“You’re so soft,” he’d said into a kiss. “You’re soft and wet and I worry I’m feeling too wild for this small, sweet body.” His hand shook and he slowed himself down by pulling my underwear all the way down my legs and off, throwing them onto the floor. “First I’ll make you feel good. Because once I get inside you, I know I’ll lose myself,” he’d said, laughing, tickling my hips, nibbling at my jaw as his hand slid down my stomach and back between my legs. “Tell me when it’s good.”
I was telling him almost immediately, when he pressed his fingers against my clit, sliding back and forth until I started to shake, and beg, and reach for his pants. I shoved them down awkwardly, without unbuttoning them, wanting only to feel the heavy pulse of him in my hand.
I shiver as my body remembers that first orgasm and how he didn’t let up, pulling another one from me before I pushed him away and rolled off the couch, taking him in my mouth.
But I don’t remember how that ended. I think he came. Suddenly I’m consumed with panic. “In the living room, did you . . . ?”
His eyes widen briefly before that light amusement fills them. “What do you think?”
It’s my turn to scrunch my nose. “I think so?”
He leans forward, resting a fist on his chin. “What do you remember?”
Oh, the little fucker. “You know what happened.”
“Maybe I forgot? Maybe I want to hear you tell me.”
I close my eyes and remember how the carpet felt on my bare knees, the way I initially struggled to get used to the broad feel of him in my mouth, his hands in my hair, his thighs shaking against my flattened palms.
When I look up and he’s still watching me, I remember exactly how his face looked the first time he came against my tongue.
Reaching for my coffee, I lift it to my lips and take a giant, scalding gulp.
And then I remember being carried into the bedroom, Ansel wildly kissing and licking every inch of my body, sucking and biting. I remember us rolling from the bed to the floor, the crash of a lamp. I remember, however many hours later, watching him roll a condom on, his bare torso looming over me. I don’t think I’d ever felt so greedy for something as I had for the weight of him on top of me. He was perfect: sliding in carefully even as drunk as we were, rocking in small, perfect arcs until I was sweaty and frantic beneath him. I remember the groan he made when he got close, and how he rolled me over, my stomach flat to the mattress, his teeth bared on my neck. Leaving one of so many marks.
Ansel watches me from across the table, a tiny, knowing smile curving his mouth. “Well? Did I?”
I open my mouth to speak but with the mischievous look in his eyes, maybe we’re both remembering when he lifted me against the wall, pushing roughly back into me. Where had we been that he moved me to the wall? I remember how hard the sex was then, how a painting rattled a few feet away, him telling me how perfect I felt. I remember the sound of glasses tipping over and breaking near the bar, the sweat of his exertion sliding across my breasts. I remember his face, his hand pressed flat to a mirror behind me.
But no, that was a different time.
Jesus, how many times did we have sex?
I feel my brow lift. “Wow.”
He blows a breath across his drink; the steam curls in front of him. “Hmm?”
“Yeah, I guess you did . . . enjoy. We must have done it a lot.”
“Which was your favorite? Living room, or bed, or floor, or bed, or wall, or mirror, or bar, or floor?”
“Shhh,” I whisper, lifting my cup to take another, more careful sip of coffee. I smile into my mug. “You’re weird.”
“I think I need a cast for my penis.”
I cough-laugh, nearly sending a hot mouthful of coffee through my nose.
But when I lift my napkin to my mouth, Ansel’s smile disappears. He’s staring at my hand.
Shit shit shit. I’m still wearing the ring. I can’t see his hands below the table now, and the crazy sex we had last night is officially the least of my worries. We haven’t even started talking about the real issue: how to disentangle ourselves from this drunken night. How to fix it. It’s so much more than being relieved we used condoms and having an awkward goodbye. A wild one-night stand isn’t legally binding unless you’re stupid enough to get married, too.
So why didn’t I take off the ring as soon as I noticed it?
“I d-don’t—” I start, and he blinks up to my face. “I didn’t want to put it down and lose it. In case it was real or . . . belonged to someone.”
“It belongs to you,” he says.
I look away, eyeing the table, and notice two wedding rings there, between the salt and pepper shakers. They’re men’s rings. Is one of them his? Oh God.
I start to slip mine off but Ansel reaches across the table, stilling me, and then lifts his other hand, his finger still decorated with a ring, too. “Don’t be embarrassed. I didn’t want to lose it, either.”
This is too weird. I mean, way too weird for me. The feeling is like being pulled under by a violent wave. I’m suddenly hit with panic knowing that we’re married, and it’s not just a game. He lives in France, I’m moving in a few weeks. We’ve just made a huge mess. And oh my God, I can’t want this. Am I insane? And how much does it cost to get out of this sort of thing?
I push back from the table, needing air, needing my friends.
“What is everyone doing about this?” I ask. “The others?” As if I need to clarify who I mean.
He swipes a hand over his face, and looks over his shoulder as if the guys might still be there. Turning back to me, he says, “They’re meeting in the lobby at one, I think. And then I guess you girls plan to head home.”
