No longer fearing the possibility of him with anyone else makes it all worth it, to be honest. I tried to ignore how stressful that was when it was happening, but now that it’s over, it’s as if a fifty pound weight has been pushed right off my shoulders.
I couldn’t save Erika. Not that I would have expended much effort trying, but by the time Monday rolls around, the hottest gossip around school is that she failed her drug test and is no longer a cheerleader. I don’t know how Carter managed that and I decided not to ask. I decided not to let her into our relationship any longer, because she has no place there. Sure, I feel bad about what happened, but Carter did warn her, and she did choose to treat him like he wasn’t a threat. I don’t think all is fair in love and war, but Carter clearly does, and she has known him longer than I have. Shouldn’t she have known that?
In any case, she does now. After hearing the rumors, I expected her to be out for blood, but to my surprise, she seems to finally accept defeat. She doesn’t show up to lunch Monday or Tuesday, but Wednesday she does. She doesn’t even look at her old table. She walks across the cafeteria and finds an empty spot somewhere else.
I don’t skip lunch in the cafeteria anymore. I don’t sit at the popular girls’ table where Carter’s girlfriend should sit, either; I sit right next to him at the guys’ table—the sole girl among them. Perhaps because of that, the message is clear that I’m with Carter, whether I say I am or not.
Now that we’ve come to our own arrangement, I’m less concerned about titles. Carter never much liked them, anyway, and all it did was make me feel pressured. Other people can be boyfriend and girlfriend; we will be Carter and Zoey.
By Wednesday night, Carter has already blown through his two remaining rounds of math test sex. Not that it matters now. He shows up at my house Thursday evening when the rest of my family is out and fucks me right in my own bed. It’s a brutal, noisy fuck, the kind of convincingly hateful fuck most people who like each other so much probably aren’t capable of. When my body is blissfully spent and drained of energy, I curl up next to him, wrap my arms around him, and nearly drift off to sleep.
His voice draws me out of it and my heavy eyelids drift open so I can look up at him.
“When I was younger, I had this babysitter. From the time I was eight until I was thirteen. Didn’t really need a babysitter by that age, but I liked hanging out with her. She was only six years older than me, so it was more like having a friend over than a babysitter, just a smart friend who could help with my homework when my parents didn’t want to.”
I push myself up in bed a little trying to shake the bleariness. “Okay,” I murmur, not quite sure where he’s going with this.
“When I was 12, she started playing this game with me. Sometimes she would bring stuff with her, sometimes we would use stuff around the house, but… she wanted me to put things inside her. She would wear a skirt with no panties, or a top with no bra. I always knew which game we would play by what she would show up in. No panties, I would put stuff inside her until she came. No bra, she’d want me to use my mouth.”
My stomach drops as I start to piece together what he’s saying.
Glancing at me a little uncertainly, he says, “It was kind of like a signal, so I guess I knew what was coming, but I couldn’t tell anyone. Wasn’t even sure what I would tell them, you know?”
I nod, my heart in my throat. I can’t get any words out past the lump, so I just nod like a broken bobble head doll.
“It went on for a while, then the game changed. Then it wasn’t enough for me to use stuff on her, she wanted me inside her. I didn’t even feel comfortable with the game, I didn’t want to do those things I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about. It all felt wrong, and not in a remotely sexy way.”
“Oh, God, Carter,” I murmur, knowing where this is going.
Clearing his throat, he says, “Anyway, so, that was Chloe’s mom. When she got pregnant, everything kind of went to shit. She freaked out because she knew what she had done was illegal, even though she told my parents I was the one to come onto her. I wasn’t,” he says, looking me straight in the eye almost defensively.