Then again, I’d kidded myself when I thought Hector wanted to keep me safe.
He was just like everyone else, after something, using me to get what he wanted.
I watched as he shook his head and looked like he was getting annoyed. “You’re gone.”
I tried to soften my features, to make him believe he still had me until I was well away from him and somewhere safe.
“No, I’m not,” I replied.
At my words, he no longer looked like he was getting annoyed, he looked like he was definitely annoyed and I guessed my efforts at softening my features didn’t work.
“Don’t lie to me, Sadie.”
Well, now he sounded like he was definitely annoyed too.
Then he clipped, “Why?”
Yes, definitely annoyed.
“Why what?”
“Where’d she go and why’d she go?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know exactly what the f**k I’m talking about.”
I decided it was time to try a stare down.
This failed.
Then I decided to try something new and pushed at his shoulders. “Hector, get off. I have to get to work.”
This failed too.
“You have to f**kin’ talk to me,” he returned.
“About what?” I asked, fear and desperation making my tone short and clipped.
Hector stared at me then he muttered, “God damn it,” as he gave up and rolled to the side.
I lost his weight, his warmth and the connection of our bodies.
I felt this loss somewhere so deep, so important, it penetrated like a blade, changing something, something crucial to my world, severing it in a way I knew would never heal.
“At least tell me you’re on the pill,” Hector finished and the wound intensified, the severed edges of it cauterizing because I knew then.
I knew.
He wanted no connection to me. Once this was done, whatever challenge he’d set for himself was won, he wanted no connection. Once he had his fill, he’d be gone and, like my Mom, like my father, like any friend I’d ever had and both my ex-boyfriends, I’d lose him too.
“I’m on the pill.” I whispered then rolled, wondering if I could make it into my clothes without dying of mortification.
I barely got to my side, definitely not up on an arm, before he tagged me at the waist and yanked my back into his heat.
His mouth at my neck, he warned, his voice low and angry, “Whatever Sadie I’m talkin’ to, all of ‘em have to know, this isn’t done.”
My heart sunk.