“How could I forgetEjaculation Inoculation?”
Mar shrugs. “I stand by its brilliance.”
“I should have remembered that before I got high with my fated and his employee. I ended up crying about my mom. About how, well, how I thought she wouldn’t have had the aneurysm if my dad hadn’t left her.” Mar just looks at me quietly, and I continue, “In the back of my mind, I believe that having to raise me alone made her so stressed that she had an aneurysm.”
“What?” Mar is instantly defensive for me, like I knew she would be. “I can’t even begin—”
“I know, I know. But the thing is, I also told him I wanted to have children one day.”
At this, Mar looks shocked. “Wait, what?”
“Yeah. I didn’t even really know I felt sodecidedabout it until I said it?” I lean toward her, my voice low. “I can’t risk it, Mar. I can’t risk ending up like my mom. The only person I want children with is my fated.”
“Oh, Cass,” she says softly. “But you know that’s not the reason why she died.”
“DoI know that?”
“Yes,” she says firmly. “Because people die for all sorts of reasons. It’s unfair, indiscriminating, and completely out of our control.”
I shake my head. “But we can control who we end up with.Ican control that.”
“So, what’s the problem?” she finally asks.
“What do you mean?”
“What’s holding you back from throwing yourself into this future with Daniel?” Mar dodges Betty coming for her.
Extremely good question. “I don’t know. I guess I thought once I met Daniel I would just feel this huge relief. Euphoric, even. But instead I feel…I don’t know, it feels complicated because of Ellis.”
Mar drops onto the floor and crawls over to me until we’re eye to eye. “Was it that good?”
“Come on!” I push her shoulder.
She pushes me back. “No,you! You’ve been searching for your fated for eons. And now that you’ve found him, suddenly you’re indecisive because of this guy Ellis? He had to have beengood.” And she must see it on my face because she howls and rolls onto her back. “My god, I thought all young men lately were bad because all they did was watch chokey-chokey porn.”
I fall back next to her, our hair mingling and becoming one. We both stare up at the ceiling, the evening light creating bouncy shapes. “Dude. He was good. It was unreal.”
“Now you’re just trying to rile me up.”
“No, I swear. I haven’t had sex that good since…I don’t know. Ever.”
“Not even with that one Brazilian DJ?”
“Not even him.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah.”
We’re quiet for a second, showing reverence for Ellis’s god-tier sex status. Then Mar rolls over to her side and props her head up as she looks at me. “But, you know. What does that matter with Daniel in the picture? For all you know sex with him will like, heal the world.”
“True.” I turn on my side, too, so we’re facing each other. “Let me read your face, Mar.”
She rolls over and does a weird army crawl away from me. “For the last time, no!”
“Come on, please? I can just confirm what you already know, right? That Logan’s the one.” I don’t know why I’m pushing this all of a sudden. I know that Mar and Logan have a great marriage, and I would never ever want them to split up. But sometimes…just sometimes I worry that because I’m not sure of Logan being her fated, their relationship could be jeopardized. She’s always resisted, but today I can’t help asking again. I need some kind of validation. That,of courseMar and Logan are fated. That’s why they work so well.
That breaking up with Ellis was the right move.
