Losing Her

by Mariah Dietz

  I look over at Erin lying beside me, and a cold wall of discomfort hits. I’m balanced on the very edge of my bed while she lies on the far side, asleep on her stomach. Her dark hair covers most of her face and is fanned across my pillow. What in the hell am I supposed to do now? I can’t just leave her here to wander downstairs and chance her meeting the others. What will she be like if I wake her up? Will she be pissy or embarrassed?

  My alarm clock says that it’s nearly six. I really need to get up and get her out the door before the others start waking up.

  “Hey,” I say softly.

  She doesn’t move.

  “Hey,” I try again, reaching forward to gently nudge her shoulder.

  Still nothing.

  “Erin,” I say, gripping her shoulder and rocking her to consciousness. Her hand slowly raises to her face and pushes her hair aside so her eyes focus on me. Her makeup has been smudged from sleeping, leaving traces of it on my pillow.

  She lets out an exaggerated yawn and reaches her hand forward then trails it down my shoulder, over my bicep and to my bare chest.

  “You wore me out,” she says with a grin.

  “I’ve got to get going.”

  “I’ll help you forget about those plans,” she whispers, scooting closer to me, exposing a small hint of her cleavage. “You know you want to. They like you too,” she whispers, leaning closer and pulling the blankets back, showcasing her large, naked chest. My body instantly reacts as her hand trails further down and grips me, holding me almost aggressively in her fist.

  “He says you want to play,” she whispers.

  I push forward on the bed, knocking her back, and cover her body with mine. Then snake a hand down to prime her. She moans against my shoulder as I insert a second finger and pump them inside of her a few times, not focusing on her reactions to my touch, just looking for a result. I slide them out, leaving her mewling and scratching at my chest, as I reach behind her to open my nightstand and produce a condom.

  I tear it open and slowly slide it on without even seeing her. As I close my eyes and reposition myself above her, I see blond hair splayed across my pillows, large brown eyes holding a look of love and desire with a tinge of self-consciousness. Her lips are parted and her chest rises and falls with anticipation.

  My eyes squeeze shut, and when they open, I see Erin’s steel eyes are closed, her face slightly contorted, and her mouth open in a small “o” as she breathes a moan. Looking down, I realize that she’s working on herself. This should be hot. I should be feeling half crazed with the sexual confidence and desire she exudes.

  I never realized how much I craved Ace’s excitement for me, for what I could do to her, for the brief timidness that turned into carnal desire within a few lustful moments that transformed her into a confident sexual minx.

  I grip Erin’s wrist and pull her hand away, earning me a string of profanities and objections before I press into her in one hard move.

  When we finish, she heads to the bathroom and I reach for the clothes that I’d worn yesterday. I sit on my bed, debating excuses for Erin to leave. When the bathroom door opens, a wave of coconut impales me. It’s the same familiar scent that escaped the bathroom when she would shower. The sensation makes my chest ache with guilt.

  I’m hoping she’ll tell me she has to leave so we don’t have to do a song and dance routine. I already know Kendall’s going to be pissed. As soon as she saw me arrive home with Erin last night, I’d heard her bitching to Jameson, begging for him to intervene because otherwise I’d lose Ace. I wanted to ask her what in the hell she thought had happened.

  “You have some great shampoo in there, too bad you don’t use conditioner,” Erin says, combing her fingers through her hair, causing the scent to roll over me like waves.

  I shake my head in disbelief. My shampoo sure as hell doesn’t smell like that. Am I imagining the scent? “That’s not my shampoo, where did you find it?” I can specifically remember raiding the bathroom and throwing her things away. It was one of the first rooms to be swept.

  “It was on the edge of the tub, behind the shower curtain. You like, don’t care that I used it, right?”

  I look at her for a moment dumbfounded. She’s still haunting me six months later!

  I shake my head again. “I hate the way it smells,” I lie.

  “Really?” She pulls a few strands to her nose. “I guess it is kind of strong.”

