Page 440 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B

He lets me do that too.

His fingers grip my waist outside of the blanket, digging in desperation for flesh and bone.

“I need you to kiss me…” I add in another whisper, and his breath shakes out of him, touching my lips. “And I need you inside me, Drew…”

My mouth brushes the edge of his.

But then restraint floods his face as he stops himself. A small tilt of his head casts a cold shadow over me

before he’s backing away.

“Andrew—”

“I can’t⁠—”

His eyes drown as he looks down at my mouth one last time, and God, he wants it. I see it. I feel it.

“I—I told you.

“I can’t do this anymore⁠—”

He peels my hand off the back of his neck, inching back and looking away, as if he’s cutting himself out of me with his bare hands.

His spine hits the base of the couch,

and his knees pull up,

hands locking together.

Like now I’m a mistake, a regret.

And though I’m at his house

with him right here,

closest we’ve been in fifty-six hours,

it’s the space that spreads deadly,

more malignant than plastic,

plunging into my arteries⁠—

a cancerous thing.

“Allison, this is a lot,” he says, a sigh.

“And it ain’t all you. It’s me, too.”

But as I’m lying here,

I still feel the kiss that didn’t happen.

That’s the sickest part about it.

I can fuckin’ feel it on my lips,

and my lungs forget how to work.