Page 40 of Winter Break Up

It’s been less than twelve hours since he was inside me on the couch in my parent’s basement, and yet I’m horny as a dog in heat.

My hands move gently across his skin, pushing and pressing while sighs of relief fall from Mercer’s lips. Taking care of him like this is something I often envision when we’re together; I won’t lie and say being his WAG wasn’t a huge fantasy of mine back in the day. Obviously, I have zero aspirations of being the stereotypical trophy wife a lot of the public envisions, but I will fantasize about taking care of him after games, wearing his jersey, and being his shoulder to lean on during hard seasons or injuries. I want to be all of that for Mercer.

“How’s your anxiety been?” His hand stills mine where I dig my fingers into his flesh, and I realize he’s taking my silent ruminating as worry.

The warmth of his fingers brushing over mine is addicting. “Better.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” he hedges, bringing his leg off my lap.

Mercer scoots his chair so that his legs straddle mine, my knees hitting the rim of his chair while he pulls me into his chest. If anyone walks in right now, there’ll be no way to play this off as a platonic chat.

“Honestly, I’ve been feeling good. My medication is working, I haven’t been in my head as much, and my worries have eased.”

For now. It’s easier being home with him, with no thoughts of my future plaguing me. That will change soon, but for now, I feel solid.

“Have you ever thought of going into a nursing field that helps with mental health?” Mercer looks earnest as he says this.

It’s a turn-on that he’s not shying away from my recent issues. I shouldn’t be surprised, though. When we were together, he was the teenage boy who didn’t mind when I talked about tampons, my period, or other female health things. He’s always been so open and even eager to talk about anything. Still, it’s refreshing that I feel absolutely no judgment or shame when he wants to have a conversation about this.

“I mean, I won’t say it doesn’t cross my mind. Of course, I’d like to learn more, especially hands-on, about something that affects me so deeply. But part of the reason I love nursing is that the emergency work takes me out of my own head. It forces me to do nothing other than focus on my patient, focus on getting them as comfortable and healthy as they can be in that moment. I fear that working with someone who suffers from mental health complications will only remind me of my own, and then I won’t love nursing as much as I do.”

“I can understand that.” His hands come up to band around my neck, and then he pulls me into his chest until my forehead rests there.

The position might not have our bodies fully pushed up on one another, but it feels so intimate and safe. He’s rubbing a hand up and down my back, massaging the worry out of me like I just massaged some of the ache from his knee. We’ve always been good at this, comforting each other and knowing exactly what the other person needs. I took that for granted.

When I decided we had to break up before college, I got into my head that I was just in some puppy love stage. That I couldn’t have possibly found my forever person at such a young age, that we only worked because we were teenagers in our suburban town. My thought had been that once the world got ahold of us, we’d turn into different people, and it was best to sever the tie before it broke horribly. Looking back, I probably had undiagnosed anxiety about future scenarios long before I recognized it.

Even though I shouldn’t say it, I start to speak words into his shirt. “I’m sorry I didn’t give us a chance. You know, back then, I thought it was for our own good, and after seeing who else was out there, we’d—”

“Emily?” My voice is shouted in the distance, echoing off the walls of the barn outside the door.

Any second, whoever is looking for me will come back here to check. It has Mercer pulling away from me, the legs of his chair scraping across the floor. My heart sinks, rejection sitting heavy in my gut.

We keep doing this to each other. The push and pull, the half explanations. We can never seem to get the timing right, and just when I think there will be some kind of breakthrough, we settle for less so as not to rock the boat.

Which is what Mercer does now as he stands, gives me half a smile, and then turns to pull on his jacket. Work is calling, and so is whoever came out searching for me.

With more questions than answers, so many words left unsaid, and that little flame of hope burning in my chest, I follow Mercer’s lead. Pulling on my winter gear, we walk out into the barn and separate without so much as a backward glance.

For the thousandth time since I proposed it, I curse myself for putting us in this hookup, situationship territory. Because my heart hurts so damn bad at Mercer’s nonchalance, even though I’m the one who put us here.

18

EMILY

“Charlie, you ready?”

I knock on my brother’s bedroom door with a gloved hand and huff. He’s running ten minutes late, and tonight is one of my favorite parts of Christmas in Queenwood.

Every year, most streets in town doll up their houses in extravagant light displays, and then the residents ride around in golf carts or the back of pickup trucks to view them. It’s an annual tradition, and since we’ve gotten older, we’ve started making the trip with wine in our water bottles.

Charlie promised to drive me around this year and be the designated driver, but he’s been in his room forever. I listen through the door and don’t hear a peep, so I push it open.

“Em?” my brother croaks from somewhere under his covers.

“Oh shit, are you okay?” I rush over to him.

He shakes his head. “I feel like crap. I think I got food poisoning or something, been on the toilet all day.”

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