Page 70 of Whiskey Splash

“You’re not,” he whispers.

I nod, but my mind is caught in how I will find a way to say all of this.

Wondering if I even should.

He runs a quiet finger along my cheek, waiting, and I roll onto my back and look up at the ceiling. It’s lined with a glossy faux wood that’s shiny and too reflective, our outlines visible in the panel, a ghosted whisper of myself below, as if that will always be the most honest image of me.

Blurry.

Undefined.

Someone you can’t really see.

Desmond pulls his hands off my body like he knows I need the space, and we lie there for several long moments before I find the courage to say, “Something happened when I was in college.”

I pull my hair off my neck and spread it out wide like a halo, the blurry rivers of my wild hair reaching out like fingertips.

“I had this boyfriend, Jeremy,” I say, closing my eyes and reminding myself to breathe. “He took pictures of us when we were together. Intimate. It seemed harmless when it was happening. But I was young and stupid and I thought we were two college kids being silly. It was the kind of thing where a part of you knows you’re doing something risky and naughty, but you’re blinded by how much you care about the other person, and how close you feel to them, that you trust them without thinking about if that trust is really founded. You take for granted that they feel the same way about you as you do them, and you’d never question the fact that intimate, private moments you share are just between the two of you. Maybe it’s something about falling in love for the first time that makes you so damn naive, and you just can’t see what people are really doing. Cause, he …”

I lose my words, the taste of them sour, aching out a darkness that is easier left unspoken.

My face in the reflection above is smeared and blurry, reminding me that I can stop talking about this, push it away, let it ghost back into my heart with its sharpness.

“I already want to kill this guy,” Desmond says, his voice soft, but angry.

The fist in Desmond’s voice hits a tendon in the air, cutting a string in me, and unlacing my lungs. I glance at him for the briefest of moments and all those knots I kneaded out of his shoulders are back. I pick up his hand and thread my fingers through his, surprised that the rough of his fingers makes me feel more confident.

“You probably know where this is headed,” I continue, losing a breath and leaning into the wobble inside it. “He shared the photos. Initially, I thought it was only with his friends. I was furious, of course, but then later, after we broke up—” I flatten out his hand between my fingers, tracing the lines of his upturned palm. “Strangers at school, people I didn’t even know, they, um, they started soliciting me.” A tremor shakes in my chest, that fire of shame building. “Asking me if I’d do things I—”

I swallow, curling up his fingers and closing my eyes.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Desmond says kindly, the bed compressing as he rolls slightly to kiss my temple. “I can imagine.”

“It’s worse than you imagine.”

I run my tongue over the back of my teeth, up the ridges at the top of my mouth, wondering if words exist for what I feel, wondering if the words will scrape and scar my lips to shreds.

“They were things I’d never do,” I say finally. “Things I didn’t even do with Jeremy. But somehow, when people see pictures of you doing anything sexual, and you’re a girl …”

I drop his hand back on his chest and cover my face, the heat of my hands on my clammy skin making me realize I’m burning.

“Well, I guess you cease to be human anymore,” I manage. “To them, you just become a body, something they think they can own and objectify, harass. Something they can say nasty, awful things to.”

“Sometimes I hate human beings,” Desmond says, his hand curling into a fist. Through my fingers I can see his eyes wishing he could erase this for me, remove this wound. “I’m so sorry,” he apologizes, as if he needs to speak for all of mankind, as if to say this dark knot of pain doesn’t define how he sees me. “Oh God,” Desmond’s face falls, devastation wracking through his features. “Then that paparazzi piece of shit took our photos and you must have thought—”

He turns to me, his entire body rigid, needing to punch something, his eyes pleading.

“Esme, I’m so sorry!”

“You didn’t do it on purpose,” I say softly. “I mean, you didn’t do it at all. You are as much a victim as I am in it all.”

“Yeah, except I didn’t have to relive a personal trauma. Shit, Esme.” He sits up and curls forward to rest his arms on his knees. “No wonder you didn’t want to talk to me again. And then I showed up at your house all cocky and saying crass things, like a fucking douchebag.” He turns back to look at me. “Why are you even here right now? How is it possible that I’m not the one with the restraining order?”

I brave wrapping my hand around his elbow and pulling him back down next to me so we’re facing again. I stare at him for a long time, eventually daring to touch his lip with the knuckle of my pinky, tracing the sensitive space between us, etching out lines of definition made of patience and tenderness.

After a long while I say, “You do realize that you’re also addicting, Desmond.” The words are soft, spun in a yarn of vulnerability that requires bright lights and exposure. “I wantto know you, Desmond. I want to—”

My fingers trace the line of his chin, the curve of his neck, his shoulder.

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