(There's always more here XO)

1

Anastasia put down her knitting. The doorbell had rung and Henry, the dentist who was meant to come over for a date, was ten minutes late. Anastasia usually wasn’t a prompt person, but she had turned a page and was starting fresh.

No lateness.

No pain.

No Ed.

She opened the door and Ed was standing there. Immediately, she shut it. Ed, being Ed, flung a hand into the crack and didn’t budge.

Anastasia wasn’t scared of him, the man standing on the other side. She had given up fear the day he’d screamed gleefully on the rollercoaster in the old amusement park, two towns over. Ed wasn’t someone to be scared of, but someone to shun. He was all wrong for her, everyone could see it.

Her mom told her he was best left in her rebellious past. Her co-worker Jill, the kindly receptionist, said, “I just want to see you happy, darling. We all do.”

She had never felt happy with Ed. Then again, she had never felt happy, period, not since an unruly childhood spent in a house built on rules. Ed made her feel real.

“Let me in,” he said, not ruthlessly, but soft enough to be a question.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “You’re supposed to be Henry.”

A soft laugh informed her that Ed was aware of Henry. She swung open the door.

“Where the hell is Henry. What have you done with him!?”

“He’s fine,” said Ed, not flummoxed. “Cut him off at the pass.”

It was a new moon. She should have expected this behavior.  

Edward’s eyes shone clear, from all the nights of losing his mind and searching for sobriety. He knew right from wrong, but preferred to skip between the two. His hair was copper brown and shaggy, not from any known intent but because he had other things to do than brush his hair. She had twisted her hands in it. They had been young lovers, when lovers was too dignified a word to describe what they did. His mouth on her neck, her hand digging into the front of his jeans, young, dumb, together.

Then she had gone to LA, for dental hygienist school and to be by the ocean. Now she was back, to escape the hellish traffic. She was starting a new life for herself, had put a down payment on a house, thanks to granny’s money when she died.

“What did you do to Henry,” she repeated.

“Craig told me Dan overheard him at Mulligan’s, bragging about taking you out on a date. “  

Henry was blonde and not capricious. He brought her lattes on Fridays and declined her offer to Venmo him in return. Edward made coffee like mud.

She booted him in the calf with her slipper.

“Ow,” he said. “I guess I deserved that.”

“What are you going to feed me?” she asked, more from spite than wonder. “Henry was taking me out to dinner.”

Ed whistled, like a cartoon, fingers between his teeth. 

His hands she should not look at. They were calloused, from his job as an auto mechanic, and tan, from weekends spent trekking the Arizona outback.   

Just then his dog, Tito, came trotting around the bushes, pulling a wagon. The wagon had pizza in it.

“You didn’t,” she said.

“Did. Tito insisted.”

Tito, a golden retriever so opposite from his owner in temperament and moods, waggled his muzzle and waited for pets. She bent over to comply, cursing his owner for playing dirty. For involving Tito was playing very, very dirty.

“I know you like olives,” Edward said. Then, raising a bottle, “and I brought whiskey.”

“I don’t drink that stuff anymore,” said Anastasia, leading the way into the house, or rather, following Tito, who had found his favorite cushion.

It was on a couch that had once been in Edward’s grandma’s basement, when they were teenagers, and didn’t know any better than to spend hours watching movies, without touching. They had liked each other for ages, before senior year of high school, when they’d both had enough Jack Daniel’s to risk it. Risk kissing, which they did, on that couch, as a New Year’s party raged upstairs.

“That couch’s where I first touched yer coochie,” said Edward, flicking his head toward Tito. “Not surprised he likes it.”

He called it that to intentionally sound like a dick. He knew it turned her on. She blushed, and turned away. 

She heard him putting the pizza box on the table as she reached for her adaptogens, in the tea cupboard. It was a mushroom blend she had splurged for at Target, non-psychedelic. It was supposed to make her calmer.

When she returned to the table, he had folded all six-feet-seven-inches of himself onto the plain wooden chair. Ed was the kind of tall that was awkward.

“Can I have some?” he asked, nodding toward her mug.

“I thought you were drinking whiskey.”

“I was,” he replied. “Can’t drink alone.”

She made him a mug of the adaptogen blend, even though she knew he’d hate it. It was comical watching him grimace as he sipped. She wanted to burst out laughing, but suppressed the urge.

They began eating the pizza in silence. She didn’t bother with plates.

