I was working from home that morning, which mostly meant sitting on the couch with my laptop browsing Reddit and other random timewasters while Jack slowly stole my job.
I had gotten very good at using company time for my own pleasure.
At nine fourteen, a new calendar invite appeared.
Company All Hands – 10:00
Attendance required.
That was probably not good.
A second invitation arrived less than a minute later.
10:30 – Martin / Johanna / Mia
That was definitely not good.
I stared at the two invitations.
“Well, fuck.”
At ten, several hundred tiny faces appeared on my screen.
The CEO looked appropriately miserable in an expensive shirt.
He talked about challenging market conditions. Changing client expectations. AI transforming the industry faster than anticipated. The need to become leaner, more focused, more adaptable.
We needed to get back to basics.
We needed to protect the company’s future.
We needed to make difficult decisions today so we could remain strong tomorrow.
A lot of we for decisions most of us hadn’t made.
Then came the important part.
Positions were being eliminated across the company.
Everyone affected would receive a private meeting invitation from their manager and HR.
I looked at the second tab on my screen.
Mine had arrived forty-six minutes early.
Well.
Nice of Google Calendar to spoil the ending.
At ten thirty, I joined the second call.
Johanna appeared first.
Same glasses. Same neutral expression.
Martin joined a few seconds later.
He looked like shit.
Not tired. Not Monday tired. Actually wrecked.
His hair was a mess, his eyes were red, and for once he wasn’t sitting there with the vague expression of a man waiting for someone else to finish talking.
“Hi, Mia.”
“Hey.”
Johanna started speaking.
My position had been eliminated as part of the restructuring announced that morning.
Effective immediately.
There it was.
Fired.
Except apparently we weren’t calling it that.
“Is Jack taking over the project?”
Martin looked at me for a second.
“Jack’s position was eliminated too.”
“Oh.”
“The entire team is gone, Mia.”
That shut me up.
Johanna explained that because my position was being eliminated rather than my employment being terminated for performance, the PIP was ending with it.
That seemed convenient.
Then came the money.
Eight weeks of salary. Benefits through the end of the severance period. Payment for unused vacation. In exchange, I would need to sign a separation agreement containing the usual collection of words meaning take the money and don’t sue us.
Johanna called it a release of claims.
I liked my version better.
“Is everyone getting two months?”
Johanna paused.
Tiny pause.
Interesting pause.
“Separation packages vary based on individual circumstances.”
Ah.
Please don’t make us explain the PIP in front of a lawyer money.
The call ended, and I closed my laptop. I would have to go into the office to sign some papers, but after that, I was officially no longer employed.
I was unemployed.
This was bad.
I texted Leah,
Me:
I been fired
Leah:
You expected this, right? Did you get any severance?
Me:
8 weeks
Leah:
Oh, that’s good.
We can discuss employment plans tonight.
I am a bit busy right now. Just know I got your back. 💋
OK, that made me feel a bit better. With Leah on my side, I would land a c-suite position in no time.
My phone buzzed again.
Lin:
Soooo, how busy are you tomorrow? And the next two days?
I looked at my closed work laptop.
Me:
Funny you should ask. How can I be of help?
Lin:
My cousin is getting married, and my parents are flying me and a plus one out to Ankeny to show family solidarity. I thought perhaps you could be my plus one?
Me:
Anything for you, babe.
Lin:
Fuck you. Also, make sure Leah packs you something for a Midwestern wedding.
Me:
I can dress myself!
A few seconds after I sent that to Lin, a message showed up in the Girl Talk group.
Lin:
Leah, Mia is coming with me to a Midwestern wedding for my cousin. Can you fix her up with something sophisticated but down-to-earth? Something that will impress my family without looking too upper-class.
Leah:
Oh… that sounds like a fun challenge. Timeline?
Lin:
We leave at 11 tomorrow morning.
Leah:
That’s okay. I’ve got some things here I can modify.
Mia, your presence is required.
