She held her eyes wide open, trying to make the water dry up. “I don’t know.”
“You didn’t even acknowledge me saying, ‘I love you.’”
Cheryl’s insides turned to stone. “I… I love that you love me, Patrick. I love you too.”
“But not like that?”
She opened her mouth but no words came out. Patrick turned his back, paced to the weights bench, then sat, pressing his hands over his face.
“Does it matter?” Cheryl said desperately. “Couples never last, but friends are in your life forever.”
Patrick laughed into his palms. “No, they aren’t. Or at least I can’t be.”
And there it was, falling like a stone down a mountain. Cheryl’s knees went weak, her head spinning backward. She kept waiting for him to take it back, but he didn’t move. Didn’t talk.
“I should go,” she whispered.
“Okay.”
“Do you… want a ride?”
“No.”
“When… When will we talk again?”
“I don’t know, KitKat.”
The end. She could see it coming like a speeding train. She always could. Her father sending back her mum’s letters, her mum using a cane, then a wheelchair. Her friends getting married and having kids, moving on as she stayed exactly the same. Sadness rocked her, whipping up everything like a tornado, and from the murky depths came an idea.
“Wait a second!”
Patrick looked up at her. “Yeah?”
“If it’s going to end like this, shouldn’t we at least have sex?”
“You seriously still want a fuck from me?”
The disgust in his voice sent excitement rushing through her. Self-destruction had always been her drug of choice. Why should now be any different? After all, she was sloppy, slutty, fucked-up Cheryl. “Why not?”
Patrick crossed his arms over his chest, his square jaw jutting. “How do you wanna play this? You want me to come by your place and smash you like some footy slut?”
Cheryl’s blood turned to battery acid. Exactly how many girls had Patrick slept with? Who and when and how good had the sex been?
“What does that involve?” she asked.
“Me doing whatever I want,” he said flatly. “And when I’m done, I leave.”
“I see.” She tilted her head to one side. “Is that it?”
Patrick glowered at her. “Take it or leave it.”
It was wrong to be turned on by how angry he was. Crazy wrong. Yet it was undeniable. That thought of being left in a strange bed, sweaty and broken with Patrick’s semen across her thighs… To be reduced to that most discarded of objects—the unwanted woman. She couldn’t be Patrick’s girlfriend, but she could be that. Cheryl Karalis-Walkwhore.
“Sounds good,” she said. “Tonight?”
He stood, and fear and excitement mixed inside her so closely she didn’t know what was what. He looked her up and down like they’d never met, weighing her tits with his eyes, examining the front of her too-tight shorts. “Your place or mine?”
Either was too dangerous. Too intimate. “Somewhere else.”