“Seriously,” she said, after her first slice was through. “What happened to Henry?”

“Flat tire,” he said, sounding menacing.

“You didn’t.”

“Like I said. Cut him off at the pass. Nothing more to it.” 

Anastasia lived at the end of a single lane road that divided suburb from country. Edward drove a big truck.

“Why are you such a piece of shit?” she asked, reaching for another slice of pizza.

“Mom says I was born this way.”

He seemed nonplussed. He always seemed nonplussed, in his string bean body, with his floppy dick. Not that it was always floppy. She had seen it limp, though, and once a woman sees a man’s penis limp, she can never unsee such a hapless atrocity. This made her bite back a grin, remembering. Edward grimaced through another sip.

“Did you wear this for him?” Edward asked, licking his fingers and nodding at her outfit.

Anastasia was wearing a velour, lavender lounge set that she’d picked up from Target. Henry was meant to take her to a taco stand, then a drive-in movie. It was supposed to be a cuddly night.

Edward drained his mug of tea, refilling it with whiskey.

“Thought you weren’t gonna drink alone,” she said.   

“You drive me crazy.”

She watched him drinking the whiskey, remembering when he’d gotten too drunk to drive her to a mammogram appointment. She’d been nineteen, and there’d been a lump. It was the year after high school, the year she’d hung around Scottsdale, too overwhelmed by options to choose another life. Then the lump. And the chemo. Which took about a year. After the chemo, she was free, and that’s when she’d taken off for La La Land. She’d thought getting certified in something would give her clarity. Thought being near the beach would bring her peace.

After graduation, she’d hung around Hollywood for a while, which was farther from the ocean than the map would imply. And the only clarity she’d received was that nine-to-five, or rather, seven-to-eight, the hours her dental office carried, was exhausting. She had put her feet up every night only to feel them throb again the next morning.  

“It’s a pretty color on you,” he said.

Anastasia’s blonde hair and pale complexion made the lavender appear delicate. Tito trotted over and nestled at her feet. Absentmindedly, she slipped off her slippers and buried her toes in his fluffy coat. She could have purred. Hot or cold, and it was cold on that early January evening, this was her favorite position.

“He likes it when you do that,” said Ed, and she rose to brew herself another cup of tea. So far, the adaptogens weren’t working. They were supposed to make her feel relaxed. Instead, a giddiness coursed through her. She wanted to squelch it. She wanted to feel nothing, because feeling nothing was safe.

It was impossible to feel nothing around Ed. That was the problem. His proximity zapped something in her that wanted to be zapped. But the electricity coursed through a circuit of its own design. She wasn’t allowed to channel it this way or that. It circuited between her legs and rammed into her heart, which she told herself was firmly closed.  

She felt him watching her as she waited for the kettle to brew, stewing in her thoughts. Wishing she had the wherewithal to kick him out of her house. She could try, and if she insisted she might succeed, but Ed was like a magnet. Once they were stuck, they were stuck. It was another reason why she had gone all the way to California. 

His eyes made her remember that she had hips. Hips that were camouflaged under dopey scrubs during the day, on purpose. She didn’t need leery men and obnoxious teenagers treating her like a piece of meat to be salted and then devoured. Henry kept his eyes respectfully on her face, so that she wondered, secretly, whether he even thought of sex.

With Ed, there was no question. Her back was to him but he was eating her alive. Her ass was on fire, and when she turned, he pretended to be looking into his whiskey. She joined him at the table and drank her second mug in silence, listening to the winter winds whooshing over the parched land outside.

Anastasia accepted his offer of whiskey when the adaptogens ignored her pleas to feel Zen-like, a female Buddha divorced from earthly strain. She was no Buddha, though she did have a soft belly, which Edward’s eyes trailed over, resting on her chest before reaching her eyes. He spun the bottle with a single hand, and asked, “how long has it been for you?”

“Since I last had a date? Tonight would have been rain in the desert.”

“No, I mean since—” he glanced at her privates, then again at her eyes, which she narrowed.

“That’s none of your business.”

“It is, a little bit.”

“I don’t see how.”

“You were my first. I want you to be my last.”

She swallowed the significance of his words by asking, “how long has it been for you?”

“Let’s see,” he said, again twirling the whiskey. “There was Sarah, the drunk girl I met at Hot Chick.”

“Lucky for her.”

“Nah. Felt like shit. The whole time, I just kept thinking of you.”  