Me:
Oh, so you have time to make me outfits, but you’re too busy to talk about me getting fired.
Leah:
You have two months of severance. Your wedding is tomorrow.
Lin:
You got fired, Mia? And you did not tell me!?
Me:
Errr… We can talk about it tomorrow, Lin. And sure, Leah, on my way over now.
I arrived at Leah’s place to find it empty. I assumed she was at work, but had no real evidence. She’d had an evening lecture yesterday, so I had spent the evening at home.
I decided to make myself some food and tidy up the place. It was the least I could do, now that I was unemployed and leeching off my girlfriend.
Leah arrived around six carrying several shopping bags.
She stopped just inside the door and looked around.
“Mia?”
I lifted my head from the couch, where I’d apparently upgraded unemployment into an afternoon nap.
“Oh, there you are. What happened to ‘your presence is required’?”
“I meant in the grander sense. Not immediately.”
She looked around again.
“You’ve been busy.”
I followed her eyes. The apartment was very tidy. I had put in some work.
“If you’re looking for a job, I could use someone to cook and clean for me.”
“Pff. Better put a ring on this finger if you want that.”
She dropped the bags on the floor and took off her shoes. Leah’s place was a strict shoes-off home.
I had once spent half an hour online trying to figure out if that was some upper-class British thing. Reddit had provided several contradictory essays on class, carpets, and whether wearing outdoor shoes inside made you a barbarian.
About thirty minutes in, I remembered Leah was Japanese.
That had probably been the answer.
“Okay, so this wedding. Do you know the size? Theme? Dress code? Venue?”
“Nope. And somehow I doubt Lin knows either. It sounds like a rush job to get her there.”
“Fine. I brought options. Something middle-of-the-road for meeting the family, something for the ceremony and dinner, and something less restrained in case there’s an after-party.”
I looked at the bags.
“You bought all that today?”
“Some. I already owned some.”
“Leah.”
“What?”
“You don’t need to impress anyone for me. I trust you.”
Leah paused with one hand inside a shopping bag.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
She looked at me.
I smiled. “I’m going to Iowa with Lin. You don’t need to somehow win over her parents remotely through my wardrobe.”
“I wasn’t trying to win them over.”
“Three outfits.”
“Technically four. I have a before-wedding and an after-wedding outfit, as well as the two for the wedding.”
“Four?”
Leah frowned at the bags as if they had betrayed her.
“I’m not saying stop. I’m saying whatever you pick will be fine.”
That seemed to settle something.
“Okay.”
She immediately pulled out the first outfit.
“Take your clothes off.”
I smiled at her. “Only if you are gentle. I am a fragile woman, you know.”
Leah recognized the joke and smiled.
“Sassy.”
“Unemployed. There’s a difference.”
We tried different clothes and combinations for about an hour and a half before settling on four outfits. I also borrowed one of Leah’s suitcases, which she packed for me along with shoes, accessories, and everything else she apparently didn’t trust me to remember.
No family heirlooms this time.
I was ready for Iowa.
The next morning, Lin sent me the travel details, and we agreed to meet at the airport. I took an Uber and found her waiting near the baggage drop.
“All ready to meet my family and high school friends?”
“Why didn’t you bring Dan instead of me?”
“Because bringing a man home as my plus-one would raise significantly more questions than I’m willing to answer.”
“And bringing me won’t?”
“You’re my roommate.”
“Ah. Plausible deniability.”
“Exactly.”
I hadn’t been on many planes in my life. As a kid we’d flown to Vegas once, and that was pretty much the complete history of Mia versus aviation.
Lin, meanwhile, moved through the airport like she’d done this a hundred times.
I expected to be more surprised by the airplane part, but somehow it did not feel that weird. Instead, I focused on Lin, who seemed to be a bit out of sorts.
“Lin, who is getting married, and why is it important that you attend?”
She looked at me and shrugged.