  I nod and grab a sweatshirt. I need to get out of here before my head starts to cloud with more thoughts of her.

  “I need to go. I’ve got classes,” I lie again. It’s a little frightening how easy it is for me to lie to this girl, and slightly more, how much I don’t care.

  “Okay, well, here, let me give you my number. We’ll do this again.” She winks at me as she grabs for my phone. I could lie again or tell her to leave, but maybe this is a good thing. Maybe this is what I need. I let her enter her number and stare at the smile pasted across her face for a moment, waiting to feel a sense of accomplishment or relief to conquer the nerves I’m feeling.

  “By the way, what’s ace mean?”

  “What’s Ace mean? What are you talking about?” My heart hammers against my chest as my breaths quicken and my stomach curls in on itself.

  “Oh I swore I heard you say it a few times.” She giggles a loud giggle that makes her chest swell. “Maybe I heard you wrong. I was a little distracted.” She winks at me again as I will my heart to slow down. It’s not that I fear being caught; it’s that I can’t believe I said her name while sleeping with another woman.

  I just slept with another woman. My mind begins sifting through images like I’m just now seeing Erin in my bed from last night. Her expressions were exaggerated and almost rehearsed. Her words sounded like something that came from a porn video. My stomach turns violently as I work to keep my knees from buckling.

  “This was fun, Max. Call me.” She seems either oblivious or undeterred by my silence as I stiffly nod my head. I follow her as she brazenly descends the stairs, avoiding the fact that one of my roommates is in the living room, shooting her death glares.

  When we reach the front door, Erin turns and kisses me, pressing her chest against mine before she breaks away and smiles at me a final time.

  “See you soon, Max,” she purrs, and then turns and leaves.

  Landon walks in the living room, holding a bowl of cereal and looks from Kendall to me and back.

  “What did I miss?” he asks.

  “He’s ruining everything!” Kendall screeches, throwing a new pillow she recently bought to replace the ones I’d gotten rid of. She stands without saying another word and stomps down the hall to hers and Jameson’s room then slams the door.

  Landon’s eyes follow her and then turn back to me. “What in the hell did you throw away this time?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Then what’s she so pissed about?”

  “Life,” I reply, turning to head back up the stairs.

  Wes and I go to the Halloween party sans Erin. I can’t spend this day with her because although Ace is on the opposite side of the goddamn continent, I’ve been thinking about her for weeks and what she might be doing tonight for her birthday. Plus, I’m not ready to have my relationship with Erin be anything but purely sexual at this point, and she doesn’t seem to object. I refuse to label it as a convenient relationship because the term leaves an acidic taste in my mouth reminding me of her again.

  The party is filled with girls in scandalous costumes and others that are elaborate. I have no clue who several of characters are, nor do I give a shit to know. We file our way past them in search of the bar, stopping a few times as people greet us.

  Wes is wearing the same costume we’d all worn last year: tight jeans, a leather vest without a shirt underneath, a cowboy hat, and a rope slung over his shoulder with a pair of boots.

  “Wes, you can’t recycle costumes two years in a row. You have to skip at least one year in between,” Abby says
in greeting as she reaches over to wrap her arms around him.

  Wes grins and lifts the rope. “I upgraded. I got a rope and some boots, so now I’m Indiana Jones.”

  Jesse laughs as Abby rolls her eyes. “I don’t think Indiana Jones wore Wranglers, cowboy,” she says, failing to break his laughter. “What are you supposed to be?” Abby asks, eyeing my jeans and T-shirt.

  “Awesome.” My mind races to thoughts of her, hearing her laughter as the word leaves my mouth. I feel the heat of her body next to mine as an image of us hanging out in her father’s den, watching TV last summer, before she fell asleep in my lap for the first time.

  “You’re so lame.” Abby interrupts my recollection, and I shake my head and scan the room to find something to distract my mind.

  The four of us catch up for a while and then part when Abby and Jesse head out to the dance floor with their hands tightly clasped around one another. Wes and I head in search of the bar.

