I got the water and brought it back to her, hoping that this meant she was finally going to tell me at least something.
She sipped the water slowly, staring at something far away that I couldn’t see.
“Okay. Hypothetically, my relationship with Eddie wasn’t just a crush. We, um, had sex. Just once. I think he might have been too drunk to remember it. I might also have been drunk, but I remember all thirty uncomfortable seconds of it. It was stupid, and I regretted it afterwards.”
Really? That was the big secret?
I started laughing.
“This isn’t funny, Will.” She was pissed, but that didn’t stop me from laughing.
“You thought that I’d be upset about you having sex with a three pump drunk chump? Why in the hell would I care about that?”
“I was with someone else when I had sex with Eddie. My boyfriend at the time, he didn’t believe in sex before marriage. He barely even believed in kissing before marriage. I dated him to make my parents happy, but then we had a fight at the party and he left and I had sex with Eddie. I cheated, Will.” Okay, that was a little less funny. But still, all this hoopla for that?
“Okay. You cheated. So have I.” Her eyes went wide and she finally came back from whatever memory she’d been trapped in.
“You did?”
“Yeah. It obviously wasn’t my proudest moment. Once again, I was pissed with my girlfriend and there was this little sister of one of my buddies and she’d been flirting with me forever. So we made out a little. I was going to have sex with her, but then she told me she was a virgin and I didn’t feel right about it. So you see, both of us have f**ked up. It doesn’t matter. Does what I just told you change how you feel about me?”
“No,” she said in a small voice.
“Then what’s the problem?” I yelled. It might have been a little dramatic, but this was so lame. No it went beyond f**king lame. I wanted to strangle her and kiss her at the same time. Yeah, I was definitely in love with her.
20
I was definitely going to hell this time. I’d thought about spilling the entire story, about what had happened after I’d had sex with Eddie and how those thirty seconds of terrible sex had effectively destroyed my life.
But then I couldn’t. I told him about Eddie and the cheating and I couldn’t keep going. He just seemed so relieved that was all it was, I couldn’t tell him the rest.
This was even worse than keeping him completely in the dark. Now I was really lying to him. As far as I could see, this was the only way right now. I’d dug myself into a hole, and I was going to have to wait and see how things would go.
I told Will I needed to go take a shower, mostly so I could be alone with my thoughts. I loved him, but I needed some time to think.
He told me not to take too long or he’d come in and find me, but I knew he had to get back to his own classes.
The bathroom was empty, for now, so I knew no one would hear me sobbing over the sound of the water.
As soon as I got naked and stepped under the spray, the wounds that my mom had cut with the words form the phone call opened and I hurt so bad that I could barely breathe.
My baby was sick. Really sick.
That was why my aunt had called. My baby needed a bone marrow transplant and they needed to test me to see if I was a match.
I had to hold onto the wall of the shower so my knees didn’t give out on me. I cried like I cried when she was born. When they asked me if I wanted to see her and I shook my head. I cried like I did the first few times I looked down at my scar. The only mark on my body I had left of her.
I should have known Maria wouldn’t call for anything less than a life or death situation. This was both. My daughter’s life could depend on me. I might have given her up, but she was still my daughter and she needed me.
The door on the bathroom banged against the frame. Someone must have come in. I tried to muffle my sobs by biting my hand. I sunk my teeth into my knuckle and drew blood. I watched it mix with the water from the shower, turning pink by the time it went down the drain.
I had to call Maria and figure out what I had to do. Above all, I couldn’t tell Will. I couldn’t. He could never know.
Aud went to take a shower and I sat on her bed and tried to understand the twisted workings of her brain. Sure, it didn’t thrill me that she’d cheated on her boyfriend, but from what she’d told me about him, he was a dick. She’d only been dating him to make her parents happy, so it barely counted as a relationship anyway. And she’d been drunk. People made bad decisions when they were drunk. Shit, I’d made plenty of them.
The way she’d been acting, I expected her to say that she’d killed someone or something.
I loved Aud. She could have screwed an entire football team’s worth of guys and I’d just smile and ask her if I was the best she’d had.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.
Her face was blotchy and red when she got back from the shower, and not just from the hot water. She’d been crying. Probably from the relief of knowing I didn’t give a shit about her big secret.
I scooped her up in my arms the second she closed the door.
“Do you hear that?”
“Hear what?” The water from her hair dripped down my arm and onto the floor.
“That’s the silence of there being no secrets between us. Nothing more that’s going to keep us apart. You’re stuck with me now, Aud. I’m not leaving your side.” She smiled a little.
“What about when I have to pee?”
“I’ll hold your hand and help you wipe.”
“Will! That’s disgusting.” I tossed her on the bed and then dived on top of her.
“I don’t care. I’m never leaving you. Not even if you take out a restraining order.” Her smile widened and she laughed.
“Then I guess I’ll just be stuck with you. I could imagine worse things in life than being stuck with you, Will Anders.” I pushed her hair back.
“Good.” I peeled the towel from her body and then there was nothing between us for a while.
“How is it possible that I want you all the time? We finish and all I want to do is start again. I never knew sex could be like this,” Audrey said. Her hair was still damp, but I combed it with my fingers so it would dry.
“I didn’t either. Not that my previous sexual encounters were bad, but with you it’s . . . indescribable,” I said.
“Ditto. My parents would say that our relationship is sinful. They’re big believers that youths are just bundles of hormones and if you didn’t watch them every second, they’d be off screwing each other like rabbits. Gave me a weird complex when I was younger.”