Page 94 of Forged By Sacrifice

THE GUY: Come home. We need to talk.

ME: We already talked.

THE GUY: Come home, Georgie.

The demand and the plea were written in the text. Or maybe I just wanted to believe it was there, and my heart hurt from it all. From wanting to be wanted. From wanting to be a part of their family. From the guilt of knowing what my addition would do to them.

But I also knew I wouldn’t be able to resist. That I would go home, drawn like a bat to the darkness of its cave as the dawn approached, hoping I wouldn’t be trailing with me any blood-borne pathogens.

Mac

SAVE ROOM

“This just might hurt a little

Love hurts sometimes when you do it right.”

Performed by John Legend

Written by Buie / Cobb / Stephens / Adams / Wilson

I’d woken to her gone. The scent of her all over my body and my sheets, but not her. I’d wanted to wake up with the warmth of her in my arms. That was different than I’d ever felt after sex with a woman. Normally, I wanted to be gone before the look in their eyes changed from lust to love. I hadn’t been prepared for love.

I hadn’t been prepared until Georgie.

I pulled on a pair of sweats and a T-shirt and left my room.

“Georgie?”

Nothing. Silence. But she’d showered. I could smell the steam and the cherry-blossom scent that was in her shampoo or soap or just her. I looked toward the entryway where we all tended to throw our bags and keys. Her bag was gone. She’d left.

It hurt. It lodged a deep, bitter mark inside me.

One night she’d said.

I’d agreed.

Why had I agreed when I’d known all along that I didn’t want just one night?

I’d agreed because I was selfish. I’d agreed because I hadn’t wanted her to stop what we’d started. I’d agreed because I’d known she was still thinking about her family, and my plans, and the reason I’d run from her in Rockport. I still hadn’t been able to convince her of the possibility of forever, but I’d stupidly thought that I could show her, with my hands and my mouth, what I felt, and that she’d know the truth without words.

I didn’t want to shower. I wanted to keep the scent of us?of her?all over my skin for as long as possible. So instead, I made coffee and sank down on the couch, turning on all three TVs that Dani had going whenever she was in the apartment, politics running across all three of them. Some made my blood boil; some made me want to cheer; all of it made me want to stand up and shout that we could be better than this. Humanity. We didn’t have to destroy each other and the planet as we fought for power.

I must have fallen asleep, because the front door clicking open had me jumping awake and barking, “Georgie,” all at the same time. It was Dani. She looked at me like I had lost my mind.

She wasn’t in her blue dress. She had on capris and a tank top.

“Where’d you get the change of clothes?”

She hadn’t had a bag with her last night when we’d left for the reception.

“I have a few things at Russell’s.”

“So, this thing with Russell… It’s more than casual.”

“No.”

“You don’t leave things at a guy’s place if it’s just casual, Dani.”

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