Anastasia’s cheeks burned. She searched for anywhere to rest her gaze besides him, because if she rested it there, he would see her matching truth. That she had had a similar experience, with Colin from Glendale, after half-priced apps at Chilis.

Edward patted his lap and looked significantly at her feet. It was a foot massage he was offering, but it felt like sin. Anastasia tried to remember all the reasons why Edward wasn’t a good idea. At the moment, all she could see was his heat. It radiated off of him, physically, like a hot tub she wanted to jump into. She kept her feet set firmly on Tito’s back, and pretended not to have noticed the intimate gesture.

Edward sat back and sighed.

“Can I help you?” said Anastasia involuntarily, the sass in her voice disguising her need.

“I’ve got a long list of things you can help me with.”

Anastasia knew they were entering dangerous territory. She thought fleetingly of Henry for what she knew would be the last time that evening. She had been expecting tame and safe. That was not what the night was turning out to be. She couldn’t truthfully be disappointed.

“Why do you always have to show up right when I’m getting my life on track?” she asked.

“Always?”

He trapped a smirk in his jaw. It fought its way to his lips, nagging her to press further.

“The summer after tenth grade.”

“We weren’t even together then.”

“Exactly. I was supposed to be getting close to Phil.”

Edward had picked her up in his beaten-down, hand-me-down truck, and she had forgotten all about the captain of the football team.

“I saved you from a moron,” he scoffed.

“Well, I’ll never know. Because that’s when we became friends.”

“You could have still dated him.”

“Not after you shook your alpha dust all over me.”

The smirk exploded into a laugh.

“Alpha dust?”

“You know what I mean. No other guy would come near me when we started hanging out.”

“I didn’t even have the guts to touch you.”

“That’s not the point. The point is, I could have had a perfectly nice first boyfriend experience if it weren’t for you.”

A shot of genuine hurt tempered the challenge in his eyes.

“My apologies.”

Anastasia let out a frustrated groan, squeezing her toes in Tito’s fur. She hadn’t meant to go that far. Anyone could see that Phil Kemper was a loser, even more so now that he was hooked on pills.

To make up for her vitriol, she plopped her feet on Edward’s lap. He let a beat go by, hands posed in the air as if to declare himself innocent. When she didn’t move, he started on her big, left toe.

“And?” he said.

“Huh?” she had closed her eyes closed and was letting go of tension she hadn’t known she was holding.  

“When else did I throw your life off track?”

She tried to remember why she had reason to be angry.

“Oh. Yeah. When I was home for Christmas, last year.”

She had run into Ed at the grocery store, and he had convinced her to follow him home, to see his new apartment. He had lured her with the backyard fire pit. They hadn’t made it to the fire pit, were waylaid on the couch.

“Oh right. That’s the night I gave you an orgasm without trying.”

Her body thrilled at the memory. They had been making out, and she had been so horny. It had been so long, even then, that her rubbing against his thigh had escalated into coming. She had been shocked at the suddenness, and that’s when she’d left.

“I didn’t get to take my turn,” he said, and her eyes flashed open. “Kidding,” he added, then swept a hand over his crotch, “open for business any time.”

He had a way of making her giggle. Even to her own ears, she sounded like a teenager. She hated him for it, and loved him.

She loved Ed. No matter what happened, she hadn’t been able to oust him from her heart. That’s why ousting him from her life had seemed the only viable option.

“You’re bad,” she said, as he got to work on her inner arch. “You make me do bad things.”

“I think you like to do bad things.”

She flickered her eyes at him, and he had a goofy smile on his face. It would have been obnoxious, but it reached his eyes, which were lit up. He was happy, like this, giving her a foot massage. She thought the happiness was magic.

Pulling her feet from his lap, she said, “you should probably get going.”  

He didn’t budge.

“I’m fine, actually,” he said.

“It can’t last.”

“Why can’t it?”

She was afraid his happiness would be crushed. Not by any direct entity, but by the hum-drum haplessness of everyday life. He liked her now, because she was his, to hold and to fondle. He didn’t know the depths of her need. He didn’t know that she cried without knowing why, like clockwork, every Friday night. Some Sundays she found it difficult to get out of bed. It wasn’t typical depression, not brought on by a death in the family or loss of a friend. It was just that, sometimes, she didn’t see the point of being alive.

Edward was happy until things got serious. Until she was diagnosed with cancer. He was willing to love her until it became necessary, and then he was crushed under the weight of her requirement.

