me.” He groaned.
Then he positioned himself at my entrance and rammed himself inside of me. Again, and again slow and deep but with so much force, groaning with every thrust. Is this why he wanted to get matching tattoos, to remember the night we first hooked up?
I had never felt so much pleasure. It felt like time had stopped.
I was not a virgin, but it was the first time I did it because I wanted it.
Part of me will always love Danny for showing me it could be a good thing, a pleasurable thing, it could not erase my dark past, but it did help give me the light to see past it.
His pace quickened, I could not contain my passionate, breathy moans that echoed down the alley. It had become our own small, abandoned piece of the world, and encompassed by its decay we found ourselves to be something new. Lovers.
“You feel so good, better than I imagined,” He panted.
I didn’t realize he had been fantasizing about me too. How long, I wondered at what point did things change for him. Did he love me?
My pleasure peaked, all over him and he let out a loud strained moan, then followed my pleasure with his own. I studied his face, he was so handsome and I was completely smitten.
“Say you’re mine,” he commanded tenderly.
“I think I love you Danny,” I admitted. The words just came out. I had no control, my heart had finally gotten what it had been pining for, and my body was flooded with pleasure, not to mention alcohol. I was not in my right mind.
He smiled warmly and kissed my head.
We became inseparable and became official after the alley.
I was obsessed with Danny, probably at an unhealthy level. I could not get enough of him, but Danny would not live to see my twenty-second birthday.
After a New Year’s Eve party, Danny insisted on driving us home.
I knew it was a bad idea. I was young and dumb, and he had done it many times before without consequence.
He took a corner too fast, and the ice on the road caused him to lose control of the car.
We collided headfirst with a tree, the point of impact on the driver’s side.
The crash tossed our bodies forward like weightless dolls. Blood ran from my head, my bones rattled with every breath, and my wrist throbbed. Other than being dazed, I was alive.
Danny was not okay. His body was twisted and broken, blood everywhere, and there was no escaping the gut-wrenching truth. He was dying.
My Danny. My first love. He was dying. He looked at me with the one eye not obscured by blood and mumbled, “I love you too, Pickles.” It was the first and last time he ever said those words.
He was funny that way. He could ask me to marry him, but he could never say I love you. He never needed to. I knew. And I had to watch him die. When he went still, the chaos inside him, the chaos I loved so much, was gone.
I wailed. A guttural scream tore out of me. I remember being pinned in the wreckage, unable to move, screaming and sobbing. My mangled wrist hung near my face. The engagement ring Danny gave me for Christmas was smeared with his blood.
I saw the blue and red lights before I heard the siren, and I felt hollow. I knew I was going to be rescued. I knew I was going to live. I just did not know how I was supposed to survive without him.
After a series of tests, the doctors found three broken ribs, a fractured wrist, several cuts, and a miscarriage. I did not know I was pregnant. I was not far along, but my grief multiplied knowing I had lost another piece of Danny, one I had not even known I carried.
To this day, that memory still stings. I wanted to be a mother.
I wanted the chance to love a child the way no one ever loved me.
None of that matters now. My ovaries are gone, and I am probably not going to be around much longer anyway.
Jared would have made the best father. I hope that someday he still gets that chance.
A nurse knocked on the door, and Jared stepped in with her. He told me Hannah had called and felt awful she could not be here. She was late in her third trimester and on bed rest. I had not expected her to make the drive.
“The tests came back good. All the blood work looks fine. We are ready for you now,” the nurse announced in an annoyingly chipper tone. In my thin gown, I sat in the wheelchair with a warm blanket draped over my lap.
Jared knelt so we were eye level. He took my hand, held it gently, and pressed a tender kiss to the back.
“Everything is going to be okay,” he said softly. “There is nobody stronger than you. I love you, Delilah.”
“I love you more, Jared,” I responded.
He grinned and shook his head, saying no with a subtle eye roll.
“Not possible,” he said softly.
Despite everything, we both managed a small chuckle. Tears filled our eyes, and I hesitated for a moment.
“I can’t bring myself to say goodbye to you,” I sobbed, my voice shaky and frail. It was the truth. Saying farewell felt like accepting the possibility that I might never see him again, and the thought was so overwhelming I could not bring myself to say the words.
“Then don’t say goodbye,” he replied. “Just say until next time.”
Large tears spilled onto my arm and lap, a mixture of mine and his.
“Okay then. Until next time, my love,” I said, choking on the words.
He squeezed my hand firmly before letting go, and then I was rolled down the corridor toward the elevator.
The nurses and staff took me to a room where I was prepped for surgery, which included shaving a small patch of hair from the back of my head.
I had forgotten about that part. I lay on the table, not really feeling much of anything.
My emotions were so vast they left me numb, like a computer that shuts down when it is overloaded.
I had accepted my fate. Whatever happened next was out of my control. A quiet sense of peace washed over me as I realized that some people go their entire lives without ever finding true love. I was lucky enough to have found it, not once, but twice.
I am eternally grateful for the love this life has given me. I held that thought close to my heart, like a teddy bear meant for comfort.
The room was bright and mostly white, rectangular in shape, with equipment and machines lining the sterile walls. The surgeon explained in a calm voice that anesthesia was being administered and instructed me to count backward from ten. I took a deep breath and did as I was told.
“Ten… nine… eight… seven…” Then my vision faded, and everything went black.