  I don’t know what time it is when I wake up, freezing my ass off because my bedroom window is open and I’m lying on top of my covers, still wearing my shoes. My head throbs and my stomach rolls as I work to sit up enough to kick off my tennis shoes and clumsily maneuver myself to get under the covers. The warmth of my bed feels good, but the leather of my belt bites my hip bone and I groan in protest. Reaching down with one hand, I fumble with it until I get it unbuckled and feel the pressure ease. I don’t bother fishing it out of my belt loops, right now I couldn’t give a shit.

  The sun is too bright, making my head ache as though my brain’s physically chipping away at my skull. With a quiet groan I sit up and keep my eyes on the ground, waiting for my head to stop throbbing so I can shut out the light. My steps seem too loud, and my window too strong before I fall back in bed with another groan.

  There’s a crunching of paper below me that barely registers. It hangs in my thoughts for a few too many seconds, adding a new pressure to my head. I roll to my back with a grunt and fish around blindly for the source. My hand fists around a piece of paper, crackling too loudly as I move it to where I can see it.

  My eyes blink several times and then squint to see Landon’s handwriting:

  I’m done watching you try and kill yourself. Call J next time.

  I crumple the note in my fist and throw it against the wall, not bothering to watch where it lands as I roll over, wondering how often Erin frequents the gym before I search for more sleep.

  Sometimes I wish I could have talked you into going to the gym. You refused. That was okay, it gave me time to spend with Wes, Landon, and Jameson. Still, I remember watching you on a few separate occasions while you were playing soccer and seeing the intense focus as you worked and how hot it was. But, you refused to go. Referring to it as … I have to get this one right … the epicenter of bacterial growth. You said you liked the people that went even less because you felt they used it as a place to find dates. I’d laughed when I first heard your theory, and then began realizing you were pretty spot on.

  Landon, Jameson and I were returning from the gym. Jameson was doing a nearly perfect impersonation of Wes trying to hit on a girl that had us all cracking up.

  Kendall was watching TV in the living room alone, causing me to question where you were. When Kendall wasn’t doing something with Jameson, she was nearly always with you. Even when you were studying, or reading, she’d sit beside you, watching crap that no one cared about.

  “Where’s Ace?” I asked her as she turned to look at us.

  “I think she’s reading. She’s been quiet all afternoon.” She looked slightly defeated, revealing she’d tried to coax you out. I remember thinking you had a test for anatomy that was coming up that had you a little nervous. I don’t know why, you knew that shit backwards and forwards.

  I climbed the stairs and found you curled on my bed with a book propped up on you knees, a wad of tissues tightly bunched in your fist that you wiped your cheek with.

  You spent a fair amount of your time buried behind the pages of different novels. Sometimes reading non-fiction that led you to share about projections and people we’d usually never heard of, and questions you wished to ask. Primarily, you stuck to fiction, explaining that you enjoyed the breaks into other realities. I loved when you got so wrapped up in a book that your awareness of the surrounding world seemed to be completely lost. It was one of my favorite times to sit back and just appreciate your beauty, something that if I tried to do while you weren’t fully distracted, made you blush and squirm.

  “Babe, what’s wrong?” I asked, dropping my gym bag and crossing the room in a few steps.

  You gave me a weak smile in greeting as you shook your head and placed your phone in the book as an unorthodox book mark, something that constantly led to it being misplaced. “It’s nothing. This book is just really emotional,” you explained, fanning your face. “I’m fine.”

  You’ve never been very emotional. At that point we’d been together for seven months and I had only seen you cry maybe a handful of times. This was the second due to a book. Even after those first initial days following your dad passing, I never saw you cry.

  “Want to take a breather? Go get something to eat?”

  You nodded, wiping your cheek again with your tissue as another tear escaped.

  “Let me just take a shower, okay?” I asked, gently running my thumb across your cheekbone.

  “Can I come with you?” Your eyes were wide, and brimmed with tears.