“It’s not really important. It’s one of my cousins. They have been dating since high school and they already have a kid. It’s not who is getting married, it’s who is there.”
“OK, who are we going to meet there? Any ex-boyfriends I need to shield you from?”
“No. I had a pretty shitty high school experience. I got bullied a lot, and my attempts at romance were… not great.”
She looked out the window.
“I think it probably fucked me up in more ways than I realized. It’s part of why I moved to New York. I wanted to get away from all these people.”
“And now you’re going back.”
“And now I’m going back.”
She sighed.
“And I don’t even have anything to show for it. I’m a humanities student, Mia. I don’t have some amazing career. I’m not rich. I’m not successful. I’m just… me.”
I thought about the four outfits packed into Leah’s suitcase.
Maybe Leah hadn’t been trying to make me impressive for Lin’s parents.
Maybe she’d been trying to make Lin impressive.
I was part of the outfit.
Well, fuck that. I was gonna be the best part of the outfit.
Lin was gonna arrive back in Iowa a fucking superstar.
When we landed, Lin’s parents picked us up. They were smiling, obviously happy to see their little girl again. Lin introduced me, and they both gave me a big hug. I wondered if Lin might have been a bit harsh on her parents. These people seemed lovely.
They drove us to Lin’s childhood home, and I was told that I was bunking with Lin during the stay. They also gave Lin keys to their second car.
It was around three when we got back to the house. Lin’s parents told her to take the car and go explore her old town. Apparently a lot had changed since she left.
“Just be back by six for dinner.”
Once we were in the car, I looked at Lin.
“Six for dinner? Is bedtime at eight?”
“We’ll explore more after dinner. I have some places to show you.”
The ride around town was extremely interesting, mostly because I was beginning to understand how this place could have driven Lin completely insane.
It wasn’t some tiny farming town with one road and a grain silo. There were stores, restaurants, schools, parks, endless neighborhoods. Des Moines was right there.
But everything felt spread out. You drove everywhere. Every few minutes Lin would point at something and explain what used to be there.
“That used to be a cornfield.”
Five minutes later:
“That also used to be a cornfield.”
Then:
“Okay, that was always a Walmart.”
Progress.
She showed me the grocery store where she’d had her first job, the church her parents attended, the park where everyone hung out when they were too young to drink legally, and several houses belonging to people whose names meant absolutely nothing to me.
What did mean something was that Lin knew everyone.
Not literally, but close enough.
A teacher lived there. An old friend’s boyfriend’s parents lived there. That subdivision had three girls she’d gone to school with. Someone’s mother worked at that store.
I started to understand.
New York let you disappear into millions of people.
Here, Lin had spent eighteen years being somebody’s daughter, somebody’s classmate, somebody’s neighbor.
There was nowhere to just be Lin.
At five forty-five, Lin looked at the clock.
“We should head back.”
“Your parents said six.”
“Yes.”
“It’s a ten-minute drive.”
“Yes.”
“Lin.”
“We should head back.”
There were apparently some childhood habits New York had failed to kill.
Dinner was aggressively pleasant.
Her dad asked me about New York. Her mom asked how Lin was doing at school. They asked about our apartment, complained about something a neighbor had done, and told an embarrassing childhood story that Lin repeatedly attempted to terminate.
Nobody demanded she move home.
Nobody criticized her clothes.
Nobody asked when she was getting married.
They seemed like perfectly nice people.
Which somehow made Lin make both less and more sense at the same time.
“You girls going back out tonight?” her mother asked.
“I wanted to show Mia the school.”
“Okay. Don’t stay out too late. You’ve got a long day tomorrow.”
“Mom, I’m twenty-five.”
“I know how old you are.”
Her mother smiled and went back to clearing plates.
Nothing happened.
That was the weird part.
It wasn’t a fight. It wasn’t even unreasonable.
But I watched Lin’s shoulders tighten anyway.
Around eight we escaped.
Lin tossed me the keys.
