It’s barely the afternoon and I’m already done with today.
Everything is going wrong. Class ran late so I was rushing to work. I had to change in the car and ended up with ripped tights and a missing button on my shirt. I did a coffee run and got a couple of orders wrong, my least favorite mistake because the office assholes never fail to make me feel like an insipid fool when I mess up.
Like I need any more of that lately.
An almighty sigh leaves me as I plop down on my desk chair, the wheels creaking as I spin. It’s the first time I’ve sat down in hours because it’s just been one of those days; everyone has needed something and I have had to provide it.
I relish in the silence of my office—well, my repurposed storage closet—but unsurprisingly, it doesn’t last long. Whoever raps their knuckles against my ajar door promptly ruins my break, and to make matters worse, the last time I saw the man lurking in the doorway, I was in the driver seat of his car.
More specifically, bouncing on his dick in the driver seat of his car.
I’ve managed to avoid him since but I guess all good things must end. Hiding a grimace behind a forced smile, I try not to sigh. “You need something, Paul?”
Taking my question as an invitation, my semi-regular hookup strolls into the room and sets a plastic takeaway cup on my desk. “Brought you lunch.”
A protein shake.
Lunch.
“Thanks but I already ate.” Not quite a lie. I did eat.
This morning.
But I’ll take starving to death over something green and chunky any day of the week.
Undeterred, Paul perches on the edge of my desk. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”
Purposely so. “I’ve been busy.”
“You busy tonight?”
No. “Yes.”
“Oh.” He pulls a disgustingly cutesy pouty face. “Maybe next week?”
All I offer is a dismissive smile before gesturing towards the neat stack of papers in desperate need of photocopying and pointedly eyeing the door. “I’m kinda busy right now too.”
“Right.” Paul nods stiffly and nods, making sure to nab my so-called lunch offering before leaving. I swear he even slams the door a little behind him.
Men.
I allow myself a brief moment to release some frustration—otherwise known as silently screaming at the ceiling—before I compose myself, focusing on the task at hand.
Or I try to, at least.
I’ve barely gotten to my feet, papers in hand, when I’m interrupted by my phone ringing and promptly sent back to my ass.
Jackson.
Jackson is calling me.
I know because in a moment of weakness after the funeral, I snuck his contact from Pen’s phone. I figured I’d shoot him a text. Check in. I would’ve saved myself a whole lot of trouble if I had instead of turning up at his doorstep.
I don’t want to answer. I really don’t want to talk to him. Even thinking of him makes my skin itch with embarrassment, picturing that look on his face when he yelled at me.
Like he’d just made the worst mistake of his life.
Rolling my shoulders back, I decline the call. Barely a minute passes before a text comes through.
Jackson: Answer the phone, Luna.
Bossy little shit.
I ignore the text, making sure it comes up as read though because I’m petty like that. Thirty seconds later and another call comes through, and I ignore that too. The moment it rings out, another text dings.
Jackson: sweetheart please. I just wanna talk to you.
Goddamn it. Fucking sweetheart.
The next time he tries, I give in with a sigh and a snapped, “What?”
No greeting, just a rushed, slightly panicked. “Are you home?”
“Nope.”
“When will you be home?”
“I don’t know.” A lie. A couple of hours, tops.
“Tonight?”
“I don’t know.” Another lie; I plan to be home all night.
“Lu,” he laughs my name, annoyingly unperturbed by my snippiness. “please. I need to talk to you.”
“We’re talking now.”
He kisses his teeth, and it’s genuinely infuriating how the smallest of noises can have me squirming in my seat. “In person. I wanna see you.”
I wanna see you.
A brief image of the last time he said that flashes through my mind. When he had his fingers inside of me, a hand bracketing my throat, his hard cock grinding against me, lips and teeth leaving marks everywhere. Marks that are still there, a filthy reminder.
I shake that picture away real quick, crossing my legs to ease the quick-growing ache between them, resisting the urge to rub at the healing purple bruises still marring my chest.
Something in my gut tells me he must be thinking the same thing because when he speaks again his voice has got that husky quality, the one that sends a rush up my spine. “I’m coming over tonight.”
It’s not a question. It’s a statement. No room for argument, and when he adds, “I’ll bring food,” I’m not sure I want to argue.
I’m so, so tired of arguing.
A handful of seconds is all I manage to hold out before sighing. “Fine.”
I hear his smile as clearly as if I could see it. “See you tonight, sweetheart.”
God, I’m going to regret this.
