“Who is she?” I blurt.
He shakes his head. “You don’t want to know.”
I don’t want to know, not really. But which is worse? Wondering and not knowing, or knowing and moving on?
“Tell me,” I whisper. “It’s okay.”
“Just…someone who was at the parties and…”
I swallow the lump in my throat and say, hoarsely, “You’ve had sex with her.”
His nod is just a clipped dip of his chin.
“Oh.” I still don’t know which is worse. “Did you love her?”
“No,” he says quickly, his face scrunching up with disgust. “No, Lana. I didn’t—I’ve never—I didn’t love…any of them,” he says quietly.
“Any of them? As in…there were more.” I nod, saying it out loud for myself to process. I think I might vomit.
“Lana…”
I drop my head. “It’s fine, Christian.”
“I haven’t loved anyone except you,” he says. “I haven’tloved anyone the way I love you. You were my first real love. My only love.”
I nod, pressing my lips together. He was—ismy first love and my only love. So it hurts when you picture your love with someone else. When you start to wonder if his body moved the way it moves with you. When you wonder if he kissed them the way he’s always kissed you or if he’s touched them the same way he touches you with the same hands. If he’s given himself to them the ways he’s given himself to you.
“Lana?”
“Yeah?” My voice cracks and his thumb wipes under my eye.
“She meant nothing. None of them,” he rasps, his voice cracking like he might cry too. “I was high and drunk and…Lana, I wasn’t okay. I didn’t know what I was doing.”
I shake my head and pull him to me, kissing away the tear at the corner of his eye. “It’s okay. I know, I just…I think I need a minute.”
“I regret it,” Christian says, sadly. “I regret all of it. The worst part of it is, I was an asshole to all of them. I always pictured you and I’d sometimes say your name and… Please, Lana. I can’t take it if you hate me.”
I guess…that makes me feel a tiny bit better. But I try not to smile.
“You’d say my name? Like…while…”
He nods. “Yeah.”
The look in his eyes, the shame and guilt that drowns him makes me never want to bring up anything that happened in New York ever again. And I won’t,ever. For both of our sakes. We’re working through all of it, and it’s worth it. He is worth it and we’re working through it. The past will stay where it is because it has no business here with us.
But I can’t help but ask one last thing, just out of curiosity. “And? What happened when you’d…say my name.”
“I got slapped a couple of times.”
I crack a weak smile. “Okay.”
“Does it bother you?”
I shake my head, tears dripping off my chin. “No. Not as much now that I know you were slapped a couple times.”
Christian snorts and kisses the corner of my mouth. “No one makes me feel like you do.”
“I know.”
