Page 96 of Call Me Baby 2: Side B
His gaze fell to the overpriced rug.
His chest started closin’ up from tryin’ to keep himself together.
He could feel her eyes press into him when she said, “You owe me now.”
“Yeah. Course I fuckin’ do,” he muttered, feelin’ like he didn’t have a choice. Then he lowered to his knees in the same goddamn spot she’d just been in, the carpet still warm, tryin’ to convince himself again that he wasn’t Andrew Harding.
Nah. He wasn’t Andrew Harding at all.
He became exactly the guy she needed him to be.
A guy who’d done this before. A pussy-eatin’ god.
And this time, it stuck.
The sun was barely up by the time he returned home.
He walked across the dead grass as daylight spilled through the sky.
When he reached the front door, he walked into the cold darkness of his home and closed the door behind him. For a second, he stood with his back to the door, still tastin’ her in his mouth, still feelin’ her lips on his cheeks from when she’d kissed him once it was all over, still hearin’ her voice in his head—this is our little secret. As if he was some sidepiece.
And he still felt the weight on his chest after she’d clasped the gold chain around his neck. “Was gonna give it to Roger’s dad,” she’d said. “Then he cheated, so it’s yours now.”
He should’ve refused, left it behind, or thrown it out the window on his way home. But he’d stood there like a grateful idiot as she put it on and wore the chain home with it tucked under his shirt so the rest of the world wouldn’t know what he did. As if it spelled out his shame in 24k.
He didn’t have the White Cement Js on his feet. But he finally had the gold chain.
He didn’t get it from the dad he never had. Or love. Or family. Or blood. Or legacy.
Nah. He got it with his cum in her throat, from a debt he then owed.
From lettin’ her see him in the most stripped-down way, before she said there was a price to pay.
It didn’t make him feel like a man.
The weight of it felt like a collar, a scar, a scarlet letter for betrayin’ himself. And ever since, he wore the thing day after day for one reason alone: he fuckin’ hated it.
It laid cold around his neck.
A promise that, from that day forward,
no one would get the real Andrew Harding again.
40 / LIABILITY (REPRISE)
LORDE
By the time he’s done—start to finish, childhood to the week before he met me, from Mrs. Robinson through ten years of never saying no—I’m staring at him,
empty bottle clutched in my fist,
trying to swallow down pissed-off tears,
but it’s only making my hands shake.
And I fucking hate him.
I hate that he let any of it happen.
