liked the old packaging,” I gasped, clenching down hard as he started pumping inside me harder and harder. It was so much better than I remembered, but having great sex with a man I no longer knew wasn’t as good as making love to a boy that understood everything about me.
He rolled me over, lifting a leg over his shoulder and started pounding into me. His eyes watched mine as they drifted closed with every thrust. I came hard, squeezing around him until he pumped one final time into me and collapsed on top of me.
I stared up at the ceiling as my heart continued racing. I was stuck. I wanted the man I used to know, but he didn’t exist. This harder, more expensive version had come in and taken over, and I wasn’t sure that was what I wanted. Nothing about us fit anymore. We didn’t have the same dreams or ambitions, and I had a feeling that I was the only one that was seeing that. Robert had blinders on. He thought we could recreate what we once had. But he hadn’t been there. He didn’t sit with me after I gave up our son. He didn’t see the years of depression that I went through, not just because my mom had overdosed, but because I had done something no teenager should have to do, and I did it alone. No one was there for me, and the one person I thought I could count on had disappeared. It had taken me years to realize that no one was coming to rescue me from the hell I was in. I had to do that myself. And when I was finally able to do it, I decided that I wouldn’t be the pushover I once was. I would be strong enough and know my own mind enough that I would never make decisions based on what someone else wanted.
So, as I laid there in Robert’s arms, I knew that when the weekend was over, so were we. I knew that I wanted to live in that small town with those simple people. I didn’t want fancy cars, clothes, meals, or even the fancy apartment. I wanted something that was mine, that no one could take from me. And I also knew that there was no way Robert would understand any of that.
Robert
I ordered food tonight since last night was a bust. I had wanted to show her a good time, but it didn’t really turn out the way I hoped. I knew she enjoyed the dancing, but it just wasn’t her thing. I had stupidly thought that I could bring her into my world and show her a side of me that could spoil her rotten. It turned out that she didn’t want to be spoiled rotten. But to me, it was more than that. When I walked away from her, I left her to years of doing things the hard way. I wanted to make up for that. Maybe it was guilt, or maybe it was just wanting her to be able to take it easy, but it seemed like no matter what I tried, I always got it wrong. So, tonight we were doing things low key. I ordered pizza and rented some movies, and that’s all we were doing.
“So, what movie are we watching?” I asked as I closed the front door and brought the pizza inside. I set the box on the kitchen table and brought out plates, setting them at the table. She looked at me funny.
“Are we not eating while we watch TV?”
“Uh…no. That’s what a kitchen table is for.”
“Right, but we’re having pizza and watching a movie. Why wouldn’t we do those together?”
I glanced in the other room. “We can see the TV from here.”
She looked in the other room and then smirked at me. “You’re afraid I’ll spill on your white carpet.”
I scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. This has nothing to do with spilling. It’s about sitting at the table, where food belongs.”
“Except, you were willing to eat in front of the TV so you could watch the game on Thanksgiving.”
“Yeah, but that was different. That was my brother’s house.”
She nodded ruefully. “And he lives in the country, whereas you live in the city and you have all this really nice stuff that you don’t want to get dirty.”
“You make me sound like a clean freak or something.”
“No, just neurotic about your white carpet, and your white walls, and your white decorations,”