Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
“I don’t want to be a possession,” I explained and she nodded.
“Then don’t be,” Lyric retorted, as if it were the easiest thing. “Say it out loud when you see him. ‘I’m not your play thing. I’m me. If you want me, ask. Don’t tell.’ See how he handles that.”
“What if he doesn’t handle it well?”
“Then he’s not a man you keep,” she said casually. “That’s our new life. We don’t accept less.”
I imagined saying it. I imagined his face. Thrasher liked control. But he’d also listened. He’d stopped when I flinched earlier, right at the start, when my body remembered fear before it remembered want. He’d asked if I was okay. He’d waited until I nodded. He didn’t push. The claim came after, not before. It didn’t erase the asking. It simply complicated it.
“I keep thinking about the word ‘first’ like it’s supposed to change me,” I admitted. “Like, I’m supposed to wake up different. But I woke up and my knees still creaked when I stood, and I still needed coffee, and my shirt still smelled like the dryer. The only thing that changed is I know what a certain kind of wanting feels like in my body now.”
Lyric smiled without looking at me, eyes still in the leaves. “That’s what it is. The knowing. BJ tried to make me think sex was something done to me. It’s not. It’s something I do. Something I have. Something I can refuse. Something I can ask for. If you liked it, Mel, you can like it again. If you don’t like something about it, you can say that and see if he listens.”
“He did listen,” I said, surprising myself. “In the moment, he was absolutely laser focused on me.”
“Good,” she said. “That’s a start. Also, you should know because I’ve asked the girls and Tiny too. Claimed doesn’t mean married. It doesn’t mean you stop being a person. It sure as hell doesn’t mean he gets your yes without asking each time. If Thrasher wants you, he can show you with actions that don’t make you smaller.”
I picked at a loose thread at my cuff. “Do you think I’m dumb?”
“For having sex?” She snorted. “No. For liking it? Also no. For wanting safety? Definitely no. For worrying about what it means? That just means you’re careful. If you want the official Lyric protocol, it’s this: protect your heart, protect your body, use your words, and carry cash.”
I laughed. “Carry cash?”
“You never know when you’ll need to call a cab and get gone.”
The laugh left me lighter. The fear that hummed steady under my skin dialed down a notch, like someone had finally found the right switch.
We let quiet happen. A pair of girls in matching aprons cut across the lot toward the bus stop, their conversation filled with laughter. Somewhere inside, a man yelled, “Yo, where’s the mop?” and someone else yelled back, “Check the closet, genius,” followed by the kind of laughter that said they weren’t mad.
Lyric nudged me. “Tell me everything else.”
“About last night?”
“About your head,” she said. “Your body is your business. I’m not asking for a play-by-play. Unless you want to brag, in which case I am fully prepared to be jealous.”
Heat climbed my neck and pooled under my ears. “No bragging. It hurt a little. Then it didn’t. Then it did again after, the way a pulled muscle complains once you stop moving.”
She nodded like that made sense. “And your head?”
“Loud,” I said. “Then quiet. During it, my head was…quiet, actually. After was loud again. Today was loud. I kept expecting to feel shame. Like I should be broken open with it. But I’m not. I’m just okay and aware. Like when you turn off a fan and you hear how much silence has sound.”
Lyric’s mouth tipped. “That’s the good stuff, you know. The quiet in the middle.”
“Is it?”
“Feels like it to me.” She flicked a glance toward the side lot, where a few bikes were lined up. She looked like a woman who had walked barefoot on broken glass and now stood over it learning to trust the floor. “I was scared to tell you about Tiny. I thought you’d say I’d just traded one control for another.”
“I had that thought,” I admitted. “For half a second. Then I pictured his face when you talk. He looks at you like he’s reading a language he didn’t know existed.”
Her laugh came out startled. “He does, doesn’t he?”
“It’s weirdly sweet and also weirdly hot,” I said, and we both giggled like we were a mash-up of the girls we used to be and the women we were now.
“You know what else he does?” she asked after our laughter softened. “He asks me before he touches me in new ways. He’ll say, ‘I want to try’ and then he watches my face. If I frown, he stops. If I smile, he keeps going. It’s probably basic to other women, I guess. But it feels like magic when you’re used to your face not mattering.”