I’m wrapped in a towel, soaking wet hair dripping on my bedroom floor, when the doorbell rings. Letting out a curse at Jackson for constantly being so annoyingly on time, I hastily throw on a pair of pyjamas and shove my arms into the sleeves of my robe. Combing my fingers through my hair with one hand, I open the front door with the other, already prepping some snarky comment to greet Jackson with.
Except it’s not Jackson I’m greeted by.
“Ma.” I make no effort to hide my surprise. She shouldn’t be here; in Sun Valley nor at my apartment because I sure as shit never forwarded her my new address.
Ma offers me a wonky smile, awkwardly adjusting the strap of her handbag. “I wanted to see you.”
“How do you know where I live?”
“You’re my kid, hun. Of course I know where you live.”
I don’t know what to say to that so I just nod. A painful couple of silent minutes pass when I stand with the door barely open, like I’m guarding the apartment against her, while she dithers awkwardly an arm’s length away, before I sigh. “Do you wanna come in?”
When she nods, I reluctantly step back and wave her in. She brushes past me, hands twisting nervously as she surveys the apartment. “This place is nice.”
“Yeah.” Considering how much Daddy Dearest is paying for it, it better be nice. Morally opposed to taking his money as I am, when Pen asked me to move in, I couldn’t say no. She didn’t want to live alone, and I had nowhere else to go.
Plus, every so often, when we’re feeling particularly sour about the situation, we run up the electricity and water bills on purpose.
“Is Pen home?”
“She’s out.” Staying at her boyfriend’s for the night, which works out well; if Jackson makes me cry again, at least there won’t be any witnesses this time. Pen was downright murderous the other night, spewing vicious threats and colorful expletives that, if I wasn’t already completely sure, would’ve definitely convinced me of our blood relation.
Speaking of… I glance at the clock on the wall. Almost seven. “Did you need something? I have plans.”
Ma’s face twists into a half-wince, half-grimace. “I want to talk to you, Luna.”
Yeah, well, get in line.
“So, talk.”
“Luna, enough. Stop with the hostility, please.”
“I’m not being hostile. I just don’t have time for this.”
Ma sighs. “I’m worried about you, Lu.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.” There’s a snap to her voice, an extra bit of fire in blue eyes. “Almost drinking yourself to death isn’t fine. Almost losing your scholarship isn’t fine.”
“That’s none of your business.” God, I have no idea how she even knows about any of that.
“It is my business, you’re my kid.”
I snort.
“And Jackson…”
I swear to God, at the mention of his name, the hair on the back of my neck stands up. Like a fucking dog with raised hackles. “Don’t talk about Jackson.”
“You and him broke up and you didn’t even tell me. Your dad told me.”
“He’s not my dad.”
A dad gives you rides to school. A dad makes silly jokes and embarrasses you in front of your friends. A dad doesn’t make your chest hurt and your head ache and cause bile to crawl up your throat and a ball of self-hatred to settle deep in your gut.
A dad is around longer than a few fucking agonizing months.
I don’t understand why she doesn’t get that.
“Hun, I know this is hard-”
“This isn’t hard.” I can’t help but laugh at the absurdity in that one little word. “This is fucking unbearable.”
Being around her, being in that house, God, even being around Pen sometimes is unbearable. That’s another thing I don’t understand, how everyone else seems to be able to handle it yet I can’t.
How she seems to be able to handle it. How I’m the one fucking dying under the weight of this guilt when she’s the one who messed up. How he keeps his house and his wife and his reputation while everyone else suffers.
I just don’t fucking get it.
“How can you sit there in a home that you ruined and act like everything’s fine? Do you even understand how fucked that is?” My voice cracks as I blink back tears. “Did you even apologize for what you did? Do you even regret it at all?”
“Of course I don’t,” Ma answers without hesitation, her voice and expression soft as she reaches for me. “It gave me you.”
“That’s a bullshit answer.” I step out of her arm’s length. “It’s like you don’t even care. You’re so fucking selfish.”
“Lu-”
“Get out.” She doesn’t move. She just stands there, staring at me, mouth a little slack jaw like she can’t believe what I’m saying. “Get out.”
Achingly slowly, she turns around, walking towards the door at the same pace, glancing over her shoulder all the while like she’s waiting for me to ask her to stay.
I don’t.
I wait until the door shuts behind her before I let the tears stinging my eyes fall. They stream down my face as I collapse on the sofa, falling faster and faster the more worked up I get. My head falls in my hands as my entire body starts to shake.
