Chapter 43: BITTEN ON THE ASS

Myla.

“You’re screwing with me, right?” Sophia asked.

And just like that, the two of us felt right again. We felt…normal. That’s the closest thing I can come to describing it. She didn’t have any of that low-simmering anger I’d seen in her eyes for the last several weeks. She just looked shocked now. There was a tiny, little, barely-even-there bitterness to her tone because I’d been sitting on this news since pretty much the beginning of our time on this business trip (a trip I was never going to be able to forget no matter how long I lived) but other than that, she seemed good now. I felt bad that I hadn’t come to her sooner. The guilt had been building up for a while now but if I’m being honest, the selfish part of me had also been reveling in all the other amazing feelings I’ve experienced so far. Especially where Fabian was concerned. It was what I imagine an addiction probably felt like. I craved more of those feelings. And more of those experiences.

I just didn’t want to make Sophia feel bad in the process. At least, not anymore. I told myself while I was there talking to her that I wouldn’t leave her out anymore. I shouldn't have left her out to begin with but with the newness of these experiences and the emotions that came with them, I honestly just didn't think about it. To be fair, there were a whole lot of things I had to deal with all at one time. It was like sensation overload.

“No, I’m very serious,” I replied with a shy, awkward smile.

“You and Fabian Ness? That is real?” When I nodded again, still smiling awkwardly, she reached out and smacked me on the upper part of my left arm. Not hard, mind you. Just a gentle thing that was funnier than anything else. “What the hell happened to the shy, sexually repressed girl that used to be my best friend? Also, I’m incredibly jealous you got to smash the boss. He’s good at it ain’t he? Wait, don’t tell me. I think I’d rather not know.”

A strained look came over her features as if she were trying to hold herself back.

“Okay, just tell me. Do it quick, like ripping off a band-aid,” she said.

“Uh…I…um…” I felt my cheeks heating up. They must have gotten really red because Sophia started to laugh.

“Fine, fine. Don’t spill,” she said when she finally stopped laughing a few minutes later. “But one day, you gotta tell me. I now must live vicariously through you.”

That didn’t make things any easier to deal with and only made the heat in my cheeks feel seven times hotter. Fortunately, she decided to have mercy on me and didn’t bug me for details on my sex life or Fabian’s…um…preferences. But almost as soon as the conversation swung away from that part of my life, it veered into other uncomfortable areas. Areas involving what happened at Roseforce and the shooting. She hadn’t been there, thank God, but she knew I had been. It’s what prompted her to start talking to me again, according to her.

“I thought…,” she started to say, her voice uncharacteristically sad and toned down. When she looked back at me, I could see tears gleaming in her eyes. I don’t think I’ve seen her cry before or even come close to it. “...someone hurt you. Or killed you, Myla. I thought you were gone forever and the last thing between us was a stupid ass fight.”

I reached out and grabbed her hand.

“I’m as much to blame, Sophs,” I told her. “I let everything push you and me to the back of my head. It was stupid and I’m sorry.”

“You almost got shot. I think I’ll go ahead and take the heat for our fight. Besides, it’s all behind us now. I was being a bitch about the whole situation. And not to use this as an excuse but Grace kind of made it all sound a lot worse than it really was, I think.” The mention of Grace made my back stiffen.

“You talked to Grace about this?” I asked. My voice didn’t sound very characteristic of myself now. It was harder. Cold even. “What do you mean?”

Sophia blinked a bit in confusion at me.

“I don’t remember exactly what she said but yeah, she was kind of making you out to be this thoughtless, immature child. Or something like that.” She stared at me. “Why would she do that? I thought we were all cool.”

“No,” I told her. “Me and Grace are definitely not cool. Remember when I told you I went to visit Fabian in the hospital and got too emotional and couldn’t see him? Grace was the reason for that. She was there in his room. And she turned real…uh…mean. She wants Fabian and I think she knows about me and him so she got super catty with me. She’s been avoiding me ever since.”

“Wait, she likes Fabian too? I thought she was married?” Sophia asked.

“Yeah, well apparently, the marriage isn’t solid. The night we all went out, she told me they were separated or thinking about separation. It’s hard to remember her exact words now.” I got frustrated trying to pick my brain. I wanted nothing more than to use her exact words against her like well-crafted ammunition but the more I tried to recall them, the further away they got. “Ugh. I can’t think of her actual words. Probably because I was very, very drunk that night.”

“I think I get the gist. She hates her husband or whatever, and thinks Fabian would be a nice upgrade. The bitch. I can’t believe I didn’t realize what she was doing.” She looked at me again, and I could see remorse in her eyes. “I’m an idiot.”

