CHAPTER 18
IN seconds, Daniel pulls back and turns Liyah to face him, wiping at the tears as they spill over her cheeks. “Did I hurt you?” he asks, his chest tightening at the thought.
Liyah shakes her head.
No relief accompanies this revelation, because the second scenario coming to mind is worse than the first. “Okay, then what’s wrong?”
She takes a gulp of air, giving a sad smile. “I’m just disappointed that you don’t have a train tattooed on your ass after all,” she says, tears still falling.
Despite himself, he lets out a short laugh. “As tragic as that is, Liyah, it’s not why you’re crying.” He cups the back of her neck and presses a kiss to her temple. “I’m not going to force you to tell me anything if you don’t want to. I just want to be very, very clear that if you do, you can tell me. Anything.”
Liyah nods, drying her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Can you give me a minute?”
Daniel hesitates, but releases her, and makes his way to her bathroom to clean himself up. Behind the closed door, his fingernails dig into his palms, and he tries to steady his breathing. If he’s right—and God, he hopes he isn’t—he’s done all that he can do. Make yourself available as a safe space, but don’t push, Kayla said, when she’d given her very career-specific version of The Talk.
Not knowing how long of a minute she needs, he opens the top drawer below her bathroom sink and is pleased to find a spare toothbrush still in its packaging. He busies himself by brushing his teeth and washing his face, focusing on the feeling of the bristles against his gums and the water splashing on his skin instead of making himself sick speculating. Eventually, there’s no more washing up to do, and he makes his way back to Liyah’s bed.
“Can I hold you?” he asks as he sits, the mattress sinking below his weight.
“Yes, but let me wash up first,” she says, voice small, and he’s left alone in her bed.
The minutes she’s gone pass slowly, and Daniel wonders how he’ll be able to sleep if she decides not to talk to him. Let alone how he’ll be able to sleep if she does.
He knows she’s returned when the light switch flips and they’re cast into darkness. She climbs back into the bed and curls up in front of him and he gingerly drapes his arm over her, not sure if she’ll still want his touch. Then her fingers lace through his and pull his arm tightly around her, and he lets out the breath he’s been so tightly holding.
Time trudges onward and Liyah’s breathing slows. Daniel is sure she’s gone to sleep, but finally, she says, “It was my first best friend in college.”
Daniel gulps and gives her hand a squeeze.
“You knew, didn’t you? You figured it out?” His chest tightens again.
He rubs his thumb over the back of her hand. “I have an idea, maybe. But if you don’t want me to know, I’ll assume whatever I think is wrong.”
The breath she takes is deep enough to raise and lower his arm with the expansion and contraction of her rib cage. “Tale as old as coed college, I guess. Boy likes girl. Girl doesn’t like boy. Boy waits until girl is extremely drunk and takes her back to his dorm room. Bit cliché, no?”
Some people process sexual trauma with humor, Kayla said. It still catches him off guard. He just squeezes her hand again, because even if he tried, he wouldn’t be able to laugh.
“Even more cliché is that I didn’t want to admit it to myself at first. Because how could that happen to me? I am a liberated, independent Black woman who can take care of myself.” A wry laugh that Daniel fails to return rings out flat. “Stupid joke. Anyway. Chalked up all my queasiness about the night to having gone there with such a close friend, never mind that I vaguely remembered asking to stop and not being listened to.” Her voice catches. “No, I didn’t report it, yes, I pretended to remain friends with him for a few weeks before suddenly ghosting and feeling guilty. Eventually I went to a therapist and did all that ‘admitting what happened and learning healthy coping mechanisms so I don’t self-harm via hypersexuality’ da da da da da. Now I’m in tip-top shape save for the fact that I apparently burst into tears the first time I sleep with a friend, so that’s fun.” Her voice is monotone, as if she is a mere observer. Daniel has no idea how she does it. “Sorry you had to witness that,” Liyah finishes.
His stomach twisting, Daniel shakes his head. “Liyah, thank you for telling me. You have nothing to apologize for.”
“Sorry.”
“Liyah—”
“For apologizing.” She laughs, and this time he laughs, too. She rolls over to face him for the first time since she started crying. “Be honest, is that what you thought was wrong?”
Daniel pauses, unsure of what she wants to hear. Eventually, he goes with the truth. “More or less, yeah.”
“How?”
