The morning after my night with David, I’d cried my eyes raw against the brick wall by his apartment. I hadn’t known up from down, left from right, love from despair. But I’d locked it up so tightly I could still feel the chains digging into me with every movement. When Bill had returned from his trip that same day, I’d mustered the biggest, most convincing welcome I could manage. But I couldn’t look him in the eye. And I couldn’t pretend to want his hands on me. And though Bill was never one to pick up on my subtle cues, I had made it impossible for him not to.
Somehow, the week had passed. After a late night at work, I’d walked into an apartment filled with twenty of our closest friends and family. I’d gritted my teeth and let them wish me a happy thirtieth birthday, barely making it through the night. Not even Lucy or Gretchen, my closest friends in the world, could scratch the surface. I could only put my energy into acting normal.
Then, I’d overheard Gretchen and Bill in the kitchen toward the end of the party.
“How’s she doing?” Gretchen asked.
“I can’t tell, and it freaks me out,” Bill said. “She won’t talk about Davena at all. She keeps to herself and pretends nothing is wrong.”
“Well, Davena was like a second mother to Olivia,” Gretchen said. “There are times in her life when she was closer to her than to her actual mom.”
“I think that’s why she’s taking Davena’s death especially hard. She and her mom haven’t been getting along.”
Gretchen sniffed. “She doesn’t look well.”
“I rarely see her eat,” Bill said. “I’d feel better if she at least cried, but she does nothing except smile and laugh in the weirdest way.”
“She was like this when her parents divorced.” Gretchen sighed. “I tried to tell you. She’s hurting. She doesn’t deal well with loss.”
“I don’t know what to do.”
“Have you tried talking to her?” Gretchen asked.
There was a pause. “She leaves the room when I do.”
“It’s still fresh. Just give her time, Bill.”
After the last guest had left, Bill and I had fought. I’d made some empty promise to come home early from work but had forgotten and unknowingly missed half of the surprise party. I asked him how he could’ve possibly thought a party was a good idea.
I started leaving for work early and coming home late every day. With my recent promotion over my co-worker Lisa to senior editor atChicago Metropolitan Magazine, it wasn’t hard to find projects. Days turned into weeks, weeks into months. And not a day went by that I wasn’t reminded of him. Of that night. And of the irreversible thing I’d done.
As the train barreled along, I tried not to remember. After all, the separation from David had been longer than the time I’d known him. Surely that was enough time to move on?
But our stolen moments together had proved impossible to forget. I fought myself as I always did when the memory threatened, but in that moment, alone on the crowded train, I wasn’t strong enough to stop it. I remembered the pain in his hard brown eyes when he’d demanded that I speak up. That I tell him I wanted nothing more to do with him. I rewound through our final conversation, when he’d said he wanted me to himself, no matter the consequences. I recalled how he’d felt pressed against me, and how I’d wished he would take me again.
His hands on my hips had held me steady as he’d mercilessly driven me to orgasm . . . twice. It was unforgettable. Haunting. Relentless. Under his affection, under his touch, I’d come alive. And since then, I was slowly drowning—hounded by the memory I tried to repel and weighed down by the guilt.
* * *
My footsteps echoed through the emptyChicago Metropolitan Magazinelobby. Maybe it wasn’t necessary for me to work on a Saturday, but I couldn’t deal with sitting through a child’s birthday party with Bill’s family. I weaved through the empty cubicles until reaching a door that had previously belonged to my boss, Diane, but which now read:
Olivia Germaine.Senior Editor.
I flopped into my big desk chair and rubbed my eyes. On the days I wasn’t numb, everything seemed sharper, more excruciating—shame, grief, desire. It was a constant battle to swallow the emotions that rose up my throat one after the other.
My fingers flew over the keyboard, but other things occupied my mind. I owed Bill more than I gave him. He’d been patient, and I knew he was becoming truly concerned. Whenever things turned intimate between us, I pulled away without an explanation. He attributed my distance to Davena’s death, but that was only part of it.
When my cell buzzed, I glanced at the screen to see Gretchen’s name and ignored the call. Within moments, my office phone began to ring. I sighed with defeat, guessing Gretchen wouldn’t give up.
“What’s wrong?” I asked when I picked up the receiver.
“Good afternoon to you, too, Liv.”
“Seriously, Gretch. Is everything okay?”
“I’m downstairs,” she said.
“What? Why?”
