Page 42 of The Trust We Broke
Given the way she’s grinding against me, given the way she’s tugging on my hair and fucking my tongue with hers, she doesn’t need them.
But why did she do it?
The words come back to me. Louder this time. This isn’t closure. This is the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing and hoping for a different result.
As good as it feels in this moment, it’s not going to feel good in an hour when I’m still utterly clueless as to why she left me when I needed her most.
I release her throat.
“Luce,” I murmur against her lips, but she doesn’t stop.
Pressing her to the truck with my chest, I reach behind me and disentangle her arms from around my neck.
“Luce,” I repeat, this time a little louder.
When she snaps out of the sexual haze she’s in, her lips are plump and likely bruised. Her chin is a little red from my scruff. And her eyes are wide, filled with a need I want to deliver on.
“For my own sanity, before we go any farther, I need to know why you did what you did,” I say.
The words may as well have thrown a bucket of cold water over her. She looks around like she has no idea how she got here. How she ended up in my arms. How she’s so aroused that her neck and the small vee of her chest I can see beneath her blouse have turned the mottled pink they always did when she was close to coming.
“Put me down,” she says quietly.
I put my hands beneath her armpits, and when her feet are on solid ground, I hold her hand to help steady her.
She studies the ground for a second. “We shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry.”
She pushes me away and hurries to grab her bag before heading to her truck. And the tide of anger I had when I first arrived returns.
“Just fucking tell me,” I yell.
But she doesn’t answer.
She simply gets in her father’s truck and drives away.
11
LUCY
The following morning, I sit and stare at my laptop screen, still feeling the sharp edge of sexual frustration.
Normally, when I get an itch like this, I simply scratch it. I have a healthy relationship with sex and am comfortable with my boundaries. I’m as happy solo as I am with a partner.
But given my mother’s morning habit of stopping by my room when she feels like it, I resist. Sure, I locked my door, but even her knock would jolt me out of it. Although, I’m tempted to shower, just so I can have some privacy.
“Focus,” I mutter as I look at the spreadsheet of transactions I made from one of Dad’s notebooks overnight. It’s a bit like one of those puzzle books. Like, if the man in the green hat isn’t Paul, then what T-shirt is Jim wearing.
My phone vibrates, and another message from Henry pops up.
Henry:Do you know where we keep that little gadget to bleed the radiators? I can’t find it.
I lean back in my chair and look up at the ceiling.
When I divorced Grudge, I gave myself some time to mourn, then tried to convince myself that my future relationships wouldbe even better. But they weren’t. And the few colleagues I had who spoke about their relationships, never spoke about them in the wild and breathless and deeply connected way I’d felt about Grudge.
Would I have still divorced him if I’d known what I had with Zach was the real deal and nobody else would ever come close?
I tried with every part of my being to believe the whole “soul mates are bullshit” routine. Like, how could so many people divorce, or remarry after the death of a spouse, if that person wasn’t at least as good as the person they were with previously?