“So am I, don’t worry,” I told her. “I thought she was my friend too right up till she realized I was competition and started tearing me down. I got so emotional I left Fabian’s hospital room without even checking on him. Then I went to a bar and met…”

I stopped myself suddenly, the heat returning to my cheeks. For maybe a full second, possibly two, I thought maybe she hadn’t heard me. As much as I wanted to tell her everything, absolutely everything no matter how small, I left this part out. It’s not that I thought she would think of me differently or anything like that. No, it was mostly because that was one of the lowest, near-unforgivable mistakes of my entire life. And also….it was flat-out embarrassing. Never before had I shown any interest in being sexually active with a woman, so to just do it out of the blue when I clearly had something going on with Fabian felt incredibly dumb. And shame-worthy. And a ton of other things like that.

“Met?” Sophia had indeed latched onto the word like a fish getting hooked. I thought about lying to her. It was my shame and I didn’t really want her to know I had been so dumb and slutty that I slept with a stranger. I mean, for Christ’s sake, just a few weeks ago, I’d been a virgin. “What do you mean by met? Did you get laid again!? And by some other guy?”

God, why can’t I keep my mouth shut?

“Uh…no. Well, not…um…exactly,” I started to say, my words coming out in a halting stutter.

“Girl, you need to start explaining. Did you just make out with him a little or something? Or just flirt? If that’s the case then you are being way too uptight.”

“I had sex with a girl I met at the bar in the hotel!” I whisper-shouted. We weren’t out in the open anymore, we were in our office with the door shut, but I still didn’t want to be too loud in case someone heard. Still, the information blurted out of me so forcefully that the whisper-shout was the tamest thing I could make it.

Sophia went completely speechless. Her eyes widened and there was a look of utter shock and disbelief on her face.

“No,” she said.

I took a breath.

“Yes,” I replied. My deep shame at my utter and complete lapse in judgment made it to where I couldn’t even look her in the eyes.

“No fucking way,” she said, more forcefully this time. “You go from being a virgin for a ridiculous amount of time to fucking two different people, one a man and the other a woman, in just a few weeks?” She paused as if trying to come to grips with that. Apparently, she couldn't. “No. No fucking way.”

“It was a mistake,” I tried to explain.

“Oh, sweetheart. It’s never a mistake,” she said. “People always say that but unless you’ve got some kind of major brain trauma going on or some other thing like that, you fuck a person, you meant to fuck them.”

She peered questioningly into my eyes.

“Did someone hit you on the head that day?” she asked.

“Uh…no. I just…you know…had a lot to drink and I was sad with everything that happened with Grace and Fabian. Then I met this cool girl named Su and we…”

“Su?” Sophia cut in suddenly. “The bartender Su?”

“Uh…yeah,” I answered. “Do you know her too? I haven’t talked to her since we had…uh…well since we…” I couldn’t finish what I wanted to say and instead just did some lame hand gestures to get my point across.

“You absolute slut,” Sophia said. Her voice had abruptly gotten sharp and bitter again. “You had sex with the same girl I’ve been sleeping with?”

She had to be joking. Right? There was no way she was being serious. Unfortunately, she looked as serious as I’d ever seen her. She wasn’t exactly serious by nature and often took a lighthearted stance on most things in life. Apparently finding out her best friend (i.e. me) had slept with the girl she was hooking up with was not something she could take lightly.

“What the fuck Myla?” she asked.

“I…uh…you’re seri-serious?” I asked, my voice sounding small and pitiful to my own ears.

“Yes, I’m serious. I swear to God, you finally get some and now you can’t keep it in your pants to save your fucking life.”

The heat came rushing back in but so did the coldness of outright fear (or maybe it was shame again). At that point it was a coin toss as to which I was feeling the most strongly. What was happening to my life? This was crazy. A month ago, everything was normal. Not particularly great but normal at least. That was saying something. Now I was in a weird kind of contractually-based relationship with my boss, my best friend was angry with me, some psycho that apparently had been stalking me tried to kill Fabian and then shoot me (I found this out later during the police investigation and all their questions), and now I apparently had screwed around with the same girl said best friend was screwing around with.

We had been on the road to repairing our friendship too! And now this. She was going to hate me forever. I suddenly wished with everything I had that time machines were real and I had one all to myself. I’d be going on a lot of trips to the recent past. That was for sure.

“Sophia,” I said, my voice still pitiful. “I’m so sorry. I…uh…I don’t know what…I’m just sorry.”

I wanted to explain things to her but it just sounded like a lame excuse and I didn’t want her to think the only thing I had to offer were excuses.

“It was before you and her…you and her…um…”

“Starting fucking?” she asked.

“Uh…yea…yeah,” I finished.

Before she could say anything else, or even respond, there was a knock on our office door. We both turned in the direction of the sound. Sophia still looked really angry so, like a coward, I was the one that got up to answer the door. It was a little bit of a relief, honestly. I don't think I could bear to look at the anger and hurt in Sophia's eyes again.

I opened the door and on the other side was Fabian.