Because in this moment, it feels true.
—
A week passes.I tell myself each time is the last time. I swear it. I promise myself I'll stop, that I'll end this, that I'll go back to Thad and my normal life. I’m fortunate that business seems to havekept Thad too busy to visit since the gala, because Romeo is so unhinged I can’t be sure he’d stay away from me while Thad was here, and I can’t tell him no.
Every time I try to stay away, something pulls me back. A text from Romeo. A glimpse of him on campus. The memory of how he makes me feel.
Despite Thad’s physical absence, he calls me constantly. He wants to talk about the wedding, discuss our future, and I force myself to give answers that mollify him, making excuses whenever I can to get out of the conversations. I say I’m busy with school, working on papers, that I need to focus. I tell him I need the time now so that when I see him here, he can have my full attention. That last works best of all, and I make sure to file that away.
The truth is, I'm spending every spare moment with Romeo—in my bed, in the library, once in an empty classroom after hours. He doesn’t take me back to his place, and I wonder why, but I’ve always assumed he was in a dorm. Maybe it’s a guy thing… it’s too bachelor-y, or his roommates don’t leave. I don’t ever think to ask, because every time we’re together, I can’t find thoughts for anything but him and how he makes me feel.
This infatuation is beyond anything I’ve ever felt. Each time, I tell myself it's the last time, and each time, I know I'm lying.
The guilt is eating me alive. I can barely look at myself in the mirror. I'm engaged to one man while sleeping with another. I'm lying to everyone—my father, Thad, my roommate, myself. But I can't stop.
Romeo makes me feel alive in a way I've never felt before. Not as Edgar Beauregard's daughter or Thad's fiancée. Not as the perfect Southern belle I'm supposed to be. Just as me. Savannah.
And that feeling is more addictive than any drug.
It's Vivian who finally forces me to confront reality. I come back to our room one afternoon to find her sitting on my bed, holding something in her hand.
"We need to talk," she says.
My stomach drops, and I peer closer, trying to see what’s in her hand. "About what?"
"About this." She holds up an empty birth control pill packet. "I found it in the trash. You're on birth control?"
Relief floods through me. "Yes. I started taking it a couple of weeks ago."
"Okay. That's good. That's responsible." She pauses. "But Savannah—where are the pills?"
I frown at her. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, this packet is empty, but if you only started it two weeks ago, there should still be pills left. Where are they?"
I stare at her, confused. "They're in my desk drawer. In the?—"
I cross to my desk and pull open the drawer where I've been keeping them. The packet is gone.
"That's—that's impossible. I just took one this morning."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I'm sure. I take one every morning with breakfast. They were right here."
Vivian's expression is concerned. "Savannah, have you been forgetting to take them? Because if you're not taking them consistently?—"
"I'm not forgetting. I take them every day. Someone must have—" I stop, a chill running down my spine. “Someone must have taken them.”
"Who would take your birth control?" Vivian asks. “No one really comes over here.”
I don't answer. I think about Romeo, about how possessive he is. About how he keeps saying he wants me to be his, completely, irrevocably. How he came inside me that first night,knowing I wasn't on birth control, and every time after, before I started taking the pills.
No. He wouldn't. He couldn't.
"Maybe I just misplaced them," I say, but my voice sounds uncertain.
"Maybe." Vivian doesn't sound convinced. "But Savannah—you need to be careful. If you're sexually active and you're not taking your birth control consistently?—"
