Page 32 of People Like Us

“Tell me.”

I turned my head to look at his profile, “What do you mean?”

He met my eyes, “If it had been me, and I had let you down, what would you have said to me?” His fingers squeezed mine again briefly.

“I’d tell you that it makes me feel disposable. Like I’m something you just use to make yourself feel good. Like I could be anyone, doing anything, and it wouldn’t matter unless you felt good. Unless you got off. Makes me feel like as long as I’m pretty, and I’m polite, and I laugh at your jokes, and show up to your games, and you get to parade me around in front of your friends then it doesn’t really matter what feels good for me.”

I didn’t even feel the tears come up until my vision was already swimming and the bridge of my nose burned. I sank my teeth into my lower lip to stop it from trembling.

August untangled our hands, and slid his finger into the waistband of my skirt at my hip, and tugged, beckoning me to move closer to him. As I did, he adjusted the blanket so it was between us. I laid my head on the back of the couch, where his arm was now resting.

We were close enough to touch, but we weren’t. Not really.

“Tell me what you deserve,” he whispered, leaning in so his breath fanned the sensitive skin beneath my ear.

I rolled my head, resting my temple against his jaw, desperate for any sort of contact. I inhaled, taking in his cedar scent. If I had angled my head upward just slightly, our mouths would have been right next to each other’s.

His voice was strained as he said, “Don’t give me things I haven’t worked for, Lola.”

I sucked in a deep breath.

“Tell me what you deserve,” he begged.

I shook my head, squeezing my eyes shut against the tears that wanted to escape.

“Tell me you deserve to feel good,” he said softly against my cheek.

“I can’t,” I said, voice breaking around the words.

“Take a deep breath,” he said, and I felt his chest give beneath me as he breathed inward. I followed him, pulling in a breath through my nose. I held it in my chest until I felt his rise again, and I exhaled through my mouth as I heard him do the same.

“Good,” he said quietly. He brushed a stray hair away from my face, and I could feel him looking down at me, though I was too scared to open my eyes.

“You’ve spent your whole life being lied to, Lola. Being shoved into a cage, and told that it was for your own good. That it means you are cared for. But we shouldn’t cage things we love, should we?”

I shook my head. The whole time August spoke, I felt the steady rise and fall of his chest, and I worked to match his breathing.

“You’ve been told you’re too pretty to be kind. Too young to be smart, or worse too smart to be this young. Your pastor tells you that you were born to be a sinner, and that you have to spend your life making up for it. You’re told you’re a slut if you put out, but a prude if you don’t. You’re a bitch when you’re right, but naive when you’re wrong. And I don’t know who told you this one, but somehow you believe that not every inch of your body is perfect, when it is.”

My hands found his shirt, and I was gripping the hem, silently begging him to either stop, or to keep going; I was lost somewhere in the middle.

“But it isn’t what you deserve, is it, Sin?” he said, and I felt his lips brushing against my cheekbone as he spoke.

“No,” I breathed out.

“So, tell me what you deserve,” he asked me one last time.

“More,” I said instantly.

I felt him smile against my hair. “That’s right. You deserve more than a bad fuck in the back of a nice guy’s truck, Lola. You deserve to come. You deserve to be the thing he worships.” His words were so soft, the profanity of it didn’t register.

His hand came up, spreading the length of my jaw, the ring on his thumb brushing against my cheekbone as he pulled back enough to look at me. I tilted my head back to meet his eyes.

“You deserve whatever it is you want, Lola. And no one else deserves to judge you for it,” he said, searching my eyes for any sign that I believed him.

I nodded gently in his grasp. “What do you want?” I asked, dropping my eyes to his mouth.

The corners of his lips tilted up just slightly. “I want everything outside of this room to not matter. If we have to ignore each other in front of our friends just to make it easier, then that’s fine. I don’t really care about anyone else’s opinion on this. But I want this. I want to be the one who gets to see you like this when no one else does. I want you honest.”