29. Noon February 15 –Savannah
"Where will you stay? Gus's place?" I ask, eyeing the rolled-up tent on the floor.
Wilder remakes the bed he hasn't used for weeks and fluffs the pillows like he's stalling for time. I don't know why he's fighting this. It's his stupid contract.
But I signed it. I can't go back on my deal, either. How do I tell him that I want him to stay, at least for another few weeks, so we can see how we get along when there's no contract and no bullshit?
I bite my lip to keep from asking him to say something. The scent of the bacon we cooked for breakfast still hangs thick in the air. At least he got the leisurely breakfast he wanted. We slept in and then made bacon and eggs, enjoying it at my small table and trying not to look at each other. Will he miss our breakfasts? Will he miss our morning kisses? Will he miss our nights together?
I will. I'll miss all of it, and tears sting my eyelids, threatening to spill over my cheeks.
A knock at the door gives me an excuse to turn away from him. "Who could that be?" I mumble, stalking to the door.
I swing the door open to find my mother holding a pizza. "Hi, sweetheart. Is he gone yet?"
I put my finger to my lips and widen my eyes. "He's still here. What are you doing here?"
She looks at her watch. "It's after noon. I thought the contract says noon."
"It's two minutes after twelve."
"Huh, that one must have liked you. I thought he'd be out at 11:59."
"Why would you think that?"
She hands me the pizza, and I walk it to my kitchen. She follows and reaches into her pocket for her phone. "Do you remember Sally Jennings from the tennis club?"
"Mom, I've never met Sally Jennings. You know that. What does that have to do with me?"
She flips her phone around and shows me a picture of a middle-aged woman with kind eyes and a nice smile. A woman about my age with a pixie cut and large brown eyes is in the photo with her. "Well, we were playing tennis last week, and I mentioned your situation."
"Why would you do that? It's nobody's business who I date." Mom furrows her brow like she's never thought of that before. "Just get to the point."
"Her daughter dated Wilder last year. Broke up on February fifteenth, too. Devastated her, I guess." She sucks air through her teeth in a tsking sound while I shake my head like I've been punched.
I grip the counter in front of me. "What are you talking about? I know he's cuffed before, but how could he break up with her exactly a year ago?"
She shrugs and gives me a confused look. "Come on, Savannah. I thought you knew he does this every year. I mean, I thought it was odd, and I knew there was something off about the contract. Then, Sally confirmed it. He told her daughter that he has a new cuffing partner every year and that the contract is mandatory before he steps foot in the homes. Didn't he tell you?
I shake my head like I'm trying to figure out a hard math problem. "He does what?"
"He meets a girl and stays with her for cuffing season every single year. It's his thing. He makes them sign the contract, Savannah. Jesus, does the guy's dick taste like chocolate or something?"
I want to throw up. Memories of the night at the Chinese restaurant fill my head. How could I have missed it? The contract that looked like it was professionally written. The numbers in his phone that were years.
Dear God, those are his cuffing partners classified by years.
My stomach roils, and my face crinkles, the pain of learning I wasn't his only cuffing partner reignites in my chest. He lied when we made up from that argument. I'm not special at all. That contract wasn't just made the night before we had our first date. My body can't decide between grief and rage. Both feelings slip through my brain, battling for dominance. Do I confront him? Do I walk down the hall and kick him in the dick before pushing him out the door?
"You're saying he had the same arrangement with Sally's daughter and other women?" My voice cracks, and Mom frowns. "Were you expecting me to be happy about this knowledge?"
She tucks a stray piece of her hair back, and I want to pull it out of her head simply for being the messenger. "Honey, I thought you knew, and I assumed it would make you feel better that Sally's daughter was sad when he left. You're not the only one he's done this to."
"How would that make me feel better?"
"Come on, Savannah. We both know you dated him to keep me out of your personal life and to pay your school for the next year. I'm not the bad guy here. I thought you'd be hurt, so I brought you pizza and a fat check."
