Without Merit(40)

He doesn’t disagree. “Are you okay?”

I nod. “Yeah.” My voice isn’t very reassuring, though.

He turns on the lamp and then sits up. I look the other way as he removes his condom and pulls on his pants. “You aren’t mad at me, are you?”

I assume it’s safe to look in his direction now. He’s holding his shirt, looking pathetically regretful as he stares down at me. “No. I’m sure I can find someone to do it eventually.” I’m mostly kidding.

He gives me an apologetic, yet reassuring smile. “Whoever you have sex with, it’ll be better than what this would have been. I promise.”

I laugh. “Yeah, I’m not sure it can get much worse than what just happened.”

Luck flips me off. “I’m normally very impressive and have excellent follow-through. This is a rare exception.”

I like that he’s still playful. We just experienced one of the most awkward things two people can possibly experience, and from the looks of it, nothing changed between us because of it.

He opens the door with impeccably terrible timing. Sagan is walking by, but he pauses as soon as Luck opens the door.

It’s just a two-second glance, but I feel more in this visual exchange with Sagan than I did during the entire past fifteen minutes with Luck. Sagan’s eyes are locked on mine. His eyes move to Luck. His eyes are back on mine. Luck quickly steps out of my bedroom and closes the door, but he’s not fast enough to save me from the absolute most horrific part of this entire day.

I pull the covers over my head and try to wish away the last ten seconds. I didn’t want anyone to find out about what just happened between me and Luck, but Sagan is the absolute last person I would have wanted to find out about it.

I can feel the tears of embarrassment begin to form as I roll over.

I’m drowning in regret.

“Coming down for air,” I whisper.



It’s been several hours since I almost lost my virginity. I’m still the same and I have a feeling I’d still feel the same if my hymen were no longer intact. I wouldn’t feel sexier, I wouldn’t feel more worldly, I wouldn’t be miraculously confident. If anything, I’m a bit . . . disappointed. Why do people risk so much for sex?

So far, all it’s caused me is mortification. I’m so embarrassed to face Sagan, I haven’t even left my room since he walked past it. I can hope he didn’t assume the worst, but Luck walked out of my room without a shirt. Sagan saw me in bed, the blanket covering me just enough to make it obvious I wasn’t wearing clothes.

I’m not embarrassed that he might have caught me having sex with someone. It shouldn’t matter to Sagan if I’m seeing anyone else because Sagan isn’t my boyfriend. He’s dating my sister.

I’m embarrassed because it was Luck. We share a relative. It’s disturbing. And now Sagan probably thinks the worst of me.

Luck came to my room during dinner and asked if I wanted him to bring me something to eat. He thought I was too mortified to come out of my room because of him, but it has nothing to do with Luck. In all honesty, I don’t even regret what almost happened. I only regret that Sagan knows about it.

As embarrassed as I am, though, I doubt my feelings even come close to what my father must be feeling. He knows I know that he’s still sleeping with Mom. And I’m sure he’s terrified I’m going to tell Victoria. Or anyone else in the family for that matter. He’s so mortified, he didn’t even come to my room to talk to me about it.

All I’ve heard from him today was in a stupid text. “I’m sorry you saw that. Please let me talk to you about it before you jump to any conclusions.” In other words, he’d appreciate the opportunity to swear me to secrecy before anyone else finds out what’s really going on around here.

So many secrets in this house. And yet, the one secret I should have told years ago is the one I’ve kept the quietest.

Speaking of quiet. I haven’t heard anyone moving around in the house for a while, which means everyone is probably in bed now. Not only am I starving, but I would put money on the fact that no one has fed Wolfgang today. I go to the kitchen and open a frozen dinner. After I put it in the microwave, I grab a pitcher from beneath the sink to fill it with dog food.

I’m rinsing it out when my father finally gets the balls to confront me. I heard the door to their bedroom open right after I closed the microwave. I heard him walk into the kitchen when I bent down to grab the pitcher. I felt him hesitate at the counter as I was rinsing out the pitcher.

And now he’s standing in the way of me and the back door.

“I have to feed Wolfgang.” I say it in such a way that should indicate I don’t want to do anything other than feed Wolfgang. Especially have a conversation with him about his infidelity.

“Merit,” he says, looking at me pleadingly. “We need to talk about this.”

I walk around him to the bag of dog food. “Do we?” I ask as I scoop some into the pitcher. I turn around and face him. “Do you really want to have a conversation with me about it, Dad? Are you finally going to explain why you started cheating on Mom when she needed you the most? Are you finally going to explain why you chose Victoria over the rest of this family? Are you finally going to explain why you were in the basement having sex with Mom today while everyone thought you were at work?”