“You drive.”
I caught them on instinct.
“You remember I barely drive, right?”
“You have a license.”
“Those are not the same statement.”
“You’ll be fine. This is Iowa. The roads are wide and nobody is trying to kill you.”
I looked out at the enormous empty street.
She had a point.
When we got in the car, Lin snuck out a hip flask and took a swig.
“You don’t have open-container laws in Iowa?”
“The sheriff is the father of the bride. He won’t be working late today.”
“There are no other police?”
“Nope.”
I stared at her.
“That’s obviously not true.”
Lin took another swig.
“Then why did you ask?”
We arrived at the school a few minutes later. Lin told me to park around the back, and I did.
She got out, took another swig from the flask, tucked it away, and told me to follow her.
We ended up by a small service entrance. Loading area, cafeteria deliveries, something like that.
Lin climbed onto a stack of crates and started fiddling with one of the windows.
There was a click.
The window slid open.
My eyes went wide.
“Are we breaking and entering?!”
“It’s fine, Mia. Trust me.”
“You knowing exactly how to break into your old high school is not making me trust you more.”
Lin started climbing through.
I swallowed.
Fuck it.
Whatever Lin needed from this place, apparently I was committing a misdemeanor with her.
Best friend duties.
When I dropped inside, Lin was already looking around. She took a deep breath.
“Still smells the same. I’m shocked that window is still broken. I guess tax dollars are being wasted.”
She looked back at me.
“Come on. I want us to do some things.”
We rounded a corner before Lin stopped.
She stared down the corridor for a moment, then turned to me.
“I have some requests. Fantasies, I suppose. They’ve been sitting in my head for a long time.”
“What kind of requests?”
Lin folded her arms and looked away.
“The kind where I need you not to be gentle with me.”
I waited.
“I want to go into the girls’ bathroom and hide in one of the stalls. Give me a few minutes, then come looking for me.”
“And when I find you?”
“Be angry. Like I’ve been avoiding you and you’ve finally caught me somewhere nobody can help.”
“Lin…”
“I know.”
She reached for my hand.
“That’s why I’m telling you now. I want this.”
“And if you stop wanting it?”
“I say the word and everything stops. If I freeze or go quiet, you stop anyway.”
“After?”
That finally made her look at me.
“You remind me this was my idea.”
She squeezed my hand.
“I don’t want you to actually make me helpless, Mia. I want to know I can feel helpless and still be safe.”
I still had absolutely no idea what this was about.
But Lin had been clear about what she wanted, clearer than she usually was about anything involving sex.
I could ask why later.
Right now, she needed me to listen.
“Okay. What’s the word?”
Lin told me.
I repeated it back to her.
“And if you freeze, I stop anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
I took a breath.
“Go hide.”
She smiled at me. Excitement? Joy? Relief? I had no fucking idea, and figuring it out wasn’t my main problem right now.
I needed to get angry.
Or fake angry.
I needed a scenario. Something I could actually work with.
Then it hit me.
She’d made a move on my boyfriend.
Yeah. That worked. She’d offered Dan a blowjob, he’d turned her down, and now I’d caught the bitch who’d tried to steal my man.
I bounced on my toes a few times, trying to pump myself up.
“Fucking Lillian Dwyer.”
Better.
“Trying to make a move on my boyfriend. Who the fuck does she think she is?”
I could feel the fake anger starting to build.
“Fucking slut. Thinks she can outperform me?”
There it was.
I headed toward the bathroom.
I slammed the door open, and the stink of piss and filth hit me like a wave.
“God, it stinks in here. Dwyer, do you like it here? Does it mask your BO?”
I stepped inside. Five stalls. Every door closed.
“I know you’re in here, Dwyer. Come out and I’ll be nice. Won’t hurt you much at all.”
I stood still for a few seconds, giving her the chance.
Nothing.
I slammed the first stall door open. Empty.
“Every second you make me spend looking for you is another second I’m going to spend making you regret it.”
