I didn’t say goodbye to my friends.
And I didn’t get to tell Lulu how I felt.
Something happened to me when her name crossed my mind. For just one random second, there was a memory so strong that it ripped me out of my present reality and set me back to finally getting to kiss her for the first time.
I dove deep into that memory, trying to recall every little detail. The way her soft skin slid across my palms and her silky strands slipped through my fingers. The smell of her perfume—a little sweet, a little spicy. The taste of her vanilla chapstick. The sound of her little needy whimpers.
I put everything I had into it.
And for a blissful couple of moments, I was there instead of the shitty building with the drafty windows and the filthy floors and the makeshift table full of torture devices.
Snapping back to reality was rough as new pain flared through my system, stealing my breath away as I looked down to see that I’d somehow been so caught up in my memories that I hadn’t felt them being inflicted at all.
Decision made, I leapt right back into my memories of Louna in those first few blissful days of our new relationship. We hadn’t been able to get enough of each other, texting and calling and video messaging all day long, often falling asleep with each other over one of those outlets at night.
And when life permitted, we spent every stolen moment we could together. Even if it was just getting to drive her from the gym back to her parents’ house.
But I lived for the times when we could get more than a few minutes. When I could sneak in and cuddle up with her on her bed and watch her favorite movies while she gave me all the soft and sweet of her that she never showed to anyone else.
Of course, yeah, the memories drifted back to other shit too. Especially when the pain kept getting more and more intense and the sweeter, more innocent memories weren’t cutting it anymore.
Lulu had been even softer and sweeter then. It was maybe the only time I’d ever seen her nervous. That first time. Our first time. Herfirstfirst time.
After that, though, she’d been wild and demanding, barely able to keep her hands off of me, gaining confidence with that sort of intimacy the way she was sure of herself in every other kind of situation.
Eventually, the pain stopped. Mostly because Curtis got tired and wanted to go get a little rest before it started up again.
I didn’t have what it took to bring back any more memories then. I was too hurt. Too exhausted.
Pain could do that to you. Sap every last ounce of energy in your body.
So I’d been dozing in and out of consciousness when I heard a noise that suddenly jolted me fully awake.
I immediately figured it was Curtis, having gotten a little cat nap, and ready for more bloodshed.
Then I saw her.
For a short moment, I hadn’t really believed my eyes, thinking that the pain had maybe made me a little delirious and made me hallucinate an image of her to help ease the pain again.
If I were going to conjure an image of Louana, though, it was going to be a naked one. Not one with grim determination on her face and a wrinkled old brown bag in her hand.
Louana had come in to save me.
Kind of a new interpretation of the guy-saves-the-girl trope.
If ever there was someone ready to shatter glass ceilings, though, it was Louana.
I mean, the woman was able to quietly get me back down onto my own numb feet when I far outweighed her.
And I knew if, given the chance, she had to haul me out that window because her reckless ass came to save me without backup, that she was more than capable of it.
Then, fuck, then she gasped.
I knew.
I knew in the millisecond before my head could even raise what had happened.
Then Curtis spoke as I watched him grab her and drag her back, just out of reach.