"What?" Wilder asks behind me. I turn and find him with his hands braced on each side of the doorframe. His brow crinkles, and his eyes explore my face like he's never seen me before. "What's this about a check?"
I wipe the tears that have spilled down my face and round my kitchen counter in a few steps. "Do you date a new woman every year, make them sign that stupid contract, and break up on February fifteenth at noon?"
"Did your mom pay you to be my girlfriend?"
"I asked you a question, damn it!" I yell.
My mother jumps, and Wilder flexes his jaw, probably vacillating between the possible embarrassment of answering my question and anger at learning I got paid to date him. He throws his duffle bag and tent behind him to the entryway, gives me a wounded look, and turns to the door.
"Are you going to leave like this?" I ask, following him to the door. Why won't I just let him leave? He obviously doesn't care about me. Did he ever care about any of us? "Wilder!" I yell, grabbing his wrist and spinning him around. Somewhere behind me, I feel my mother's presence, but I can only focus on him. "Tell me the truth! Am I just a number to you?"
"Oh, we're going to talk about numbers, are we?" he mocks. "Let's talk about numbers." He nods to Mom and scowls. "How much did Heather pay you to have a boyfriend?"
"It wasn't like that, and you know it."
"I don't know, Savannah, but I kind of want to know how much I'm worth. Was it a hundred bucks? A thousand? Ten thousand. Come on, it's important to my self-esteem to know how much my dick is worth to your bank account."
"Don't be crass."
"Did you or did you not get paid to fuck me? Is that what all this was about? You learning to fuck like a porn star and liven up your pathetic life?"
I shake with a mixture of rage and fear. I want to slap the evil grin right off his face, and I stuff my hands in my sweatpants to keep from raising my hand to him. More tears run down my cheeks, and he watches them, his eyes focusing on the water trail on my face. A flicker of sadness is there for a moment, and his hand moves a fraction of an inch, like he wants to wipe my face.
He stops himself and looks at the floor. "Answer the question. Did your mom pay you to be with me?"
Silence fills the hallway, and it feels odd, like his question has sucked the air out of the room. I focus on breathing. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.
"That deal was worked out before I met you to help me pay for school. Before I got to know you."
Hurt crosses his face for a moment, but he laughs. It's not his usual boyish laugh, and it doesn't reach his eyes. It's almost evil in its tone. Maniacal. He digs his palms into his eyes, wiping them like he can't believe this is happening.
"Do you know what you are?" he asks, and I stare at him. Somehow, I know what he's going to say before he says it, and I grit my teeth, pushing air through my nostrils like an enraged bull.
"Do not go there," I shout, pushing my index finger into his face.
"You're a hooker! I fucked a hooker."
He went there.
"How dare you?"
"You got paid to fuck me."
"Sex was never part of the damn deal! I wanted you in my bed. I was paid for the companionship." I know how horrible it sounds as soon as it leaves my mouth. It sounds like I'm one of those "escorts" that gets hired for "companionship."
I can't believe that I'm having this conversation in front of my mother. She stands against the wall, looking between Wilder and me like this is a movie or something we're acting out in front of her. I'm furious with her, but I have bigger fish to fry.
"Do you know what that makes her?" he asks, pointing at my mother but never looking away from me.
"Do not…" My voice trails off, and I shake my head.
He chuckles and steps forward, moving his head until our jaws touch and dropping his voice to a saccharine-sweet tone. "She's your pimp," he smirks. Heather gasps behind me.
"Get out!" I yell.
"It's the truth, but I guess I'm just a john, huh?" he asks, scooping up the rolled tent at his feet and throwing it over his shoulder. "I'm just a way for you to get money. That makes you a whore!"
"And you're a man slut that will plow anything that will spread her legs for you and then runs away like a scared little boy without a care for who it hurts!"