I’m so fucking sick of this. The fighting and the anger and the guilt and the fucking secrets. I can’t do it anymore, I can’t deal with the bullshit. I need it all to fucking stop, just for a minute.
A moaning, wail of a noise escapes me when there’s another knock on the door. I try to ignore it but it’s unrelenting, a steady rapping of knuckles. When the doorbell goes, I almost scream. Assuming it’s my mom coming back for round two, I rip the door open, ready to yell or scream or just fucking cry, I don’t know.
Even through tear-blurred eyes, I can tell it’s definitely not my mom.
The sight of Jackson standing there, a plastic grocery bag in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other, only makes me cry harder. Pink and blue flowers. Pink and blue fucking flowers with a white ribbon securing the stems. I’m not even crying anymore, I’m sobbing, weeping, wailing, whatever the step above just crying is, and it’s so fucking absurd that flowers are what’s sending me over the edge. Shaking my head, I try to slam the door. “Please, just leave.”
I shouldn’t be surprised that he does no such thing.
Instead, he pushes the door open, forcing his way inside as I cover my face with my hands, like I’m trying to hide the tears. Over the sound of the godawful noises escaping me, I hear the door click shut before fingers wrap around my wrists and gently tug my hands away from my face, replacing them with a new pair. I keep my eyes squeezed shut but, God, I can just picture his face, concern lighting up those brown eyes. Concern I don’t deserve, not from him, concern I can’t breathe under the weight of.
“What’s wrong?”
I try to say ‘nothing’ but it ends up as another wail that hurts my throat and my head, the noise muffled as I’m cemented against a hard chest. “You’re scaring me, sweetheart.”
“Please don’t call me that.” I can’t take him calling me that.
Jackson walks us backwards until my calves hit the sofa, pushing me gently to sit. He crouches in front of me, one hand smoothing up and down my thigh while the other guides my head to rest in the crook of his shoulder. “You’re okay.”
I’m not sure how long we stay like that, him providing gentle touches and soothing words while I snot all over him. Long enough for me to gas out, I guess. For my tear ducts to dry up. Until I manage to pull myself just a little bit together, uncurling my fists from where they’re fisting his t-shirt and un-plastering myself from him.
Red-hot embarrassment creeping up my cheeks, I slump back, swiping my palms over my eyes. “Sorry,” I mumble, cringing at my raspy voice.
He dismisses my apology with a shake of his head. “What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Lu, c’mon.”
I tug my legs out of his grip, tucking them underneath me. Cautiously, he stands and sits beside me, a carefully calculated distance away.
“Luna, please. Tell me what’s going on with you.” When I remain silent, he adds, in that soft, kind, fucking concerned voice, “I’m worried about you.”
“I never asked you to be.”
“That’s not how it works.” His head shakes, frustration brewing. “I just wanna help.”
“I didn’t ask for that either.” My hands rake through my hair as I stand again, arms spreading wide and gesturing at nothing. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“For what, for me?” Jackson challenges, rising too. “For me to love you? My sincerest fucking apologies.”
“This isn’t about you.”
“Then why am I the one that got hurt?”
“You got hurt?” A bitter laugh escapes me. “I met my dad. I met my fucking dad and it turns out he is just the asshole I thought he would be. Worse, actually, because I never imagined him having a pregnant wife. For months I sat in a classroom staring at my father and I didn’t know. I befriended my fucking sister and I didn’t know. My parents are a pair of cheating liars and I didn’t know so tell me again how you’re the one who got hurt.”
Jackson freezes. He tries so hard to stifle his reaction but complete and utter shock is hard to hide. I can practically see the cogs in his head turning, retracing the last year and slowly piecing everything together, and I see the exact moment it clicks. “Professor Jacobs?”
I nod, barely.
My name leaves his mouth on a long, breathy exhale and I bristle at the pity it holds. “Don’t.” I step back, hands outstretched like that could possibly keep him away. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
“You don’t have to lie to me, Lu.”
My eyes squeeze shut again. There’s a headache building behind them, and I don’t know whether it’s from crying or if it’s because I’m just so fucking tired. “Okay. It’s not fine.” I’m not fine. “It’s fucked. It’s so fucked up that it makes me sick thinking about.”
“That’s why you have dinner at the Jacobs’ house.”
“Yup.”
“And Pen is…” your sister.
“Uh-huh.”
“And that’s why-” Jackson cuts himself off, like he can’t bring himself to say it, and he doesn’t need to.
