I put my hand inside my pocket and fished out the wooden egg-heart. I felt it with its divots and jagged edges and clenched my fingers around it, fitting the whole of it into the palm of my hand. I clutched Matt’s own hand and spread his fingers open, watched his eyes as he looked down at what I was doing. I placed it into his palm and pushed each finger down until his hand made a fist around it. It felt like I was always waiting for him to put his hands on my neck. There was nothing I didn’t want to give him. I wanted him to hurt me if he wanted to hurt me. I wanted to explore the limits of my own pain, to push my psychological limits. I’d never been scared of the power of men before him. When he said he needed time, I resolved to give it to him.
It was the first time I was truly vulnerable with someone else. It was the first time I was so wild in my lust that I lost myself, let myself fall in love without worrying about the consequences. I just wanted to be vulnerable, to let the restrictions go and let someone else control me, to be ripped open raw. Dick-drunk fucked into love.
“I want you to know every part of me,” I said. I chewed on my tongue and wondered if it would always feel this way, illegal. Matt looked down at the heart in his hands and took a deep breath in.
“I think I’m falling in love with you, Lilith,” he said.
Matt’s shadow shielded the setting sun. The way he was standing, a halo of light hovered just behind his head. The closest we could be was fucking when Frankie was watching, her hands on my thighs. We had never been alone long enough to have sex just the two of us. I knew I was romanticizing the longing too much, but I wanted the pain. My heart was beating too hard. I wanted it to be wrong. Our moments, we’d keep them. I thought it would win him over, that it was what he wanted. That’s what I thought in that moment, like I was in a fucking romance novel, saying stupid shit like I want you to know every part of me.
I reasoned with myself by attempting to lie. I told myself it wasn’t my attraction to him that was making me feel this way, but that I was addicted to doing the wrong things. Breaking the rules felt wrong at first, but it was exciting. It raised the stakes. I liked to do drugs, so it was only natural I would also like to do other bad things. Sleeping with Sam, my boss. Hiding the relationship with this couple from Sam and my mom and everybody. Stealing my mother’s drugs. Sleeping with Jenny, who was supposed to be a friend. Breaking the rules by being emotional with Frankie, and then going behind her back with Matt. The last and final rule: don’t fall in love with a taken man. A man who is a father, who is committed not just through lust but through his own blood.
Yes. It had to be that. I was just a rule-breaker. Girl from dirt, not from rib. I looked at Matt, not into his eyes. I looked at his third-eye spot. Matt said it again: “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
I didn’t say it back.
THE SATANIC BIBLE SAYS MAN IS JUST ANOTHER ANIMAL
I’M PRETTY SURE THE meaning of life is about sex. Otherwise, why do we suffer so much for it? Why do guys get jobs they hate? Why do men marry women they don’t like? Why do girls do the stupid shit they do? Why do they all seem so fucking unhappy? This whole game is just a giant trick to get us to fuck each other and make more ugly people until the Earth burns. Solve et coagula. People die, they become dirt, people are born, they suffer, they fuck, give birth, die, dirt. Over and over again. Everything in between is us running away from it. Even if you never make babies, there’s some bullshit in your blood that just pushes you to fuck people. The sooner we all accept that, the easier our lives will be.
When I talked to Jenny, it wasn’t because I loved her. That is in-between shit. That is crazy-making. It is the shit that makes me drink, probably, my daddy-shaped hole. Really, I just couldn’t stop thinking about the way her body felt against mine.
Like with Patrick. Why was I naïve enough to think he just wanted to be friends?
Maybe I wasn’t that naïve.
Attention feels so good. Surely some god made me like this. Otherwise, why the fuck was I chasing it so hard?
When I gave Patrick my number, what I wanted was information about Matt and Frankie. I knew that some biological undercurrent would pull him toward me. He was in his early twenties. I was nineteen.
I also knew about the situation with his cousin. I texted him about it because I was too much of a coward to ask in person. are you going to be with her forever, why don’t you just move away from your family and get married?
It seemed as though he wasn’t very happy with her. Maybe it wasn’t true love after all. That was disappointing. I had hoped it was true love, that something like that could exist. Instead, it was just sex. Like everything else.
This was confirmed when Patrick texted me the very same words Matt whispered against my ear. It did not have nearly the same effect.
—i really like you, said the message.
I tried so hard to get Sam’s attention and he was so fucking stingy with it. He was on and off ignoring me. And here was Matt, and
