Page 22 of Come Find Me Tonight

My lips curl again as I hit send, thoroughly proud of my slightly jackass response to her, but I know what she wants. I had barely set my phone down on my desk when it pinged.

@AppaPie: You left, remember? Quit showing up in my DMs like you fucking didn’t.

My phone slips out of my hand, clattering loudly on my desk. My heartbeat spikes and settles as I recover from the mild heart attack she just gave me. If she only wanted Rook, she’d feed into this. Maybe she’s just pissed at me for leaving, and I would have stayed if it were me with her. Rook wouldn’t have, and she must feel so rejected after giving me so much of herself.

And it’s been pinging in my mind for days how her pussy felt so brand new the other night, but it doesn’t make sense that she would’ve been a virgin. Not a girl like her. Not at twenty-four.

Her last message haunts me for the rest of the day. I reschedule my video from tonight to tomorrow, so I can have an evening without a flood of notifications. But then it occurs to me that if I don’t post according to my normal schedule, Appa might think she affected me.

This is more complicated than dating.

I leave the schedule as originally planned and let the video post at five tonight and silence my phone to block the notifications. I throw together a quick chicken salad, scarf it down, and decide that I need to get some fresh air.

My nightly glass of red wine can wait.

The late sun glints on the windshield as I drive to a nearby trailhead. I’ve done this trail before, and it’s quick and convenient when I need to really clear my mind. As we near summer, the sun is staying up later, and it gives me plenty of time to walk the trail after work while it’s still light out. I’m not afraid of the dark, but I am a little afraid of wildlife. I have been ever since a fucking snake snuck onto the vineyard and bit me when I was a kid and didn’t know better. It wasn’t a venomous species and hardly broke my skin. E thought it was hilarious, but I was left scarred for life.

Heading back to my car, sweaty-chested after finishing the trail, I let my mind wander to Appa. She probably thinks she poked Rook enough to draw him out tonight and give her what she wants, but that’s not how I operate. This is already too gray, and we’ve only fucked twice. She may have pushed me away via message, but I know she gets off on this. It’s sick, and I don’t want to enable it. But I can’t look away either.

I pull my phone from my pocket to set it in the cup holder, and my fingers check my DMs as if it’s muscle memory. I skip the hundred notifications from tonight’s Rook video and go straight to my conversation with Appa, bold with a new message.

@AppaPie: Just so you know, you’ve ruined orgasms for me. I can’t make myself come.

Fucking good.

I laugh through my nose and use the back of my wrist to wipe sweat off my temple. I can picture her tangled in the sheets, breathing loudly with sexual frustration that her tried-and-true methods aren’t working. Only my dick can do it for her now. Just how I wanted it.

But it’s a little scary just how well I can read her and her subtext, and that’s what happens after watching someone for six years. I type out a message to respond with confident fingers.

@Rook: Baby, you need rehab from me.

But I don’t send it. I can’t reject her again, and I’ll return to her sometime soon. Whether I like it or not. It’s her turn to wait and wallow in it like I have for years.

Chapter Eleven

Appa

I’ve always had the worst periods. So bad that I started birth control when I was fourteen for relief.

Against my Christian mother’s wishes.

She thought it meant I’d have a reason to have sex earlier, but a decade later, she couldn’t have been more wrong. I’ve been to multiple doctors, and they have said the same thing: It’s just bad luck. Some changed my birth control, but it never mattered. I always went back to the combo pill and endured cramps so sharp I saw spots. Having so much pain each month was debilitating, and I’m lucky to have a work-from-home type of job.

Every month when I knew my period was coming up, I’d pre-film and even take stories to upload throughout the week just in case I wasn’t up to it.

Most months, I spent the first two days in bed with a heating pad and all the Midol in the world, suffering in silence while my friends did normal girl things. Some months weren’t that bad, but others were straight from hell. And I feared this month would be bad.

I haven’t seen Rook since the night he kissed me for the first time, and then we had our strange conversation over messaging the next day. I crave his lips now, but my current state is killing that fantasy. As much as I want a do-over of the other night with Rook, I’m also content eating mac and cheese with my water bottle nearby. I’m anemic on top of everything else, so if I don’t stay hydrated during my period, I get lightheaded and have passed out before.

Oh, the joys of being a girl!

For the first time, I had a sense of relief that my period showed. Rook left part of him in me both nights, and a small part of me was nervous that it would turn into something more permanent. My period this month is proof the birth control is doing its job, so I’m watching trash TV in the comfort of my bed while eating junk food. The lower half of my body is aching, like my uterus could just cramp its way out of my body.

I don’t think I’d mind it if it did.

They could take my reproductive organs for all I care, and I’d send them a thank-you card. Of course, I want to have a baby someday, but a surrogate would be so much easier. My quality of life would be restored if I didn’t have these parts, but no doctor wants to do a hysterectomy on a girl in her twenties.

I set the empty bowl on my nightstand and reach for my phone.