Second stall. Empty.
“Damn it, Dwyer. I’m going to make you remember this.”
Third stall. Still nothing.
“Lillian Dwyer, you think you can offer my boyfriend a blowjob without getting some payback? I’m going to make you regret ever thinking about him.”
I hit the fourth door hard. There she was, sitting on top of the toilet, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around her legs, wearing that light yellow sundress. She looked scared. Part of me wanted to stop and pull her into a hug, but I knew it was the role. She’d told me what stopping looked like. This wasn’t it.
I grabbed a handful of her hair and dragged her head back.
“There you are, Dwyer. Finally going to pay for what you did.”
Lin looked up at me with wet eyes. “Please don’t make a mark. My dad will notice and I’ll get in more trouble. I’ll do anything you say, just don’t hit me.”
I gave her a smile that promised nothing kind. “Anything is a lot of things, Dwyer. I hope you’re ready to pay up.”
She nodded hard. “Anything. I promise.”
I jerked my chin toward the sinks. “Take off that slutty little dress and your panties. Put them on the sink, then come back here. If you disappoint me, I’ll flush them.”
Lin scrambled to obey. While she stripped I shoved my jeans and underwear down and sat on the toilet with the lid up.
When she turned back, naked, I shook my head.
“Crawl.”
She dropped to her knees and crawled across the cold tile. When she was close enough I tangled my fingers in her hair again and forced her face down toward the open bowl.
“What made you think you could go after my boyfriend, Dwyer? A public hole like you? You don’t get to touch someone like him.”
She stared into the water.
“I just wanted a taste. You’re so sexy and he’s so… hot. I could never have anyone like that. I… I just wanted to feel it for a little while.”
“You want a taste?” I pulled her head up so she had to look at me. “Fine. I let him fuck me raw earlier today. Maybe if you make me come you’ll get a hint of him.”
I dragged her face straight into my cunt and held her there over the open toilet.
She started licking immediately. I let a few real moans slip out, then remembered the role and looked down at her.
“I’m not surprised you’re good at this. I bet you do this all the time.”
She gave a small nod and kept working. I ground down against her mouth, smearing myself across her lips and chin.
“Getting any closer to tasting him yet?”
Lin glanced up, mouth shiny. “You taste sweet enough for me.”
I spat in her face.
“Did I tell you to stop?”
Shock flickered across her features. She shoved her tongue back between my folds without another word.
The rush of power hit harder than I expected.
I decided to push further. I slid lower on the seat, spread my legs wider, and forced her face down between my cheeks.
“Clean it properly. Rub my pussy, but that slut mouth stays right here. My boyfriend likes anal. I want him to find a spotless asshole later.”
Lin made a low sound, maybe a grunt of pleasure, and obeyed.
She was good at this. Thorough. The wet heat of her tongue working over and into me, combined with her fingers rubbing tight circles on my clit, had me climbing fast. I started rocking against her until it finally tipped me over. As I came, Lin slid a finger inside my ass without stopping her tongue. I clenched around it as the orgasm rolled through me.
As I came down, I felt another pressure building low in my belly and decided it would make a good ending to my cruelty. I let go, and a hard stream of piss hit Lin full in the face. Her eyes went wide, but she didn’t pull away.
“Open,” I ordered.
She opened her mouth. I didn’t try very hard to aim. Most of it ran across her cheeks, into her hair, down her neck and over her tits. I kept going until the stream slowed to a trickle, then stopped.
Lin sat back on her heels, dripping, staring at the floor.
I stood, wiped myself with two fingers, and cleaned them in her hair.
“Good work, Dwyer. I think we’re going to like this new arrangement. Next time I’ll let you eat the cum out of my ass after he’s finished with me.”
She nodded, still looking down.
“Good slut. I’ll call you when I need you. Clean yourself up, you stink of piss.”
I grabbed my clothes and left the bathroom.
