same spot on their body? “How long have you had the tattoo?” his whisper seemed loud in the silence of the bedroom.
“Si nce I was sixteen.” Her voice was steady, emotionless.
William rolled onto his back staring at the ceiling. The warm glow in his stomach solidified into pure lead. He knew that no excuse would ever take away the awkwardness of the situation. “It was you, at the early graduation party. Do you know how many nights I’ve relived that party?” The stark whiteness of the ceiling seemed to mirror the sudden bleakness in his heart. “I never knew your name. Samantha wouldn’t tell me. I had watched you for over an hour before I got up the nerve to approach you. The only thing I could think of was kissing you; trying to find out if you tasted as sweet as I imagined. Once my lips touched yours I was taken over by my stupid 18 year old hormones.” He paused, hoping she would say something and save him the embarrassment. But he was only met with silence. “I thought the whole shy thing was just an act. And then . . . when we got upstairs to the bedroom you told me you were a virgin. A real man would have stopped right there, but I was so hard for you and so out of my mind that I had to go through with it.” William took a deep breath, turned his head and caught her gaze. “I remember your butterfly tattoo because I kept kissing it. I wanted to kiss you other places but I wasn’t really sure what I was doing so I decided NOT to make a fool out of myself.”
“You . . .”
“I tried my best to make it good for you. I have always worried that I was too rough and had hurt you in some way. I wasn’t sure if that much blood was normal or not.”
“Why . . .” she pulled the sheet up over her nakedness, “Why did you leave before I even woke up?”
Seeing her withdraw sent a knife into his heart. The fact that she hadn’t addressed his concern over hurting her wasn’t lost on him either. “The next morning my buddies found us and hauled me out of the bed. They said you were underage and I could go to jail. I didn’t even have time to think before they had me half-dressed and in the car. I tried to go back to the house and find out who you were so that I could see you again. I didn’t want our one night together to be the last time I ever saw you. No one would talk to me. Not Tyler or his sister, Samantha. They knew who you were but they refused to tell me. ”
Erica let out a laugh. “They were protecting me.” She looked away. “They even tried to get me to press charges saying I was raped.”
His heart stopped. Swallowing hard, he heard his voice crack, “Did I really hurt you? I swear if you had said no I would have stopped.”
Erica shook her head and smiled sadly. “You didn’t hurt me. Not really. From what I’ve heard it was a fairly average first time. But emotionally I was shattered. I thought you had just used me for sex and then thrown me away. At 16 you’re expecting the first time to be all love and romance. Guess Samantha’s protecting my identity did more harm than good.”
William pulled her against him. “If I had known you were 16 then I probably wouldn’t have even tried to kiss you much less have sex with you. But, you should know that I have thought about you almost every day for the last twelve years. I’ve wondered where you were; who you were with, if you were happy. And I’ve spent lots of lonely nights dreaming about kissing that butterfly tattoo again.”
“You’re so full of crap.” Her voice was weak. “You expect me to believe that you remember that night? A night that was little more than a drunken release?”
“Would it help you to know that I came back after college looking for you and Samantha still refused to tell me who you were or where you were going to college? You can even ask her.”
“You did? You’re not going to get all emotional on me are you?”
William could hear the weak humor in her voice. She was trying to change
Rebecca Hamilton, Conner Kressley