Page 59 of Shame

“I need you to take that quiz,” I whisper. “Because it’s not that simple for me. I took a whole class about being Little and I’m not really that, exactly.”

“I’m definitely too drunk to know what that means, but there are classes?”

I nod. “There are.”

“I have a lot to learn, don’t I?”

“Yep.”

He catches my hand and pulls it to his mouth. He kisses my knuckles, then gives me a sad look. “How are you sleeping?”

“I’m not.” I bite my lower lip. “Do you remember what I said when we were fooling around? I need to masturbate like that to fall asleep.”

His mouth falls open. I wonder if he’ll remember that when he sobers up.

He moves his hand to my face and strokes my cheek. “I wish we had done a lot of things differently.”

“Me too.” Then I jump all the way in. “We still can.”

He crushes his mouth against mine, claiming me, and I free fall into his embrace. He makes a noise, sweet and agonizing at the same time, and hoists me up. Drunk, but still strong.

I need more. I claw at his shirt, desperate for the feel of his skin under my fingers.

He changes the angle of the kiss, deepening it.

For years, everything felt hard, like the world wasn’t turning properly on its axis. This isn’t hard. I hate that and love it at the same time, but I’m done fighting it.

“I wrote you another note,” he groans as I move my mouth down his neck.

“I’m done being offered to strangers on the street.”

“Isnotthat,” he mumbles. Then he gently shoves me off him and grabs a notepad at the end of the couch. On it are a bunch of lines, half-formed thoughts, and then three sentences are underlined.

Trust

Doubt

Faith

Evidence

I know you will always have a reason to doubt me.

I can’t erase that.

But I want to give you more reasons to let me love you anyway.

He drops the notepad and grabs my hands. “I know I’m drunk. I really didn’t like the idea of you going to a hotel, and what my brain did with that information. But doing things different, yeah. I like that plan. Tell me what you want. Maybe I want it, too? I do want it. I want everything Grace wants.”

The list rolls off my tongue with ease. I know it inside and out by now. “I want to cook dinner with my partner almost every night. Side by side in the kitchen, sharing a bottle of wine. Half drunk on it by the time we eat, and the things that we eat…I want pasta, without a care in the world for whether it bloats me. I want all the fucking bread. I want fancy salad and a big ass porterhouse for two. I want to make those decisions together, with someone who is as into food as I am, because he isn’t hung up on what he looks like. I want—”

“Let me give that one a try. The food. And I want to share a bottle of wine with you.”

“You don’t like wine.”

“That was the old me. Obviously I can drink tequila, which tastes like a cactus fell into a vat of vodka, so let me give wine a chance.”

“Maybe no booze at all would be smarter,” I whisper. But when have I ever been smart? “I went on a bit of a rant about the food, but that’s just the start of the list.”

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