Page 124 of Amnesty

Opening my eyes, I glanced at the space Eddie always occupied. He was gone. I was beneath the covers alone.

The room was still very dark. Day had yet to break. It was too early for him to be up making coffee, and I didn’t hear him in the bathroom. Anxiety pierced me; my chest squeezed uncomfortably as I rolled onto my back.

Something was wrong.

Without hesitation, I pushed up, nearly falling back when I realized I wasn’t alone. The gasp was so unexpected, my surprise so great, I started to cough.

With watering eyes, I forced the reflex back and stared at the foot of the bed.

At Sadie.

I blinked. Blinked again. Was she really there? Or was this just a dream?

“I’m real,” Sadie spoke. The sound of her voice sent goose bumps over my naked body.

I gasped again, folding my arms over my exposed chest.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before,” Sadie remarked. “Both of us. We’re very familiar with the sight of each other naked.”

A sudden, terrible flash of memory cut through me.

Both of us on our backs. Both of us shoulder to shoulder. Him switching off between us… The sound of his heavy breathing.

“No,” I exclaimed, slapping my hands over my ears as if it would somehow stop the images.

Remarkably, it did.

Thank God.

Chest heaving, my stare cut over to the empty spot beside me. Where was Eddie?

“He’s busy,” Sadie informed me.

Forgetting I was naked, I burst up, angry. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing. I would never do anything to Eddie. I love him.” She said it so calmly, without passion, as though she were speaking about shutting off the water or taking out the trash.

“If you loved him, you wouldn’t have tried to murder his best friend!” I yelled. Adrenaline pumped through me, and I clutched onto it.

I moved around the side of the bed, grabbing the pair of panties I’d abandoned to the floor when we got home. Sliding them up over my legs, I had a brief memory of how they felt being dragged by Eddie’s fingertips, down over my hips, over my knees, until they were gone.

Last night had been the first night we’d made love since the memory I had at the hospital. After I remembered being raped and used as a replacement to Sadie.

I thought it might be hard to be intimate like that after the memory rooted into my brain. After just recalling I was basically a human chew toy and reliving the soreness of my body after that man did unconscionable things to it.

It wasn’t difficult at all.

That man didn’t even factor into the moments I shared with Eddie. When I was naked beneath him (or over him) with his hands all over my skin, all I felt was love.

He’d been nervous. I knew he thought about what I’d been through. Eddie was cautious with me, but then pure passion came over us both, and nothing else mattered.

“I don’t know why you’re even bothering with clothes.” Sadie interrupted my thoughts. “You know he won’t let you keep them.”

“It doesn’t matter what he wants,” I said, tugging on a pair of sweats, reaching for a T-shirt.

“Are you sure about that?”

Whatever I heard in her voice scared me. I stopped cold, looking up. “Where is Eddie?”

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