Yolk(95)

I sigh when it’s over. I don’t pretend that I came, but I feel almost as though I could have. That I almost had to stop myself from doing it. It’s as close as I’ve ever come to finishing with someone else, and as I grab his hands and cinch them tighter around my shoulders, he collapses behind me.

“Hey,” I squeak. I’m breathing out of my mouth as smoothly as I can, so he doesn’t hear the hitch in my throat. The wet in my nose. I’m mortified. My eyes smart.

“Jayne,” he says, propping himself up to look at me.

“Yeah?” I angle my face away. To hide the tears leaking out of my eyes.

“Hey,” he says.

I swallow, my tears puddling on the towel I’ve left on the pillow.

“Jayne.”

I turn around to face him. “I don’t know why I’m crying,” I say helplessly, laughing, feeling like an idiot.

“Okay,” he says, awash with concern. “What do you need?”

“Can you just hug me but maybe not look at me?”

He gathers me in his arms from behind and presses his chest right up against my back.

I exhale. “My reaction bears no reflection on performance,” I reassure him, patting his hand, and I can tell he’s smiling even if I can’t see it.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, sniffing like a child. “What a mess.”

The tears take a moment to dry up, but eventually I collect myself. “Can I stay here tonight?”

“Of course,” he says. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“I know I haven’t been completely honest with you,” he says. “But I’m super done with dating randos. I like you. So, um, please stay the night. You’re the one who keeps trying to run out of here. You don’t have to feel like you’re overstaying your welcome with me.”

I start weeping all over again, the tears sliding sideways.

“You want a glass of water?” he asks.

“Okay.” I sniff.

He grabs a pair of gray sweats.

When he comes back in, concerned look on his face, hair messy, I sit up with the sheets pulled up around me.

I take long, thirsty gulps. “Thanks.” I hand back the glass feeling like a child.

He sets it on the bedside table.

“Fuck,” I tell him. “I’m exhausting.”

He laughs.

Between the vomiting and the sobbing and the yelling, I wonder what’s wrong with Patrick that he seems to like me.

“You know what though?” He sits on the edge of the bed.

“Hmm?”

“Remember the part where you used toilet paper to take off your makeup, so you didn’t smear it into my towels?”

I turn my head up to him.

He grins. “That was hot.”





chapter 44


It’s just getting light when I skip down Patrick’s stairs and out his door. The air is bracing and crisp. I hug myself, having wheedled another sweatshirt from Patrick, and while the sounds of garbage trucks used to sour my mood after big nights out, this morning I’m glad to be sober and awake at this early hour.

I hop on the subway, surprised that it’s as full as it is. It’s strangely tranquil, populated mostly by people rousted from bed by jobs that require uniforms. The collective reluctance and resignation remind me of our school bus in high school. I want to see my sister. I’m excited to see her, curious about her evening, ready to laugh at her stories.

I up-nod the security guard in the lobby, halfway tempted to ask if he’d seen June’s sperm donor depart.

I turn the corner on her floor, wondering if I’ll tell her my story about Patrick, less about the sex and so much more about how I like him, when my smile fades at the sliver of light at her door.

It’s open.

I push it slightly with my fingertips, listen, and then push it all the way.

“June?” I say quietly. Too quietly for anyone to hear. My heart hammers. It was a mistake to go with Patrick. I had no business leaving her with some Wall Street pervert ax murderer. I recall his name. Salim. Salim what? I can’t conjure the rest of it. Fuck.

Fuckfuckfuck.

I sense the atmosphere for any movement. My shoulders coil inward. I inch forward slowly, not taking my shoes or jacket off in case I have to leg it to safety.

“June?” I try again. This time louder.

I turn on the kitchen light. An awful foreboding washes over me.

My sister’s dead.

If she died while I was having sex with Patrick, I’ll never forgive myself.

“Hello?”

I see the spots first. Dark droplets. Four inky bread crumbs foretelling her passage, splotched on the ivory hall rug from her bedroom door, leading to the bathroom. I soundlessly make my way over. I feel as though I can hear the walls breathe.

“June?” I push the bathroom door open, knocking quietly just once as I enter.

“Fuck!” she screeches, eyes wide and then indignant, arms wrapping around her boobs. “What the fuck?” She splashes the water with her palms when she sees who it is. “You scared the shit out of me!”

It’s a horror movie. I’m astonished by the blood blooming around her in the water. For a heart-juddering, all-consuming moment, I’m convinced she’s been stabbed.