“You know how Kayla’s a therapist? Well, working with survivors is one of her specialty areas.” He leaves out why she ended up doing the work that she does, which probably helped him recognize what was happening quicker than any crash course in dealing with disclosures ever could.
“Ah, more tricks of the trade from Kayla Rosenberg. You really got lucky with that one; some of us pay by the hour.”
“It’s probably a good idea for me to see someone who doesn’t share most of my DNA and life experience,” he says, parroting Kayla’s perennial pitch that eventually got him into Dr. Espinosa’s office. “But, yes, I am very lucky. Do you need anything from me? I can get you a glass of water or listen more if you want to talk.” He smooths the baby hairs peeking out from her wrap.
“Nope, I’m good. Too much talking after our enthusiastic rendition of ‘Chanukah Oh Chanukah.’”
“Okay.” Then, sheepishly: “Is there anything I can do—or avoid doing—in the future? Any ways you don’t want to be touched?”
LIYAH’S EYEBROWS RISE, simultaneously shocked and pleased that she hasn’t scared him off. If any of her previous hookups had cried in her arms after the first time they’d had sex … well, she would be kind in the moment, but she probably would’ve never seen them again. Maybe Neen’s right, and this is the difference between sleeping with people you hardly speak to and having an actual friend with benefits. She bites back a grin, unable to pass up an opportunity to poke fun. “What makes you think there’s an ‘in the future’?”
“God, no, I’m not saying … I’m not trying to be presumptive. Just, you know, if—”
“Daniel, you’re good. I’m teasing.” She watches his shoulders relax. “I don’t think so. But I’ll let you know, okay?”
“Okay,” he says.
Liyah wakes up at a pre-daylight hour of the morning with a painfully full bladder and Daniel’s more-than-breath-less-than-snore against her neck. On her way to the bathroom, she spies her phone, carelessly left by the sink instead of plugged in by her bed. It’s on its last dregs of juice, just enough for her to fire off a few messages to Neen:
Liyah
Had sex with Daniel (you told me so)
Neen
congrats!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Liyah
Cried while genitals were still in contact (top 5 most mortifying moments of my life, should you need to know for a future biography)
Told him about what happened freshman year
Phone on 1%, talk tomorrow. Much love
Thankfully, the typing bubble doesn’t give way to a message before the screen goes black. She connects it to the charger at her dining table and turns it facedown lest the start-up screen distract her on the way back to her room. In the bathroom, she leaves the light off, not wanting to be confronted with her reflection.
So, this is what it’s like, Liyah thinks as she scrubs her hands in the dark, telling someone who is neither Neen nor an accredited mental health professional. Weird, numb, and unplanned are not the adjectives she expected. Once the tears fell, telling him became inevitable, if only for the sake of her dignity. What she can’t figure out is why she started crying in the first place.
She creeps back into the room and does her best to climb deftly into bed without disturbing Daniel. Just as she makes it under the covers, he opens his eyes and snakes his arms around her, drawing her back flush against his torso.
“Please don’t tell me to forget about this tomorrow,” he murmurs.
“Daniel.” She says his name slowly, carefully, steadying herself over the irregular race of her heart. “You’re the one who suggested it last time.”
He shrugs. “It seemed like that was what you wanted. And you’re the one who said we couldn’t go there.”
“Well, regardless, it’s not what I want now.”
“And what is that?”
“To go the fuck to sleep.” She pauses, long enough to be playful but not enough to be torturous. “And then, hopefully, to have a lot of exceptionally good sex.”
He hums near her ear, his fingers lazily circling her navel. “That sounds nice. I’d like that, too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He kisses the crook of her neck. “Any idea where I could find a partner?”
Liyah laughs. “Well played.”
The next time she wakes, her room is filled with full-fledged, ten-in-the-morning daylight, and the bed is empty beside her. She’s not disappointed at Daniel’s absence, per se. Maybe a little surprised. Nights alone are standard for doing things casually, and Liyah’s snuck out of many a hookup’s apartment. It just hadn’t seemed like Daniel’s style.
She undoes her hair wrap and removes the silk scrunchie she stole from Daniel weeks ago. As she climbs out of bed, she relishes the minor muscle aches that accompany a night well spent. Even the mild soreness between her legs—it’s been a while since she’s had penetrative sex, and Daniel’s body is more than proportionate—is a welcome one.
