Page 17 of Endgame

Goddamn, Kodi, you’re shaking the entire bed.

Why would you buy lingerie? Such a waste of money. All I care about is what that mouth can do, not how your thick thighs look in straps.

The list could go on and on. Trevor’s unintentional cruelty dug deep. I’m better off without him; seeing it took me a minute.

Visiting the apartment only confirmed it.

None of the men I’ve been with since have ever made me feel less than desired, but they did leave me feeling paralyzed. Zero spark. Zero drive to seek pleasure. My sex life looked a lot like a constantly looped roller coaster.

I was going through the motions for the sake of hooking up.

Maybe I have trust issues, and nothing makes me feel safeanymore. I can tell myself that, but I know it’s the farthest thing from the truth.

I can’t fool myself with the thought that a quick hookup won’t give me the closeness I’m very clearly craving. Human touch is what I miss most. I’m slightly terrified I might burst into tears in the middle of it, though.

Talk about an immediate turnoff.

It’s not that I didn’t feel anything with Trevor. We dated and even lived together throughout college, but the romance part of our relationship felt more like living in the friendzone.

After losing my parents a year ago, I see now I clung to Trevor as a safety blanket rather than handling my grief and seeing my relationship with him for what it was—non-existent and unequally matched.

I think that was the moment I noticed he almost refrained from touching me. It makes you feel infected and at fault for something that’s entirely out of your control—like what you look like, for example.

Such a shallow viewpoint in retrospect.

Maybe I do need a little quickie?

Jesus, do people my age even say that anymore?

It’s more forceful than I’d typically go for, but it might work.

At this point, I couldn’t care less about the actual sex part—I’m craving a physical and emotional connection—physical touch from someone who wants to be touching me and isn’t a doctor or Navy.

You’d think my rose vibrator would have faced a permanent death by now with the amount of action it sees.

I make a mental note to text Navy in the morning requesting a girls' night at the club. She can bring Luke for all I care; I need my wing woman.

Delta is known for having the best of both worlds: good drinks and good-looking men.

Time to try something new.

After showering quickly,I grab my comfiest sweats, tie my hair up in a messy bun, and plop down in my oversized chair with my laptop.

I’m behind on updating my galleries. That’s nothing new, but the stress is weighing heavily on me.

Truth be told, I’m behind on everything right now.

My mind is playing the role of my worst enemy, not letting me set my focus on more than one thing at a time.

The current thing consuming my thoughts is this job offer.

I’ve been a lifestyle photographer since I was twenty-five. After graduating from the University of Georgia, I felt nothing but excitement about what the future held. With my school years behind me and a degree in journalism in hand, however, the desire to work in the field I paid tens of thousands of dollars to be educated in was the last thing I wanted to do.

So I didn’t.

I picked up the dusty camera my parents gifted me for my twenty-first birthday and started shooting photos of things that brought me joy.

I came to find out that the thing that brought me the most joy was photography. My heart hurts recalling the memory of when I first knew I found my place.

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