Home. I groan. Three weeks living at home with my family, where even the adorable boy chatter of my brothers playing Xbox can’t drown out the killjoy of my father. And then I groan again: my father. What if he finds out about this? Would he still help pay for my apartment in Boston?
I hate depending on him. I hate doing anything that triggers the giddy little smirk he wears when he gets to tell me I screwed up. I also hate that I might throw up right now. Panic starts like a slow boil in my stomach, and heat flashes across my skin. My hands feel clammy and a cold sweat prickles at my forehead. I should find Lola and Harlow. I should leave.
“I should probably find the girls and get ready before we . . .” I wave vaguely in the direction of the elevators and stand, feeling sick for an entirely different set of reasons now.
“Mia,” he says, reaching for my hand. He pulls a thick envelope from his pocket and looks up at me. “I have something I need to give you.”
And there’s my missing letter.
Chapter FOUR
AFTER THE ACCIDENT, I’d barely cried in the hospital, still convinced it was all some horrible dream. It was some other girl, not me, who’d crossed University and Lincoln on a bike the week before high school graduation. Someone else was hit by a truck that didn’t stop at the red light. A different Mia shattered her pelvis and broke her leg so thoroughly a bone extended from the skin of her thigh.
I’d been numb and in shock the first few days; the pain was dulled by a steady drip of medication. But even through the haze, I was certain it was all a mistake. I was a ballerina. I’d just been accepted to Joffrey Ballet School. Even when the room filled with my mother’s sobs and the doctor was describing the extent of my injuries, I didn’t cry—because it wasn’t about me. He was wrong, my chart had been switched, he was talking about some other person. My fracture was minimal. Maybe my knee was sprained. Someone smarter would come in any minute and explain it all. They had to.
But they didn’t, and the morning I was discharged and faced with the reality of life without dancing . . . there wasn’t enough morphine in the world to insulate me from the truth. My left leg was ruined—and with it, the future I’d worked
toward my entire life. The stutter I’d struggled with for most of my childhood had returned, and my father—who spent more time researching the odds of my dancing career being lucrative than he did attending my recitals—was home, pretending not to be inwardly celebrating.
For six months I barely spoke. I did what I had to: I carried on. I healed on the outside while Lola and Harlow watched over me, never treating me like I was held together with a fake smile and staples.
Ansel leads me to the same corner I took him to last night. It’s decidedly less dark this morning, less private, but I barely notice with my eyes boring into the envelope he’s placed in my hand. He has no idea the significance of this, that the last time I wrote myself a letter was the day I decided to start talking again, the day I told myself it was okay to mourn the things I’d lost but it was time to move on. I sat down, wrote all the things I was afraid to say out loud, and slowly began to accept my new life. Instead of moving to Chicago like I’d always planned, I enrolled at UC San Diego and finally did something my father deemed worthy: graduating with honors and applying to the most prestigious business schools in the country. In the end I had my pick of programs. I’ve always wondered if subconsciously I was trying to get as far away as I could, from both him and the accident.
The envelope is wrinkled and worn, creased where it’s been folded and probably pulled in and out of his pocket over and over, and reminds me so much of the letter I’ve read and reread over the years that I have a flash of déjà vu. Something’s been spilled on one corner, there’s a red smudge of my lipstick on the opposite side, but the flap is still perfectly sealed, the edges not pulling away even a little bit. He didn’t try to open it, though judging by his anxious expression he’s most definitely considered it.
“You said to give that to you today,” he says quietly. “I didn’t read it.”
The envelope is thick in my hand, heavy, and stuffed with what feels like a hundred pages. But when I tear it open and look, I realize it’s because my handwriting is so huge and slanted and drunk, I could only fit maybe twenty words on each narrow page of hotel stationery. I’d spilled something on it, and a few of the pages are torn slightly as if I could barely fold them correctly before giving up and shoving them in a messy pile inside.
Ansel watches me as I sort them and begin to read. I can practically feel his curiosity where his eyes are fixed on my face.
Dear Mia self.Miaself.Myself it starts. I bite back a grin. I remember tiny ticks of this moment, sitting on the toilet lid and struggling to focus on the pen and paper.
You’re sitting on the toilet writing a letter to yourself to read later because you’re drunk enough to know you’ll forget a lot tomorrow but not so drunk that you can’t write. But I know you because you’re me and we both know that you’re a terrible drinker and forget everything that happens when you’ve had gin. So let me tell you:
he’s ansel.
you kissed him
he tasted like lemon and scotch
you put his hand in your underwear and then
you talked for hours. yes, you talked. i talked. we talked. we told him everything about the accident and our leg your leg my leg.
this is confusing.
I’d forgotten this. I look up at Ansel, a prickling blush rising beneath the skin of my cheeks. I can feel my lips flush, too, and he notices, his eyes smoothing over them.
“I was so drunk when I wrote this,” I whisper.
