Page 17 of Love Defies Us

I straighten my spine and play with the end of my robe. “We went to Harvard together and we met at party our junior year. He was being a stupid jerk and tried to fuck an old friend of mine. I never saw him in a sexual way.” I had to say the last part to ease the tension he’s radiating.

“Yeah, I know. I finished reading your diary this morning, you referred to him as the twin brother you never had.”

“Are you still worried?”

His expression grows dark. “I think I should leave, Sadie.”

“No, it’s raining really hard and you’ll get pneumonia getting caught in that.”

Before allowing him to respond, I grab his hard biceps and pull him into the bedroom. I get it. He’s hiding his feelings like a child who wants to hide from the boogie man. But I don’t blame him. If I had a fiancée who cheated on me and left me for my uncle, I wouldn’t have been nice about it. But I want to prove to him that not all of us are not bad.

Once he comes into my room, he glances around. My room is huge and spacious. Clean and everything in its place. I always keep my makeup on my dresser on the right and my lipstick collection is organized by color. Even my clothes in my drawer are arranged by color. I like to have everything neat and organized.

Then he picks up a digital picture of me and Jasper when we went ziplining over the river last year and he sets it back down. I take off my robe and his eyes are glued to my body as if they’re trying to melt my skin off. Then I grab my t-shirt with the Little Mermaid on it and put it on. He eyes a stack of old diaries, he randomly grabs one and swipes through the pages and reads out loud.

“I want to feel his love beneath me, like when you lie on a towel in the Sun on the beach. I want to burn with his passion and his desire. I want him to love me like I’m his precious object.”

He flips through some more pages and reads out loud again

“What’s the antidote to heartbreak? Love. Love conquers us all. Love devours us all. Love consumes us all. It’s what human nature tries to strive for-to be loved.”

His muddy eyes meet my coal ones and a shiver down my spine feels like an ice cube burning me. “Who were you speaking about?”

I put my head down, embarrassed. “No one.”

Then I drag my eyes back to his and curiosity dances on his face. “You’ve never been in love?”

I shake my head and I look out the open blinds. Rain pitter-patters on my window. It’s raining so hard that the only thing I see is blurred gray. “I always wanted to know how it feels to be in love. To have that unconditional love. To have that love like the classic romances, like The Notebook or The Choice.”

He frowns at my words in disgust. As if my words are the most disgusting thing he ever heard.

“You get your feelings out on paper,” he says.

I nod slightly. “Yes, it’s the best therapy. You should try it sometime.”

He removes his shirt and shorts, tossing them on the floor.

“Can I use your shower?”

“Sure, Jasper keeps new packets of underwear for his boyfriend in his room, let me go get one.”

“Boyfriend?”

“He has a girlfriend and boyfriend. He loves his polygamous relationship.”

He glances at me as if I told him that Jasper was an alien. Shocked and curious. That’s a common reaction I get when they learn that my best friend has an open relationship.

“Would you be interested in a threesome?” he asks.

At least he isn’t acting like a cliché, asking me a whole bunch of weird-ass questions about Jasper’s sex life.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” My mouth turns up into a wicked smile.

“It would be hot to watch another woman eat your pussy, but I don’t want to share you.”

I twist my watch around my wrist. “I wasn’t thinking of a woman joining us, I was thinking of another man. Double penetration.”

“Fuck no. No man is getting what’s mine.”

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