  I felt like silly putty. You could have asked for the moon and I would have worked to find a way. I’d have done anything for you. Anything, but let you go. Why did you need space, Ace? What in the hell got you so damn freaked out?

  “I need you right now. I need to be close to you.” Your voice came out sounding strained as another stray tear coursed down your cheek.

  I leaned over and softly kissed you to see if I was misinterpreting your intentions. Your arms wrapped around my neck, and you pulled yourself into my lap. Normally, you refused to touch me until after I showered, naming off a list of bacterial germs prevalent in gyms.

  Standing up, I carried you into the bathroom where I set you on the counter. Your face was stoic as I turned the water on to get hot and started to undress, kicking off my shoes and peeling off my socks and shorts. I stood in front of you, waiting for some sort of sign to confirm you wanted to continue. Your eyes welled with tears again, and it shocked me how I felt physical pain at the sight.

  “Max, I love you. I don’t think I could ever love someone as fully and completely as I love you. I’m in love with you, and I’m in love with being in love with you, and I just need you to know how much I love you.” I’m completely serious, you said ‘I love you’ that many times in those short sentences.

  We used the term ‘I love you’ pretty openly and often. Perhaps it was because it was the first time that either of us had directed it toward anyone outside of our families. But right then, the words felt like so much more, like an oath.

  “I love you, Ace. I love you so, so much.”

  You wrapped your arms around my bare shoulders, pulling me closer.

  “Thank you,” you whispered, running a hand up the back of my head and the other along my jaw, before you kissed me.

  “Max, I need you.”

  Those words set a need in me that spread like a wildfire. I grabbed the hem of your shirt and quickly pulled it over your head, then made quick work of unhooking your bra and slipping it off your shoulders before removing your shorts and underwear. With one move, I yanked you forward on the counter, spreading your legs for me to step between. Your ankles hooked behind my back, urging me forward, and I felt you all around me as you released a frustrated moan.

  My hands slid from your hips, curling under your thighs. The look of sadness had vanished, replaced with love and the excited gleam that built whenever we made love. There was a need in your eyes that I could feel in my bones. It was more than a physical need, it was an emotional need that I could ful
ly understand. I still do.

  I leaned you against the rounded edge of the vanity then slowly buried myself in you, trying not to just focus solely on the pleasure it provided, but also on the sound of your breaths as they increased, and the slight sting of your fingers, digging into my shoulders. I watched your neck muscles loosen, making your head fall back in satisfaction. Then your eyes slowly opened, and all I saw, was love.

  I take a few deep breaths as my eyes sweep the darkness. My breaths are shallow and my chest prickles with sweat. Looking beside me, I see nothing but pillows and blankets before my head falls back against them and I let out a long breath. God, I’ve missed that look lately, and I hate myself for wondering if some other guy has seen it.

  The following day, Erin comes over. I’m desperate to erase the images of her that infected my dreams last night. Wes meanders into the kitchen and retrieves a bowl for cereal, looking groggy and disheveled when she shows up, announcing an airy hello as she heads to the fridge with a plastic bag over her wrist.

  Wes’s head jerks to follow her. His eyebrows are furrowed as his neck snaps back to me. His eyes are filled with accusation, which leaves me feeling defensive.

  “What the hell?” he mouths.

  “I hope you don’t mind. I brought over some cabbage soup. It’s this new diet I’m doing,” Erin explains, wadding up the bag as she walks to the trash.

  Wes’s head turns to her again and then back to me. “Cabbage soup?” he hisses.

  I dismiss his look of disgust and watch her saunter toward me in a mini skirt and shoes that look like a balancing act. Her shirt scoops so low on her chest that little is left to my imagination.

  She sidles up next to where I’m leaning against the kitchen island and smiles at me. The urge to return it is absent because her fake nails scratch at my chest. I instantly catch her fingers in mine to stop her. I don’t know if she means anything by the simple act, but the sensation sends a cruel reminder of her, recalling as she used to unknowingly scratch lightly at my stomach when she was turned on.