It´s not her, it´s her brother

“Hello?” female voice. I hang up. Minutes are the longest thing ever. Ten pass. The longest ten minutes I’ve ever fucking spent. I dial again.

 

“Hello?” male voice. His voice.

 

“Frank?” I sound vaguely strangled and hoarse.

 

“I’ll give her the-” he begins, interrupting my thought just to get away from it.

 

“NoIcalledtotalktoyou.” I blurt out in less than a second. I’m sweating. I don’t know what it is that’s pushing me to do this. That’s keeping me from hanging up.

 

“What do you want?” his voice drops to almost a whisper. He doesn’t sound as calm as he was earlier.

 

“To see you. I need to see you.” my voice shakes. A little. I don’t think he can hear it. I mentally go over what I just said and congratulate myself on the choice of words. Need. I think I sank to a new low.

 

“Fuck. I can’t right now.” he sounds genuinely upset by this.

 

“Please.” I’m ready to shoot myself. I’m saying things I think. Because I can’t stop. “Just for a little while.” I’m pathetic. All the while I’m in the corner of my room, on the floor. He’s hesitating. Thinking.

 

“Meet me at the park entrance. Get out right now. Can you?” he speaks quietly, almost frantically, and I slowly start believing that he wants this.

 

“Yeah.” we hang up without a word.

 

I’m positive that I’m single-handedly ruining this. I’m taking my relationship with Gaby by it’s fragile little legs and smashing it into a wall repeatedly. It’s nauseating. I’m trying not to think all together while I slip into shoes.

 

—

 

I’m waiting. It’s cold. It tends to be colder at night but this is ridiculous. It shouldn’t be but it is. I didn’t think to bring a sweater. I’m in a fucking t-shirt, freezing my ass off because it’s the end of the summer and he isn’t here yet.

 

Someone’s grabs me. Someone’s warm, welcoming body presses up against me from behind and I can’t see who it is. But I know it’s him. His arms come around me in a hug as he buries his head in the crook of my neck. I suddenly feel ten pounds lighter. Like all the tension released and now there’s only the sensation of my sinking stomach. Because he’s panting against my neck and holding me too tight.

 

“Fucking God.” he whispers. “They wouldn’t fuck off with the questions. I ran all the way here.”

 

“Why are we doing this?”

 

“I don’t know. Why the hell are you in a t-shirt?” he inquires, not as seriously as he should.

 

“I don’t know. I didn’t think to put anything on.” I turn my head and his lips are already there. Waiting for mine on pure instinct. We kiss. Hard and starved. I can almost feel my attention span shrink. Somewhere far away, in the realm of consciousness I’m wondering why I’m doing this to myself. Why I’m openly instigating this. This is bad. This is cheating. And there isn’t a valid excuse for it. I’m not drunk. He’s not forcing me. He’s just being wildly hard to resist. I pull away.

 

“You’re such a fucking whore.” He breathes into my ear while his hand toys the button on my jeans. Then undoes it.

 

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to…” I reply, entirely too breathlessly to be convincing. We’re still standing at the park entrance.

 

“So you’re saying that I can walk off right now and you won’t stop me?” he nips at my ear and I moan. Like the whore that he insists I am.

 

“Can you really let yourself walk off?” I say with more confidence than I’ll ever have. I don’t know what pushes these words out of my mouth. All I know is that I want him to touch me.

 

“And what if I can?” his hands slip away from me and once again my back is bathed in cold. Frank backs away. I turn around slowly, with what I suspect to be a pitiful look on my face. I look at him.

 

“Then go.” my voice sounds more defeated than it should, as I hook my thumb into the edge of my jeans under my t-shirt – hiking it up. I’m staring at him with big, sad brown eyes and he shuts off. His face goes blank, he turns away and begins walking in the opposite direction. I panic instantly. It turns into a shiver that spreads throughout my body and I’m standing there shaking, and boring my eyes into his back and hugging myself.

 

“Frank…” I exhale. But he hears me. And I know because he stops in his tracks. I walk up to him. He turns around.

 

“What do you want?” I can feel the tension seep out of his words. He’s not unfazed. Not as unfazed as he usually appears. A fleeting glimmer of hope stirs somewhere inside me. He cares.