“I’m not like I used to be,” he said, as if reading her mind.

“And how did you used to be?”

“A little boy.”

“I don’t see a difference,” she said, gesturing toward the same six-feet-seven-inch frame that had abandoned her.

He reached for her.

“Let me show you.”

She dodged his advances by getting up to make a mug of tea, then realized she was sick of tea, and dawdled. Her apartment, small as it was, shared a kitchen with its dining room. The small table was wedged against the wall, kitty-corner to the range, where she stood now. Edward could have reached out and grabbed her then, but he resisted. She saw his hand twitch for the whiskey, which he also resisted. Tito’s ears perked up and he whined.

“Gotta let the dog out,” said Edward. “Be right back.”

While Edward and Tito were outside, Anastasia went to the bathroom to pee. The two mugs had gone straight through her. After washing her hands, she hesitated in front of the mirror.

Earlier, when she had been preparing to see Henry, her skin had appeared lined and dim. She had stretched her forehead taut, hoping the signs of stress would go away. Anastasia wasn’t old, but the cancer had given her gray hairs. Now, in the mirror, she looked young. Worse, she looked ripe for the plucking.

Anastasia wondered at the sudden change. There was a tug in her belly that hadn’t been there before. She knew the tug was because of Edward. Resented him for it. She had been plotting, perfectly, before he showed up. House in the suburbs. Two kids. Edward would probably give her more than two kids. Edward would be the type to get her pregnant by accident, and neither of them would be mad about it.

Her face warmed at this realization. Henry was perfect and predictable. Edward was wild and, some would say, deranged. He didn’t make five-year plans, much less ten or twenty. He didn’t care about seeing into the future, as she did, with strain. She was jealous of his ability to turn off projections and simply live. Even if his version of simply living was barging his way into her living room, sitting down, and refusing to move.

He was there, in her living room, on that old red couch, when she returned from the bathroom. Her heart was pounding louder than normal. She had decided to act on the jealousy. She had decided to take what she needed.

She didn’t stop to make eye contact when she straddled him, releasing the full force of her weight onto his lap. She went in for a kiss, grabbing his face between her hands. She could play this game. She would take the sex, because he’d offered it, and in the morning, she would reply to Henry’s texts, which she’d seen on her phone screen, and everyone would be better for it. Edward would finally give her some peace, and Henry would get to interact with a stable, unhorny woman. Because her animal itch would be scratched.

Ed responded by kissing her, only a little. He was holding back. She took more, demanding that his mouth give way. He had ruined her date, after all. This was settling the score. Ed trailed his hands down her back, cupping her backside comfortably. He refused to give in to her rush.

“Come on,” she said, slapping his cheek playfully. “I know what you’re really here for.”

She kissed him again, reaching between his legs to take his temperature. She smiled, then switched to frowning, when he took her hand and set it firmly on the back of his neck.   

“You’re not hiding anything,” she said, bouncing on his lap, to underscore what she meant.

Edward smiled lackadaisically.

“So you can offer a foot massage, but I can’t do this?” she pressed, reaching again for his penis. Again he blocked her advance. Then he rubbed the tops of her thighs.

“The offer for a massage still stands.”

One of his hands went for the space between her legs. Unprepared, she gasped. He stroked her there, over the plush fabric. She wilted onto his shoulder, and he let out a hot laugh. The muscles on her inner thighs melted as she surrendered to his pacing. Edward was petting her like he had at Christmas.  

She kissed him, as their spit became a heavy paste and the moisture increased between her legs. Then his tongue pushed into her mouth, and she was distracted by making room for it. He pressured her into sucking on it by plunging until she had no other option. As her mouth obediently suctioned, her pussy wanted to do the same. Edward sensed this, because a finger transposed the waistband of her pants, nestling into her underwear, and then he was touching her. 

He let out a disgruntled sound and nuzzled against her chest, pushing up her sweatshirt and tank top to reveal her breasts. As a finger entered her, she took a high-pitched breath, his lips came to suck on her nipples, and Anastasia would have been hard-pressed to remember her own name.

Edward’s finger was not a stranger to her nether regions, and neither was she to him. He probably could have brought her to orgasm without thinking about it; he worked her according to breaths and gasps, knew when to withhold and when to stroke.

