Page 4 of Can't Have Him

But I can’t have her.

And it’s going to be torture, her sitting there for the next fifteen weeks.

When I finish up with my first-day-of-class spiel, there’s still a few minutes left. I dismiss the students early. And as it always happens on the first day of class, a few students immediately come up to my desk, syllabus in hand, with questions for me.

I answer their questions, all the meanwhile keeping an eye out for Olivia. As she walks by my desk on her way out, I clear my throat and say, “Excuse me, Miss Williams? Can I speak with you for a minute?”

Wordlessly, she nods, and slowly walks over to my desk.

There’s still a few people leaving the classroom, and I wait until they’re gone before I speak.

“Please don’t take offense to this,” I say, carefully looking at her. “But I think that maybe—”

“I’m dropping the class,” she quickly says.

I’m relieved to hear her say it. I hate that we’re in this situation right now. But I know it’s the most sensible thing for her to do.

“Okay,” I say.

“That’s what you were going to suggest, right?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

She nods, then readjusts the strap of her backpack on her shoulder. “Well…I would say that it was good to see you…but I wish I hadn’t.”

“I wish the same,” I say.

She presses her lips together, then looks over at the door. “I have to get to my next class.”

“Of course,” I say. “Good luck with everything, Olivia.”

And as she walks out of my classroom, I have to fight off my desire to go after her.There’s no point, I tell myself.There’s no point.

But that doesn’t make me long for her any less.

* * *

Last night,when I told Olivia that I understood what it was like to feel as if you’d wasted years on a relationship, I wasn’t just saying that—in my case, it was almost a solid decade that felt wasted. Now that some time has passed, I no longer feel that way, but when the breakup was fresh, I definitely did.

My ex’s name is Isabella. On the whole, we had a good relationship. In the end, though, she refused to make the kind of commitment that I was looking for, and we broke up the night I proposed. I went into the proposal knowing that might happen—we’d talked multiple times about marriage, and I knew how hesitant she was about it—but still, I’d hoped that after nine and a half years together, she’d say yes.

These days, I can say with complete certainty that I’m over Isabella. And I’ll go for long periods of time when she never crosses my mind. But every so often I have this recurring dream she’s in, where Isabella is just staring at me, saying, “She’s out there, James. She’s out there.”

Tonight is one of those nights when I have the dream.

It’s the same as always—an ill-defined, shifting background, Isabella dressed in wispy gray, her face both tired and imploring. She says the usual lines to me, and then looks away, out into the distance, and says it again.

But then, abruptly, I’m in another dream. Now I’m sitting in a cabana, in the middle of somewhere tropical, and Olivia is by my side. When I look over at her, she smiles at me. Somehow, without using my hands, I take a sip of a drink.

“Told you you’d like it,” Olivia says.

And then, slowly, keeping her eyes on mine, she comes over and straddles me.

I wake from the dream with the morning autumn sun slanting into my eyes and my hard-on straining against the bed sheets. Groaning, I clench my hands into fists. I try to think of all the things I used to think about when I needed to get rid of a hard-on.

But my efforts are useless. It’s not going to go away.

“Fuck,” I grumble, and dig a hand down under the sheets. I grip my cock and start moving my hand, making quick, unrelenting strokes to get the job done. As I get close to finishing, I let out a low grunt, and then the feeling of sweet relief washes over me.

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