Page 66 of Breaking Away

The night of prom must mean nothing to him.

26

KAVI

The next few days,back home in Seattle, I’m on my laptop. All five hundred photos have been edited and sent to Anna for her anniversary party. My finger refreshes the screen for the fifth time. There’s been no response.

My shoulders droop.

She won’t do anything with them.There was that other photographer there. With his work, there’s no need to look at anything I’ve sent her. At least I got paid as a favor to my mom.

Putting my laptop away, I check my phone. No missed calls from my parents or Tyler. Ever since I bailed on the Big Gesture Tyler had planned, they’ve switched tactics. They are icing me out.

My chin quivers. I sprawl on the sofa, ignoring the heaviness in my belly. I don’t know what to do. About them, but also with my time. Before this breakup, my days were full, spent assisting my dad and Tyler. Now, I’m a fish dangling on a hook, torn asunder from the busyness of the sea. Everyone expects me to get tired, go limp, and give in.

Turning my face, I scream into a pillow.

All I want to do is message Tyler, tell him we’re over because I’ve been riding dick after dick, like so many dicks I’ve lost count of them, and that I’m so full of cum that I’m surely pregnant by now. Or…

I could post a photo I took of Lokhov playing. I could caption it provocatively, telling everyone I was there, watching him. Nothing like fawning over a sworn rival’s game to deliver a succinct fuck-you message.

Right now, they assume I stayed back in Vancouver to weep and journal.

That’s not what happened! My mind goes to dazzling lights, waltzing, and riding a thigh?—

Heat floods my body as if I’ve plunged head-first into a whirlpool. Miniature pulsing sensations ripple through me. I’ve tried to be good, to not remember the club, but that locked door cracks open. Images flood back. The demanding grip on my hips, the taunting of his low voice, and his mocking cajolement.

Use me.

What a lazy, cocky dare. As if none of it matters to him, but I could go on and touch him if I cared to. The audacity of his erection for being so overlarge, prodding, andthere.

Don’t look?

Well, don’t poke me in the eye with it!

But also the embarrassment of his apology afterward that we had taken it too far. How we weren’t acting smart, and how he didn’t want to be my friend after I asked him to be in a moment of silly weakness.

My toes curl.

No matter how much I tell myself it didn’t matter, that it meant nothing, my skin gets so sensitive every time I remember it all. The good. Bad. The possessed. My clothes chafe. I want to take them off just to breathe.

But I don’t.

I grab my laptop again and search for photography gigs. A sweet sixteen party comes up. The pay works out to be… right at minimum wage. Goodie. I message them my contact information.

Below that gig is another one. My fingers squeeze together until they cramp.

Boudoir photoshoot.

A memory resurfaces of me talking to Tyler.

“What do you think of me working as a boudoir photographer?” I whisper to him, lying in bed.

“No.”

“But I could do it for people of all different body shapes and sizes…”

“No, you aren’t classless,” he decides.

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