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I leaned forward and rested my forearms on the desk, keeping my eyes on hers in reassurance. “I didn’t cope after Luke’s death. I distracted myself with you for weeks after he died, letting your presence calm me and sooth my hurt like a salve, but it never cured it. As soon as I was away from you or the moment you fell asleep and I was left with nothing but my thoughts, I was right back where I started.”
“Which was where?”
“Angry.”
She tilted her head and listened as I tried to explain my feelings from that time for the first time out loud.
“I was so angry at the jackass who drove drunk and hit him. I was so angry at the world for taking him away from me and leaving me here on this earth without him. I was so angry at myself for contemplating taking my own life to be with him again because what did that say about how I felt about you?” I asked hypothetically. “I was so grief stricken that I couldn’t even see how much pain you were in or how much pain I’d cause you if I ended everything to ease the burden that his loss left on me.”
Tears pooled in her eyes as she watched me cut myself open like this. “I had no idea…” She whispered. “I didn’t know you thought about suicide.”
Her voice gutted me, but I had to keep going.
“I thought about it every single day Cora. I can’t describe to you what it felt like to have a physical piece of myself taken from me that night.” I paused as realization dawned on me and I fell back into my chair in shock.
“What?” She asked, leaning forward, confused.
I shook my head and ran my hand over my face. “Holy fuck.” I whispered in denial. “I never compared the two pains out loud before, but the night you left me standing in the middle of that street, the pain I felt losing you was the same that I felt that night losing him.” I shook my head again and took a deep breath. “I always likened the loss of my twin to losing a physical part of me, literally losing my DNA from this earth. But losing you that night was just the same because you took my heart with you in the same way.”
The tears in her eyes spilled over her lashes and she wiped at them quickly but didn’t say anything. I could tell she knew exactly what that pain felt like, because I had inflicted it on her that same evening.
“That anger in me festered until it came to a boiling point a couple of weeks before that night Cora. Do you remember what I’m talking about?” I asked, leaning forward again, and watching her face for remembrance.
“No.” She shook her head and her brows dropped over her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“That night in my parents boat house.” I said and rubbed at my chest as the shame rushed over me the same way it did every time I thought since that night. Which had been almost daily for ten years now.
Her eyebrows lifted as her eyes widened in surprise at the memory and her chest fell. “Mav…”
I cut her off, shaking my head. “It was a month after he was killed, and I was drunk, and you’d met me at the boathouse to drive my pathetic ass to your house to sleep it off since your parents hardly cared about me staying over at that point.” Bile rose in my throat, and I couldn’t hold her gaze anymore. “You were trying to get me to leave, and I wanted to fuck, to let off some steam. But I’d been an ass to you for a few days straight and you refused me, but I let that anger and pain inside of me fester into rage and I –” I clenched my jaw and worked my anger back down to continue the conversation. “I forced myself on you.”
I saw her move in my peripheral vision and looked up to see her covering her face, shaking her head back and forth.
“You said no… and I –” She shook her head faster and dropped her hands, but I pushed on. “I –”
“Don’t!” She snapped.
“Cora.” I tried again but she wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“You didn’t rape me Mav.” She said firmly, “Don’t you dare put yourself into that category.”
“You said no.” I repeated, not allowing her to let me off the hook on this.
“That wasn’t the first time we’d struggled with power and consent Mav. We fought often like that and one of us would coerce the other into sex to cool down. It was no different.”
“It was completely different!” I roared and she tilted her head at me as I stood up and leaned over the desk towards her. She stared up at me with tears in her eyes and her mouth open in disbelief. “I forced myself into your body Cora! And you gave into me when you didn’t want to because you thought you had to.”
“I gave into you because I loved you!” She yelled back, standing up and leaning over the desk to match my energy. “I let you because I wanted you just as much in that exact moment Maverick! I just knew it wasn’t going to fix this!” She put her hand flat on my chest over my heart. “I just wanted to fix this for you, but I couldn’t.”
“I crossed a line.” I admitted. “And as soon as I sobered up that next morning I made a vow to myself that I’d never touch you again if I wasn’t sure I’d be able to control myself.”
She dropped her hand from the bare skin of my chest and backed up with a confused look on her face as she processed my words.
A haunting look covered her face as pain filled her eyes. “You hardly touched me after that.” She whispered in disbelief. “You only fucked me when I down right begged you to, and even then… my God.” She gasped, covering her mouth. “You fucked Sarah because you wouldn’t fuck me.”
She stepped backwards, dropping my gaze, and holding her head in her hands. “I fucked Sarah because I didn’t care about her feelings or comfort, and I could use her body in the only way that made sense to me at that point in my life.”
I walked around the desk to go to her, but she took a tentative step back from me as she processed what I was telling her.