That’s why you broke up with me.
I hear it loud and clear.
My chest aches as I hum a yes.
“Jesus, Luna.” His voice drifts closer and I squeeze my eyes shut tighter. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”
“I didn’t tell anyone.”
“The girls don’t know?” When I shake my head, I hear his sigh, feel his frown. “Why?”
Opening my eyes, I can’t help but laugh at the confusion on his face. “Because I’m fucking embarrassed, Jackson. I hate what they did and I hate that I’m a part of it. Pen can barely look her dad in the eye because of me. Her mom cries all the time because of me.”
“Not because of you,” he argues. “It’s his fault. His responsibility, not yours.”
“Stop.” I back up another step. This is exactly what I didn’t want. People telling me how I should feel, trying to rationalize and logicize. I don’t want to be rational, I don’t want to be logical, I want to be fucking angry. “You don’t get it.”
“Really?” It’s Jackson’s turn to laugh. “I don’t get fucked up parents? Really?
“It’s not the same.”
“No, it’s not, but I still fucking get it, Luna.” He closes the distance between us so fast, I don’t get the chance to retreat. Nor do I manage to duck when his palms cup my face, no avoiding brown eyes holding mine hostage. “When are you gonna get it in your head that you don’t have to deal with shit alone, hm?”
“When are you gonna get it in your head that we’re broken up?”
His flinch is only a split second but in my head, it lasts an eternity.
An apology sits on my tongue but I can’t bring myself to say it. When his hands drop, I can’t bring myself to admit I miss them. And when he turns away, I can’t bring myself to tell him not to leave.
Luckily for me, he doesn’t.
I blink, confused, as he instead of hightailing it out the door like he should, he heads to the kitchen, one hand flicking the kettle on while the other retrieves two mugs. “What’re you doing?”
“Making tea.”
Making tea.
He’s making tea.
“You’re not leaving?”
“I promised you dinner.”
“And tea is dinner?” I quip, despite the fact that for many weeks post-Jackson, tea was the only dinner I could stomach.
Setting the grocery bag I forgot he had on the counter, he starts pulling out ingredients. “I’m making ramen.”
For fuck’s sake. I hate when he plays dirty like this, and cooking is fucking filthy.
Especially ramen. Once upon a time, he made it for me all the time. He was so appalled when he got me eating the two-minute stuff from a packet, he started stocking my fridge with the stuff.
Between him and Nick, we could go weeks without cooking.
Against my better judgment–or maybe in complete tune with it–I follow Jackson into the kitchen. I hoist myself onto the counter farthest from him, hands tucked beneath my thighs. “That’ll take a while.”
“Good,” is his firm reply. “Plenty of time to talk.”
Yet talk, he doesn’t do.
He just silently cooks and I don’t know if it’s a torturous punishment, payback for being a bitch, or if he’s giving me a second to breathe.
Actually, that’s a lie. I know.
I might be pretending I don’t because it’s just a little easier that way but I know.
Not until a mouthwatering smell floods my apartment, a broth bubbles on the stove, does he turn to me wearing that overly serious expression I used to poke fun at, once upon a time. “I’m sorry about the other day.”
It’s instant, the flush of heat that envelops me, an interesting, regrettable mixture of embarrassment and lust because that is exactly what thinking about The Incident incites. “We don’t have to talk about this now.”
“That’s why I came over,” he reminds me, abandoning his cooking and moving to stand in front of me. “I didn’t mean for what I said to come out the way it did.“
“It’s fine.”
“It was mean and it upset you so it’s not fine.”
I say nothing, too focused on watching his hand sliding up my leg until it rests dangerously high on my upper thigh. A finger hooks beneath my chin, tilting upwards and directing my gaze to his.
Brown eyes burn into me, alight with that damn intense look that does weird things to my stomach. “I don’t think of you as some hookup or a meaningless fuck. That’s what I was trying to say. That’s what I would’ve said if you hadn’t run off. Nothing has changed for me, Luna. When something happens between us again, it’s not gonna be a one time thing.”
When. Not if.
When.
Something lodges itself in my throat as he bends until we’re eye level, one dark brow crooked. “Got it?”
All I can do is nod.
“I’m sorry for upsetting you.”
Again, a weak nod is the extent of my capabilities.
The corner of his mouth quirks up as he makes a pleased noise. Before I can blink, he drops his hand and spins around, returning to his meal-in-progress with a carefree whistle.
Me? I’m still focused on that one word.
When.