His attention to her chest, though, was new. In the past, when they’d gotten down and dirty, he’d focused on the space between her legs, and her lips, entering into her with his shaft after doing sinful things to her clitoris. It had been quick and effective, this was the sex she knew. Now, he was making love to her breasts, kissing, nipping, holding one in his mouth and before switching to the other. She restrained herself on his finger, to be fully present for what he was cooking up above. 

“Ride me,” he said into her sternum.

Then he took one of her nipples and pinched it.

Anastasia rode. She rode until he added a second finger, and then a third. Then he lifted his face from her chest, which was covered in his spit, and stuck the pointer finger from his other hand into her second hole, around back.

Anastasia came. When she cried out, it could have been a sob. Her face fell against his chest and he stroked her hair.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that she had expected a quiet night at a G-rated movie, and now, she had fallen apart all over her ex. And he was holding her tenderly.

“This doesn’t mean we’re back together,” she said, weakly.

“OK,” came his response. It was measured and unconcerned.

Her inner pep talk began. One orgasm. She could deal with this. He’d given her one orgasm, which she’d clearly needed, and now she could go on her way. It wasn’t about their past, or their future, or the Pinterest board she was building for herself five years down the line. This was sex. It meant nothing.

He grabbed her by the scruff and kissed her. She ninja rolled off his lap and into a corner of the couch.

“We’ve still got it,” he said, apparently not taking the hint.

“We haven’t got anything,” she said. “That was sex.”

“Technically, it was a hand job.”

This time, she gasped with indignation. She pulled down her sweatshirt and contemplated choking down a third mug of tea. Tito, who had been lying by the door, padded over and hopped between them.

“Good boy,” said Edward. She noticed his legs were spread open, the picture of casual repose. He had no intentions of going anywhere.

She yawned and stretched theatrically.

“Guess it’s time for bed.”

“I’ll meet you in there,” said Edward.

“You weren’t invited.”

He raised his eyebrows, “that wasn’t an invitation?”

“No.”

“What was it then?”

Anastasia finger-combed her hair, buying time.

“That was two people who clearly needed to get off.”

“Or one of us.”

She gestured toward his penis.

“I tried, but you didn’t want it.”

Edward laughed, as if he found this marvelously funny. Then he stood up and walked into the bedroom. She would have yelled at him, but Tito followed, and she couldn’t yell at Tito. On the way, Edward grabbed the whiskey, taking a swig.

She spied on him through the partially open door. Edward placed the whiskey on the bedside table. Then, catching her eye, he took off his shirt. Edward wasn’t ripped, and didn’t pretend to be. He was lean and his shoulders could prop up a car. A trail of reddish brown ran into the black briefs above his jeans.

“You can take your time getting ready,” he said, propping up his head with his hand. “I’m in no rush.”

Anastasia’s insides curled. Ed closed his eyes and didn’t move. She had the urge to kick him. He would probably just laugh. She decided to take her sweet, sweet time. There was a face mask in her medicine cabinet she’d been meaning to use. It would make her look green, like the grinch. If her ice queen act didn’t send him away, this would.

The mask was seaweed, and smelled like it. She poured herself a glass of wine while she was waiting for it to sink in, wine that she had purchased for her and Henry. She stood drinking it with a hand on her hip, staring at Ed, whose eyes were still closed. “Look at me!” she wanted to yell, but that would defeat her purpose of getting him to fuck off. Still, she wanted him to see her. It was confusing, even to her.

When Ed didn’t open his eyes to see her seaweed face, she tried another tactic. One glass deep, she put on her rattiest pajamas, a college tee shirt with holes in it and a pair of boxers she had stolen from her brother. The boxers were complete with a pee hole. She washed her face and got into bed opposite Ed, who seemed to be asleep.

Overheated, she got out of bed and opened the windows. Within minutes she was frigid, shivering beneath the covers. Arizona was like that. Just when you figured out her temperature, she shifted, blowing cold air when you thought a warm current was gracing the valley. Tonight she (Arizona) had chosen an unseemly coldness, and the leaves bristled outside her window. Anastasia, who had brushed her teeth, got up to pour herself another glass of wine.

When she returned to bed, glass in hand, Ed had shifted closer to the center, but still appeared to be asleep. She curled and uncurled her toes under the comforter, hoping to stoke some heat. Then she gave up on that unproductive strategy, and wedged her feet under Edward’s thigh. Within minutes, her toes were warm. She sighed, pushing her feet further, bending her body to match the unnatural angle. She had forgotten this perk of manliness. The ability to warm her, even on the most heartless occasions.