Outside, I dressed quickly and stood there for a moment.
That had been…
Fuck.
I pressed my ear against the door.
Nothing sounded wrong.
After another moment, I eased it open enough to peek inside.
Lin was still on the floor, one hand between her legs, eyes closed. Apparently, I caught her right at the end. Her whole body tensed before she sagged back against the stall.
Okay.
Definitely not traumatized.
I stepped into the doorway.
“You liked that?”
Lin looked up at me, flushed and breathless, and gave me a small, completely genuine smile.
“God, it was amazing. So much better than I imagined.”
“How many times did you imagine that?”
“Thousands.”
“Jesus Christ, Lin.”
Her smile widened.
And just like that, Dwyer disappeared. This was Lin again.
“So you’re good? Hug? Water? Emotional support animal?”
“Shower.”
“I can do shower.”
“Good, because that’s our next stop.”
I carried her dress and underwear as we walked toward the gym lockers. I didn’t want them getting stained after everything we’d just done.
Lin didn’t seem particularly bothered about walking around naked. Maybe that was part of the fantasy too?
She was a complex woman. Lots of weird little compartments in that brain.
“You said the shower was our next stop like this was something you’d planned. Was it?”
Lin looked at me and smiled.
“Yes, it was on my agenda. Back when I was here, there was a huge scandal at the school. Someone had snuck a phone with an active camera into the girls’ shower. The video got out, and eventually everyone at school had seen it. They found whoever did it, and the school dealt with the whole thing. I wasn’t in the class that got caught on camera, but when I saw it being shared, part of me wished it had been me. Not because I wanted someone to do that to me. It was the idea of all the boys looking at me, touching themselves, thinking about me. It was… a fantasy I had a lot.”
I looked at her. “That’s sort of weird, Lin. No offense. I jack off to some seriously weird things now and again, but it’s mostly about tentacles and forced breeding.”
She smiled at me. “Well, we can explore that another time.”
“But for now, I want to make a video of us in the shower if you’re up for it.”
“Are you gonna AirDrop it at the wedding or something?”
She laughed. “No. It’ll just be mine.”
“Just yours?”
“Yeah. Something I can watch and imagine other people are watching too.”
“Okay. That seems… surprisingly reasonable, actually.”
We entered the showers and I took out my phone, propping it in the corner of the room. The wide-angle lens caught most of the room from close to ground level.
Terrible porn cinematography.
Perfect hidden-camera cinematography.
Lin walked beneath one of the central showerheads and turned on the water, washing herself off. For the first minute she seemed determined to pretend the camera wasn’t there. Just a woman taking a perfectly normal shower.
Then she started stretching a little more than necessary, turning slightly toward the lens, or taking considerably longer to wash certain places.
She was absolutely performing for it.
I stripped down and stepped under the showerhead beside her, deciding to play along. I didn’t look at her. Didn’t look at the camera. Just another perfectly normal person having a perfectly normal shower.
At least, that was the plan.
Then I looked over at her, and she was sliding a finger between her legs, and I decided that maybe I could do a better job than that finger.
I stepped under her spray without asking. Water ran over both of us as I reached down, gently caught her wrist, and pulled her hand away. Lin’s eyes flicked to mine, then to the phone in the corner, then back again. A small, guilty smile tugged at her mouth.
“Let me,” I said.
I dropped to my knees on the wet tile. The water hit my shoulders and streamed down my back as I leaned in and dragged my tongue up the length of her pussy in one slow, deliberate stroke. Lin’s hand found my hair immediately. She didn’t push, just held on.
I licked her properly this time. No rush. No performance for the camera beyond what was already happening. Flat strokes over her clit, then lower, tongue pushing between her folds, tasting clean water and the sharper taste of her. I slid two fingers inside her while I worked, curling them upward, matching the rhythm of my mouth. Lin’s hips rolled forward in small, needy pulses. A soft, broken sound left her throat every time I pressed just right.