Until she remembers the end of the night, and her cheeks heat with embarrassment.
Not my finest moment, she thinks as she pulls on the Chanukah sweater that’s been folded, along with her corduroy skirt and tights, and placed on top of her dresser. This seems much more like the Daniel Rosenberg she knows. She’ll shoot him a thank-you text because she appreciates the care. And because she might be able to glean how his opinion of her has changed from his response.
Or rather, Neen will, when Liyah reads it aloud over FaceTime later.
When Liyah rounds the corner, her kitchen comes into view. Along with Daniel’s bare back. He’s standing over the stove in nothing but Calvin Klein boxer briefs, a steaming mug of coffee in one hand, spatula in the other.
“You’re up,” he says.
“I thought you’d left,” Liyah says at the same time.
His crooked smile falters. “Should I have?”
She surveys the spread: sautéed veggie sausages piled on one plate, several pancakes on another, and a fresh mug of coffee with her name on it (literally—Neen made it during their ceramics phase). “You made me coffee and breakfast, so I’m going to go with no.”
The smile returns in full force. “Just returning the favor. Also, you have twenty-three messages from Neen.”
Liyah’s eyes go wide. “Oh my God.”
Daniel laughs, flipping the last pancake onto the stack and turning the dial on the stove to off. “I didn’t read them, I promise. I saw the excessive notifications when I went to plug my phone in.”
Liyah stares into her coffee as she takes a sip, an action which is in no way related to her need to avoid eye contact.
“Right, right. Liyah rule number one.”
This forces her hand, and she meets his gaze. “Which is?”
“Do not approach unless well-fed and appropriately caffeinated.”
A catch-22: any of her usual witticisms will only prove his point. Liyah takes this fact as more of a personal affront than the remark itself. “I’d tell you that you’re the unkosher end of a cow, but that would only play into your unnecessary and inaccurate rule-making.”
Daniel snorts. “Good thing you didn’t tell me that, then, or you might have to admit I’m right,” he says, stepping closer to her, his hands looping around her hips and pulling her flush against him. She suddenly regrets having partially dressed; she wishes she could feel his skin. He smiles, leaning forward, waiting for her to meet him, and then drawing her into a languid kiss.
From the heat that rises to her every surface, it’s clear that Daniel’s touch isn’t a do it once, it’s out of your system type of drug but rather a do it once, immediately escalate to intravenous injection.
She breaks away with a deep inhale. “I’d say that counts as an approach,” Liyah notes in a gotcha tone and plucks a veggie sausage from the plate. “Breaking your own rules, aren’t you?”
“You’ve already had some coffee, so you’re halfway there. I’m still avoiding any sudden movements.”
“You’d better watch it, or this”—she gestures with the breakfast sausage—“will be the only thing of its shape you ever see go near my mouth again.” She takes an emphatic bite, and Daniel grimaces.
“What a way with words. Eat your pancakes.”
And she does, stopping partway to let him know how delicious they are, if her moans of delight aren’t indication enough. Then, because Daniel heeds her words and stops comparing her temperament to that of a feral animal, Liyah finds herself climbing onto his lap and sliding her hand into his boxer briefs. She starts the day with him in her mouth (and under her and over her and behind her) and it is the kind of start to the day that she wouldn’t mind making a habit.
When they’re collapsed on the couch, chests rising and falling with rapid breaths, Liyah surprises herself by asking what he’s doing later.
“I’ve gotta feed Sweet Potato, but other than that, nothing. Why?” he says, fingers resting on her belly.
“Care for a trip to the Field?”
“Developing-slash-designing on a Saturday? Or, no—you’ve come to the dark side and want to spend your weekends on marketing,” he says with a laugh.
“No, I mean like going to the exhibitions. I can get us in for free.” She adds the last bit as if the no-cost admission can rid her of her growing embarrassment. This is not something you ask of a casual hookup, is it? Liyah certainly hasn’t done it before.
But Daniel is her friend. Which supersedes the benefits, she tells herself, and she decides that she has no reason to feel weird about it.
“Alright,” Daniel says, sitting upright. “I’ll go put on a clean change of non-holiday-themed clothes. See you at your stop in two hours?”
That sounds like the length of time Neen’s about to keep her on the phone, but if she puts them on speaker while she showers … “Perfect.”