I was young, and I knew I didn’t want to end up living in Lancaster for the rest of my life. This guy already had everything planned out—he was going to live on his family farm and run it after his father retired. He didn’t have any hopes or dreams beyond that. I was fifteen, and I already realized I was going to outgrow him eventually and break his heart. So I did the nicest thing I could and ended it before we really even started.”
“Okay, but that was when you were fifteen. Nothing since? I don’t think you can know whether or not you’re the relationship kind of girl until you give it a shot.” I picked up my own fortune cookie and cracked it open, retrieving the small white paper from among the crumbs. “Let’s see what fate tells you.” Squinting, I read aloud the tiny print. “You will never know until you try. Try everything at least once.”
“It does not say that.” Zelda extended her arm across the table, wiggling her fingers. “Give me that. Let me see what it really says.”
“Hey, are you calling me a liar?” I dropped the fortune into her outstretched hand, waiting while she read it, watching her eyes go wide and her cheeks go pink. It was suddenly hard to swallow, and speaking of hard . . . when did my wheelchair get so damned uncomfortable? I tried to be subtle as I reached beneath the table to adjust myself.
“Son of a bitch, it really does say that.” She gave a little laugh, shaking her head as she passed the fortune back to me. “But that has nothing to do with what we were talking about. Because you know the old rule, right? Every time you read a fortune, you have to add the words in bed to the end of it. So this one really means, Try everything at least once . . . in bed.” She smiled triumphantly. “That’s something I can totally get behind.”
“So now we’re back to sex, are we?” I heaved a long breath. “Okay, so what if one night you hook up with a guy and it turns out you have more than just an epic fuck? Maybe you have chemistry, and you realize you want to spend more time with him. Maybe he’s someone you want to hang out with, even when you’re not having sex. What would you do then?”
“I’d never find that out, because I never spend enough time with the men I fuck to learn anything about them. If they start to get personal or all touchy-feely, I shut that shit down fast. It’s just how I operate.” She spread her hands. “I don’t have time or energy to be someone’s girlfriend. And I’d get bored, Eli. Banging the same guy all the time? I like variety, I like the spice of life . . . and I’ve never met a man who’s okay with that.” She paused, and I could tell by the little furrow between her eyes she was thinking deeply. “The truth is that even if I accidentally fucked a man who I found out later I really liked, someone I’d want to spend time with outside of bed, and if he was cool with me banging other guys—I don’t think I could respect him for that. Am I hypocrite or what?” Her lips pressed together. “That’s just sad, isn’t it?”
“No, I don’t think so. Whether or not you want to admit it, you’re realizing that you do want something more. I’m willing to bet that if you found the man who connected with you both in and out of bed, and he said he didn’t want to share you, you’d accept that. And you’d find out that variety might be fun, but commitment and dependability can be sexy, too.”
Zelda groaned. “That’s pretty much a contradiction in terms, Eli. Those things are the opposite of sexy.”
“Okay, then. Call it love.” I dropped my voice and leaned toward her. “That sounds damned sexy to me.”
She stared at me, frowning. I didn’t look away, either, and my chest tightened as I watched her run the tip of her tongue over those full red lips.
“I don’t think I can love.” She murmured the words, but I heard them anyway. “Look at me, Eli. I’m the daughter of a woman so mentally ill that she doesn’t know her own child. I’m probably the result of rape. I spent the last four years