Fuck, this is so hard to tell her.
Although I want to avert my eyes, I keep them fixed on her beautiful hazel ones. “I got fed up feeling too many emotions, so I started going out with Kent, drinking to numb the pain. To help me forget.” I could blame my brother for encouraging me to get under someone else in order to forget about Selena. But only a coward would do that.
It’s all on me. And I need to own it.
“I always thought I’d lose my virginity to you. It’s what I wanted. But then you broke up with me, and I was losing my mind, and I thought it would be afuck youto you if I gave it to someone else, so I hooked up with this girl I met at Torment.”
Tears well in her eyes, and I have a physical pain in my heart.
“She meant nothing. It meant nothing. And I regretted it straight away.” Truth.
She swipes at her tears. “It’s okay. I don’t blame you.”
“Don’t, Sel. Please.” This time, I do look away. I’m disgusted with myself. And I wish this was the worst of it, but there are more damning revelations to come. “I fucked up. I know I did, and I’m not proud of myself. I hooked up with other girls, thinking it would help me feel better. It didn’t.”
“And those girls downstairs?” she whispers.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “I’ve had a few threesomes and foursomes with Kent.” I wince as the words leave my mouth, knowing how awful this is for her to hear. “We were with those girls one night, months ago. I told Casey I wasn’t interested, but she doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“I see.” Her eyes drop to her lap, and she tries to wrest her hands from mine, but I’m having none of it. I clasp her hands firmly, and she stops fighting.
“None of them mattered. I never dated or slept with anyone more than once. And I stopped it altogether after our family vacation to Nantucket in July because I realized how unhappy it was making me. It wasn’t helping. It was having the opposite effect, because all it did was reinforce that they weren’t you. And seeing my brothers in love—while I’m happy for them—only made me sadder. Made me miss you and our relationship so much. I felt even more lonely.”
Silence engulfs us, and I couldn’t hate myself any more in this moment if I tried. “Say something,” I whisper.
“I will never be good enough for you,” she says, and my heart cracks wide open. “How can I compete with girls like Casey?” She lifts her head, and tears spill out of the corners of her eyes. “I’m all screwed up, and sex will never be that uncomplicated for me.”
“Sel.” I cup her face, but she averts her eyes. “Please look at me, baby.” Her tormented gaze slowly rises to meet mine. “You’re not in competition with Casey. With anyone. Because there isno competition. Every girl pales in comparison to you. You are all I see. All I need. All I want.” I press a fierce kiss to her forehead. “And I’ll take complicated over any other girl any day. Even if we never have sex, you are the only woman I want. Please don’t let what happened downstairs, or what happened while we were apart, ruin what we share. What we are building here, because that would kill me, Sel. I can’t lose you again.”
I pull her into my lap, relieved when she doesn’t struggle. “I’m not proud of my behavior, and I wish I could go back in time and undo it all, but I can’t. All I can promise you is that it’s in the past. You are my present and my future. My everything.”
20
Selena
Iwake up the next morning before Keanu, and I stare at his face for a long time while my mind churns with all he revealed last night.
I’m not an idiot.
Keanu is hot, sweet, sexy, and, most of all,a guy. A guy who has been deprived of sex and intimacy during his horny teenage years. I knew when I cut him loose that this would happen.
Releasing Keanu was not just for me.
It was for him too.
I was holding him back in a lot of ways but especially when it came to sex. I knew, deep down, that letting him go meant he would experience other girls. Experience sex without me. And I thought I’d made my peace with that.
But I haven’t.
And I can’t blame him.I don’t.Like I told him repeatedly last night, he hasn’t done anything wrong. I should be grateful all his hookups were casual and meaningless.
But I’m not.
For one, I’m jealous. The thought of other women with their hands on him makes me green with envy. And all night, as thoughts of him having sex with other girls taunted me, I’ve been red with rage. Chastising myself for not being strong enough, brave enough, to have sex with him, at least one fucking time, before I let him go. Because those other women have experienced a side of him I don’t know, and I hate that they shared that with him when I haven’t.
But there’s another part of me that’s sad that all his experiences were meaningless. Because I didn’t want that for him either.
Ugh. I scrub at my forehead, wishing I could yank all these thoughts out and make sense of them. I’m confusing myself, upsetting myself, when I’m the one who set this in motion. I’m conflicted and emotional, and today is the worst day to be dealing with this shit.
