Our Way

I turn on him. “If you cared for me like you say you do, you would never want to touch someone else,” I cry. “And you most definitely wouldn’t want your dick in someone else’s mouth.”

“Eliza.” He pauses as he tries to articulate himself properly. “I had to find out.”

I throw up my hands. “And now you know.”

I storm into the kitchen. I need to get away from him. What a self-absorbed asshole.

If he had feelings for me, he wouldn’t have gone to her. What am I? A new challenge in his midlife crisis?

He follows me. “Eliza,” he says quietly. “I know you don’t understand my reasoning but I did it to protect our friendship. I wanted to be sure.”

He gave his first female sexual experience to another woman.

I stare at a spot on the carpet. I’m so disappointed, I can’t even look at him. My broken heartbeat pounds in my ears.

“Can we talk about this?” he asks.

“Just go, Nathe,” I whisper.

He eventually goes to the door and hesitates.

I close my eyes.

“Eliza,” he says.

I turn toward him.

“If you didn’t like me that way, too, it wouldn’t bother you that I was with her.”

We stare at each other for an extended time.

He drops his head and walks out, closing the door behind him.

My eyes well with tears.

Asshole.

* * *

I watch the clock tick over to 3:13 a.m.

It’s dark and still, yet inside my head it’s so noisy that I can’t sleep. That, and the small fact that my sleeping partner isn’t here.

I hate that I can’t sleep without him.

My mind goes over tonight and everything that came to light. So much to process. Nathan says he has feelings for me…. I smile softly, imagine that.

But he went to Stephanie for physical confirmation,

so he can’t care about me too much. His mind definitely wasn’t on me when his dick was in her mouth. The fact that he came only adds salt to my wounds.

He liked it with her. My mind runs off on a tangent, wondering what her physical attributes are—height, shape, the color of her hair.

His first female sexual encounter was given to a stranger.

I wanted it.

My heart hurts that he gave it to her, I can never get that back.