His face reddens even more, and he jerks back like I slapped him. I'd love to leave my handprints all over his face, but I don't. I would never hit him, and I know he'd never hurt me. I'm just so damn angry that I could put my fists through the drywall behind him.
His chest heaves as he looks at me like I'm an insect, something gross that he stepped on and is now stuck to his shoe. He grits his teeth and glances at Mom, as if suddenly sorry he called her a pimp.
Part of me wants them to battle it out with each other. She's the idiot that mentioned I got paid for cuffing with Wilder. He's the jerk that made me sign a contract that we'd break up today when he's done the same to who knows how many women. Neither one of them are virtuous, and I'd like nothing more than to walk away and let them fight it out like alley cats.
"Go," I mumble, pointing at the door. "I know you want to. That was the agreement. You leave now. In fact, you're late for getting ready for your next cuffing season."
He steps toward the door and freezes, his face suddenly going pale. He squints and clenches his fist as if fighting with himself more than with me.
After a few moments, he picks up his duffle bag, throws it over the shoulder not holding the tent, and gives me one last look from head to toe. He opens the door with a sigh and steps out of my apartment. "Goodbye, Savannah."
As soon as he crosses the threshold into the communal hallway, I step forward and grip the frame, willing my hands not to reach for his shirt to pull him back inside my apartment so I can apologize to him. Why would I apologize? I may have done a dishonest thing, but what he did was dirty, too. I think of the other women he's probably left like this the day after. Does he even remember their names? Will he remember mine? Or, more likely, will I be a shadow memory to him in a few months when he starts a new cuffing season with a fresh partner?
The things I did to him and for him. The parts of my body that I showed him in full light, and the things I've tasted on him with my tongue. I'll recall those moments forever, but now they're dirty memories and something to be ashamed of. And he'll find another woman in mere months and do those same things with her. My stomach heaves at the thought of his familiar hands on an imaginary woman's breasts and the sound of his voice moaning only for her, never for me again.
He walks to the stairs, and I stick my head out of the apartment building to watch him go like I need to watch him leave to make it real. I can't see his face, but he wipes it as he takes the first stair down to the lower level. Is he trying to wipe me away? Wipe my last kiss from his face?
I slam the door and whirl on Mom, my rage letting loose and wild. "Why did you do that?" I sob and can hardly form the words. I pull at my hair and cover my face with my shirt, letting the anguish wrack my body.
She backs against the wall, scared of the fury she's never seen from me. "I didn't mean to. I thought he knew. Why wouldn't you tell him that I was giving you money for school?"
"Because I didn't want him to think someone was paying me to be with him!"
"But I was."
The way she says it is typical Heather. Breezy. Like it doesn't matter he's gone and that I can just meet any other man capable of opening me up and letting me enjoy life. It matters to me, though. He mattered to me, and now he's gone.
I sob more, my vision blurs, and Heather tentatively reaches out to touch my shoulder. I shrug her away and glare. "Just go, Mom."
I slide down the wall and sob into my shirt.
"Not like this, Savannah. I'm sorry. I thought you'd have figured it out about the other women. Where did you think he stayed during the winter?"
"I didn't ask specifics. Dumb Savannah. Just go. I want to be alone."
She nods and unwinds her scarf from my coat rack where she left it. "I'll be here when you're ready to talk. I'm sorry. For what it's worth, Aiden dumped me. Said I was too old for a long-term relationship with him."
"You're kidding," I sarcastically chuckle, my face still buried in my shirt. I inhale the smell of my skin. It still has his scent on it from our sex last night, and I take sharp inhales to consume the smell like I can consume him.
She holds her hands up again and walks to the door. "I love you and would never intentionally hurt you. I thought you and Wilder had everything out in the open. Call me when you're done being mad."
Fat chance of not being mad. I'll call her again since she's my mother, but I don't know if I'll ever stop being mad at the entire world over the loss of Wilder Lynx.