Page 91 of Rat Park
“Since the beginning!”
“Flor—”
“No! Okay, like, last summer when we slept together and, you were right. You were so right. We hadn’t agreed to anything! We said we’d sleep together and then when I asked—or not even asked, butassumedI’d get more and you didn’t know what I was talking about I blamedyoufor it! I, I called you an idiot and just stormed off and left you alone even though you ate that disgusting French toast…you could have gotten salmonella…”
“Flor.”
“And then! Then! When I came back and kissed you and you kissed me back and I blamed you for it again!”
“Ididkiss you back.”
“That’s not the point! See? See? That’s not the point! The point is I kept blaming you for things, for my own—it was wrong! It was so wrong. And you justagreed. You always, every time I treat you like shit you just agree!”
“I’m sorry.”
“No!” Flor clutched at Dominic’s shirt. “See? Oh my God I’m doing it again! It’s not your fault! Why are you sorry? Why?”
“Because you’re upset.”
“I’m upset at somethingIdid!”
“Okay, but I was part of that.”
“Yeah, and if I punched you in the face and hurt my hand, you’d be part of that too! Doesn’t mean you’re to blame for it.”
“But if I should have seen the punch coming—”
“Oh my God. This is another whole level of victim-blaming. No, Dominic, no, please.”
“Okay, Flor, just, calm down a second.” Dominic took Flor’s face in his hands. Flor blinked up at him with wide, wet eyes. “Believe it or not, I see what you’re saying.”
Flor opened his mouth to protest but Dominic cut him off with a shake of his head.
“No, wait. Let me finish. Okay. Let’s take that summer as an example. Yes, verbally we agreed we were going to have sex without any strings attached for the summer. But people don’t only communicate verbally. In fact, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m pretty bad at the whole ‘talking it out’ thing.”
Flor snorted softly. “You’ve gotten better.”
“Maybe. But the point is, yes, we agreed to have sex over the summer, but that’s not what we did. We spent the whole summer together. And yeah, we were friends, but friends don’t sleep together almost every night and cook breakfast and hold hands down the street. And I don’t think friends with benefits do that either. All summer I was telling you that I wanted more with my actions, because Idid. The ironic thing is that I communicate more with actions and you like to talk my ear off—”
“Hey.”
“And so you assumed I was telling you something through my actions, and I thought you couldn’t want more if you didn’t explicitly tell me, so our wires got crossed. It wasn’t wrong of you to assume all the signals I was sending you meant I wanted more.”
“Then you can’t blame yourself for not being able to read my mind and know I wanted more than I said I did when, like you said, I normally ‘talk your ear off’.”
“Fine. But the point is that what happened then was just…miscommunication. And, Flor. I think that…that’s a big part of any relationship. We’re gonna fuck up. Especially because we have such different types of communicating.”
Flor chewed on his lip. “Okay. But. What I did was still shitty because—let me finish! Because I didn’t talk it out. I was hurt and I took it out on you and that was shitty.”
“Pretty much like when I left you in the middle of the night the first time we slept together?” Dominic said, stomach twisting with guilt.
“That doesn’t make what I did better. I just…I’m sorry. For that.”
“Okay. I forgive you. And I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Flor, for leaving you that first time.”
Flor looked up at Dominic, stroking lightly with his fingers down Dominic’s cheek.
“I forgive you.”