Then a hand reached out and grabbed her ankle. Spooked, she spilled what was left of the wine over her chest. Edward chuckled, and she wondered for how long he had been awake. Then she really did kick him.

“Harder,” he said, in that voice of his to indicate play. “I liked it.”

She scowled, frustrated that even her chilliest advance seemed to tickle him.

He hadn’t let go of the ankle he was holding, and moved his head to rest on it.

“This is my pillow now,” he said, mocking her by pretending to nestle comfortably in the crook of her foot.

“It’s not available,” she said, shaking him off. He responded by scooping her into his arms and spooning her. Anastasia considered putting up a fight. But every muscle in her body melted into him. A warm glow encircled her body as one of his knees wedged between her legs.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” she said, even as her bum wiggled deeper.

“Why not?”

She didn’t have the words to respond. He kissed her neck, and then they fell asleep.

*

In the morning, she was horrified to have fallen asleep with chardonnay in her mouth. This realization was quickly overtaken by a feeling in the space between her legs. It was an animal itch, like an urgent fire. She strained against her PJs and wished she could live on a continent void of men. A place where men didn’t exist, where sexual arousal was for the dogs.

The itch continued to irk her as she tried to fall back asleep, and when she was overcome she moved Edward’s hand, which was resting on her belly, to where the urgency was most annoying, pressing his fingers against her cunt.

He understood the assignment almost immediately. After a brief pause at having been woken up, Edward curved his fingers to cup her where she needed to be cupped. Then he began to stroke, and she moved against him. He took hold of her cheek, turning it toward him, and she resisted, whispering, “my breath is terrible.”

She felt the gentle shake behind her as he laughed, and along with it, the curve of his morning wood. She wouldn’t have sex, she told herself, but she would take whatever else he would give. He was, after all, a guest in her home.

Edward strummed her like a guitar, following the rhythm of her breathing. It was Anastasia who lowered the waistband of her boxers, pushing them down around her knees so that he could stroke her slickness. He hummed approval as his fingers slipped between her folds, spreading the moisture toward her clitoris, which received considerable attention. In lieu of kissing her, he pecked and nibbled her shoulder, kissing her and biting her in turn. Anastasia came without his finger inside her, she came when he bit down and didn’t remove his teeth. His finger played lightly with her clitoris as all the strain inside her eased, and as she came down from the high he pressed his erection into her backside, taking a handful of her hair and yanking it, once, firmly, without hesitation or apology. It was a momentary reminder of who was really in control, though she could stop or beckon him with her words and needy gestures. Edward was stronger than her, and what came next reminded her that he could take her when he wanted. 

Edward flipped her onto her stomach, still controlling her head with the handful of hair he had yet to release, and drove his erection into her backside, blockaded from actually entering her body by the barrier of his pants. The rough texture of his jeans chafed the flesh of her bum, and Anastasia cried out. He thrust once, twice, a third time, then dropped her face into the pillow and kissed a trail down her naked spine. Then he spanked her lightly, rolled out of bed and said, “up!” to Tito, who had been laying at the foot of the bed.

In some kind of shock, Anastasia rolled herself back over to stare at the ceiling. She heard Edward whistle for Tito outside, as Tito did his business. Then she expected to hear the door open, heralding his return. Instead, Anastasia heard the motor start up on his truck. The crunch of tires over gravel. Then nothing. Quiet.

Mind reeling, she took stock of what had happened. Edward had come. She had come. Edward had gone away. It was what she wanted. It was what she had said she had wanted, to herself, and to him, that he should go away. And he had, after servicing her.

Anastasia squirmed in her bed, unhappy with how things had turned out, unsure of why she was unhappy. She made herself a pot of coffee, and drank one full mug before she had the gumption to face her phone.

Nothing from Edward. Five texts from Henry, and a phone call, all from last night.

She flushed as she remembered what she had been doing last night, while Henry was calling her. She was a whore, through and through. That was the truth, and she was trying to be better for Henry. Trying to pretend that her body didn’t matter, that rational thought came first.

The sun shone brightly through the windows, as if it had already forgotten how terribly cold it was when it had abandoned the earth. Anastasia watched the rays spread across the table, working out the logic to prove that she could still make it with Henry. Her eyes landed on the whiskey, and she stood to pour it down the drain. That felt like doing something, at least.

Then she called Henry.

*Read the rest on my Substack!! *hugs* Sadie <3