He only nods at me, and then nods at the paper, as if he doesn’t want me to be interrupted, even by myself.
you told him you hate speaking but love moving
you told him everything about dancing before the accident and not dancing after
you told him about how it felt to be trapped under the hot engine
you told him about two years of physical therapy, and trying to dance “just for fun” after
you told him about luke and how he said it felt like the old Mia died under the truck
you told him about dad and how you’re sure he’s going to change Broc and Jeff from sweet kids into dickheads
you told him how much you dread the fall and moving to boston
you actually said “i want to love all of my life as much as i love this night” and he didn’t laugh at how stupid you sounded
and here’s the weirdest part
are you ready
I close my eyes, weaving a little. I’m not ready. Because this memory is sliding back into my thoughts, the victory, the urgency, the relief. I’m not ready to remember how safe he made me feel, and how easy he was. I’m not ready to realize that he’s witnessed something no one in my life has ever seen before. I suck air into my lungs and look back down at the letter.
you didn’t stutter. you BABBLED.
I meet Ansel’s eyes when I read this, as if seeking confirmation, but he doesn’t know what the letter says. His eyes go wide as he searches my expression, barely holding back from speaking. Does he remember everything I said?
so that’s why you proposed and he said yes really fast with this drunk smile like it was the best idea he’d ever heard because of course we should get married! now you’re headed there but i wanted to write this first because you might not remember why, and that’s why. don’t be a jerk. he might just be the nicest person you’ve ever known.
xo
Miaself
ps. you haven’t had sex with him yet. but you want to. A lot. Please have sex with him.
pps. you just asked him if you guys were going to and he said “we’ll see.” :/
I fold the papers up as neatly as I can and push them back inside the envelope with shaking hands. My heart feels like it’s doubled in size, maybe conjoined to another, a new one that prefers the staccato of panic. The doubled beats bounce and reverberate in my chest.
“So?” he asks. “You know I’m dying of curiosity.”
“I wrote it before we . . .” I hold up my left hand, displaying the simple gold band. “The last time I wrote myself a letter . . .” I start, but he’s already nodding. I feel like I’m spinning beneath the weight of this.
“I know.”
“And I proposed to you?” I suppose what actually surprises me is that there was a proposal at all. It wasn’t just drunk stumbling. I remember his teasing the night before that I should go with him to France, but this took discussion, and planning. Getting a car, giving directions. It required us to sign papers, and pay, and select rings, then repeat vows coherently enough to convince someone we weren’t drunk off our asses. I’m actually a little impressed by that last part.
He nods again, smiling.
“And you said yes?”
Tilting his head slightly, his lips pout the words, “Of course I did.”
“But you weren’t even sure if you wanted to have sex with me?”
He’s already shaking his head. “Be serious. I wanted to have sex with you the first time I saw you, two nights ago. But last night, we were really drunk. I didn’t . . .” He looks away, down the hall. “You left to write yourself a letter because you were worried you would forget why you proposed. And you did forget.” His brows rise, as he waits for me to acknowledge he’s made a decent point. I nod. “But we got back to the hotel, and you were so beautiful, and you . . .” He exhales a shaky breath. It’s so jagged, I imagine I can see the slivers of it fall from his mouth. “You wanted it.” He leans closer, kisses me slowly. “I wanted it.”
I shift on my feet, wishing I knew how to pull my eyes from his face.
“We did have sex, Mia. We had sex for hours and it was the best, most intense sex of my life. And see? There are still details you don’t remember.”
I might not remember every touch, but my body certainly does. I can feel his fingertips tattooed all over my skin. They’re in the bruises I can see and they’re invisible, too: the echo of his fingers
in my mouth, dragging along my legs, pumping inside me.
But as intoxicating as the memories are, none of this is what I really want to talk about. I want to know what he remembers from before the wedding, before the sex, when I dropped my life in his lap. Having sex with a virtual stranger is weird for me, but it’s not unheard of. What’s monumental is for me to have opened up so much. I never even talked to Luke about some of these things.
“Apparently I said a lot to you yesterday,” I say, before sucking on my bottom lip and working it with my teeth. It still feels bruised and I get tiny, teasing flashes of his teeth and tongue and fingers pinching my mouth.
He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes move over my face as if he’s waiting for me to reach some understanding he reached hours ago.
“I told you about Luke? And my family?”
He nods.
“And I told you about my leg?”
“I saw your leg,” he reminds me quietly.
Of course he did. He would have seen the scar extending from hip to knee and the tiny ant trail of staple marks along the long, silvery gash.
“Is that what has you shaking?” he asks. “That I saw your naked leg? That I touched it?”
He knows it isn’t. The smile pulling at his mouth tells me he knows my secret, and he’s gloating. He remembers everything, including his unique achievement: a babbling Mia.
“It was probably the gin,” I say.
“I think it was me.”
“I was really drunk. I think I just forgot to be nervous.”
His lips are so close I can feel their shadow on my jaw. “It was me, Cerise. You still haven’t stuttered this morning.”
I press back into the wall, needing space. It isn’t just that I’m surprised to find I’m so fluent with him. It’s the intoxicating weight of his attention, the need I have to feel his hands and mouth on me. It’s the headache that lingers and the reality that I’m married. No matter what happens, I have to deal with this and all I want is to climb back into bed.