He sighed dramatically. “I know that. That’s not the point. I’m not saying sit back and be Susie Homemaker here. I’m just saying you’re not in this alone.”
I giggled and leaned over him, silencing him with a kiss. “I know that, Jason. Shut up and distract me already. I need my fix.”
He grinned then, and palmed my br**sts, and I felt the heat in my belly turn to dampness between my thighs. He slid one hand between our bodies and slipped a finger into me. I shifted forward to deepen the kiss, my weight on my knees and shins. He tugged me forward and slipped my nipple into his mouth, and I gasped, arching my back toward his mouth, feeling the first wave crash over me.
He circled my clit as I came, drawing the orgasm out until I was writhing above him. I felt his erection at my core, but he still had his underwear on. I lifted up and tugged at them frantically, fumbling with them until he managed to help me get them off. I threw them across the room, my thighs trembling as I hovered over him, hair falling in a curtain around his face. I wiggled my hips downward, nudging the tip of him into my folds, guiding him into my opening with a shift of my hips. I hesitated, sitting upright on my knees, hovering with trembling muscles, relishing this moment, the pause before I sank down with him deep inside me. He held onto my hips, eyes locked on mine, his breath bated. I took his hands in mine, tangled our fingers, and then fell forward, pinning his hands above his head. He let me pin him, a grin on his face. I knew he loved it when I took control.
I drew the moment out, lifting my hips slightly so he nearly slipped out, neither of us breathing, letting the contents of our hearts exchange silently between our eyes. I sank down with a whimper, resting my forehead against his, mouth wide in a breathless scream. I curled my fingers into fists around his, squeezing as hard as I could, setting an immediately frantic rhythm above him. He met me stroke for stroke, never taking his eyes off mine, breathing with me, sighing with me, giving me exactly what I needed.
When the second wave came, I fell onto him, clinging to his neck with both arms, my lips at his ear, our hips crushing together as we climaxed in unison.
“God, Jason…I love you. S-so, so much.” I was nearly weeping with the intensity of the love rippling between us.
I felt, in that moment, that our souls had crashed together and merged, like every aspect of our minds, hearts, bodies, and souls were bleeding together. I knew I’d never love anyone the way I loved Jason, and I knew I’d never try.
“I love you, too, Beck.”
I took his face in my hands. “Promise me you’ll love me forever. No matter what.”
He caught the desperation in my eyes, my voice, and he didn’t question it, didn’t hesitate for a split second. “I can’t promise you forever, Beck.” Tears started in my eyes at what sounded like a rejection, but he kissed them away, silencing me by speaking over my protest. “I can’t promise you forever, because that’s not long enough.”
I laughed into his mouth, giggling and sniffling against him, clinging to his neck with all my weight resting on his strong, hard body. “Good. Longer than forever I can work with.”
He laughed and held me tight, his arms around my back and across my backside. With a tug, he tossed the blankets over us, and I turned my face to the side, his chest my pillow. I fell asleep like that, and knew then that I’d never want to fall asleep any other way.
THIRTEEN: When the Bough Breaks
Becca
February, two years later
Time passed in a blur. That first summer home from college, I did end up moving in with Jason in my brother’s somewhat dingy two-bedroom apartment. My parents, as predicted, lost their shit completely, but when I still came home to do laundry and spend time with them, making sure to include Jason in all family get-togethers, they eventually came around. It turned into a “don’t ask don’t tell” sort of situation, and it worked. We went back to U of M in the fall and lived in separate dorm rooms for that first semester of our sophomore year. Jason got a part-time job as a janitor at a local high school, and I ended up in the tutoring center.
We went home for holidays and stayed with Ben and Kate, who managed to hang on to the apartment through the school year just so we’d have somewhere stress-free to stay. My brother was doing better than I’d ever seen him. He was an assistant manager at the Belle Tire, sober, and managing his mood swings with only occasional use of prescribed medication in extenuating circumstances. Kate really was a miracle worker when it came to Ben, and I loved her like a sister. She was one of the tallest girls I’d ever met, standing over six feet. She was willowy, slim with long auburn hair, pretty gray eyes, and a wide, always-smiling mouth. She never had an unkind word for anyone, and seemed totally devoted to my brother. She was one of those people who never bought anything that isn’t 100-percent organic, supplementing a vegetarian diet with a plethora of vitamins and shakes. She did yoga religiously, and got me hooked on it. She had a way of defusing even the worst of Ben’s manic rages, and she could lift him out of the worst depressions with a few whispered words. She never lost patience with him, never took his snapped insults to heart when he was in the grip of a mood swing. The only time I ever saw her lose her temper was when she caught Ben with a joint in his cigarette pack. She wigged the hell out, packed a bag, and walked out without so much as a backward glance. She didn’t actually go anywhere, though. She hopped in her car and drove around the block a few times, and then sat in the apartment parking lot, waiting for Ben to apologize. Which he did, abjectly, begging Kate to come home and never leave him again.
The worrier in me saw an element of codependency in their relationship, because I didn’t think Ben could maintain his lifestyle without Kate at his side. But she was always there for him, so it worked, I supposed. If she ever got tired of Ben’s bipolar mess, though, I worried he’d regress to his days as a stoned-out drug addict.
As for Nell? She seemed to improve with time. She finished a basic liberal arts associates degree from OCC, worked her way up to a mid-level manager’s position within her father’s company on her own merits, and seemed to be doing okay. She never reached out to me about cutting, and I never caught her doing it again, even when I surprise-visited her every once in a while. I saw scars on her wrists sometimes, and every once in a while she’d have a Band-aid on her forearm, but she claimed it was a slip, that she’d stopped cutting for the most part.
At the start of our senior year, Jason and I decided to move out of campus housing. We found a one-bedroom apartment a few miles from campus but not too far from the high school where Jason worked. My job was on campus and our schedules tended to coincide for the most part, so we got along with just Jason’s truck, which now had almost two hundred thousand miles on it. Those first months together in our apartment were the happiest of my life. I went to bed in his arms, and woke up in them. I was an early riser, whereas I discovered Jason hated mornings with a passion, unable to so much as hold a conversation until he’d had at least two cups of coffee. I always considered myself a neat person, but it turned out Jason was the one who did most of the cleaning. He claimed it was because if he didn’t clean his house growing up, it wouldn’t get done, since his mom didn’t care and his dad was a drunk.