After a minute I pulled back just enough to speak against her skin.
“Turn around. Hands on the wall.”
She obeyed without hesitation, bracing her palms on the slick tile, ass pushed back toward me. I stayed on my knees, spread her open, and licked a slow stripe from her clit all the way up over her entrance and across the tight furl of her asshole. Lin shivered hard under the water.
“Mia?”
“Hush, I have a plan.”
I worked her with my tongue the same way she had done for me earlier, thorough, patient circles, then pointed pressure until the muscle softened and let me in. At the same time, I reached around her, slid two fingers back inside, and settled my thumb against her clit. The sensations made her legs tremble. Water ran down the cleft of her ass and over my tongue; every time she pushed back, I met her with more of it.
I pushed my tongue deeper, fucking her ass slowly while my fingers curled inside her, my thumb moving steadily over her clit. Lin’s forehead dropped against the tile. Her breathing turned ragged, broken by quiet, high sounds she tried and failed to swallow.
I murmured against her. “You look beautiful.”
She only moaned in answer and pushed back on my mouth.
I kept the rhythm steady, tongue and fingers working together, my thumb pressing firm circles on her clit, until her whole body went tight. Lin came with a sharp, open-mouthed cry, her thighs shaking as everything tightened around me.
When she finally sagged against the wall and slid down to my level, I pulled her in and kissed her under the spray. Her arms looped around my neck and she pressed close, still breathing hard.
“You know, I was mostly planning for this to be a voyeurism video to rub myself to later. But I think this is going to be much better.”
“Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.”
She smiled, got to her feet, turned off the showers, and grabbed a towel.
“We have one last stop before we leave. Come on.”
The last place Lin wanted to show me was the football field. She dragged me under the bleachers and just stood there, looking around.
“I don’t know what I wanted from this place. I think I needed to come back, just to loosen the memory. See if it actually still mattered.”
I looked around. “What happened here?”
“I had a… bully. She had leverage over me and liked using it. She’d make me walk with her, sit with her at lunch, pretend we were friends. She made me do her homework.”
Lin looked farther under the bleachers.
“And she’d bring me here as a lookout while she fooled around with her boyfriend.”
“Oh.”
“At first they just kissed. Then one time she gave him a blowjob. Eventually they started having sex in front of me.”
She paused.
“I’d never had a boyfriend. I’d never had sex. So it was… impactful.”
I waited.
“When I heard you and Dan back when you were dating, it reminded me of this. God, watching them used to make me so horny. Hearing you two brought all of that back.”
I stared at her.
“Okay. That is… a lot.”
“Oh, it gets worse. She wasn’t exactly a good girlfriend. I had to watch her with a few other guys too. Once, there were two at the same time.”
Lin stared out across the field.
“God… Anna was such a slut. I wanted to be her so badly.”
That wasn’t quite what she’d said before.
“Okay, but you don’t see me as this Anna, right? I never meant… like, I never knew it would hit you that way. Jesus, I feel like I’ve been abusing you for six months.”
I sat down on the ground, my back against one of the wooden supports.
Was I being Anna now?
Was my relationship with Leah another version of this? Me having something Lin secretly wanted while she stood on the outside watching?
Was I hurting Lin again?
“I know you’re not Anna. I know you never meant to hurt me, or turn me on, or whatever happened.” Lin looked around. “I just needed to organize some things in my head, especially with this whole Leah thing hanging over me.”
I looked up at her, biting my lip, suddenly worried I was going to start crying. Lin sat down beside me.
“Maybe you were Anna when you were dating Dan. Not the bully part, but the part where I had to watch her having sex. It wasn’t just the sounds, you know. I accidentally saw you and Dan walking around naked more times than any roommate should. You are both very unbothered by nakedness.”
I laughed, remembering how much Leah had said I always hid myself.
“Well, I hope you know I love you, Lin. I’d never want to hurt you.”
“I know, Mia.” She looked down at her hands. “It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s me.”