Page 140 of A Wreck, You Make Me

My mouth tingles. “You’ve already ruined it twice.”

“What you call ruin, I call eating,” he says, licking his lips.

“You—”

“And if you didn’t want me to eat your lipstick, then you shouldn’t have bought a strawberry-flavored one.”

I guess he’s right. I did special-order this lipstick that tastes like strawberry. It was for when he came back for a home game or something. But then we planned this trip, and of course I had to bring it with me. I knew the hazards though. But even I didn’t think he’d ruin it twice in a row and plan to do it a third time.

“Shepard?” I call out even though I have his full attention.

“Yeah, baby?” he answers even though he knows he doesn’t need to.

“Don’t you dare ruin my lipstick again,” I tell him. “I mean it. Or I’m going to be so mad at you.”

I look away then because I don’t have time, and putting on bright red lipstick takes patience and skill. He doesn’t have time either so as I’m putting my make-up on while he stares at me like a psycho—okay fine, not a psycho but like a man who can’t look away from me and hence makes my belly flutter—I tell him that. I also tell him who we’re meeting downstairs. Apparently, not everyone’s at the hotel right now. Some of them have gone sightseeing and then there are nap schedules and Halo just had a major meltdown so they’re watching cartoons right now.

And maybe that’s why I don’t notice it at first. That he has gone quiet. That he isn’t even looking at me but something else. Something that I haphazardly took out of my make-up bag because I was hunting for the right brush to put my blush on. I only become aware of it when I hear him shift and my eyes skitter to his in the mirror. Only to skitter away and see what he’s staring at with a pulsing jaw.

My birth control pills.

Or rather, the purple case where I put them and always have with me wherever I go. My heart slams in my chest as I watch him look at it. Shivers skitter down my spine and my lipstick falls in the sink with a clatter. I reach my hand out to grab it, but he orders, “No.”

I fist my fingers and snatch my hand back, as if I physically can’t touch it, all because he ordered me not to. He finally looks up at me, his face blank but harsh, his eyes flashing. “Is that it?”

I swallow and nod.

At my answer, he finally moves. He unfolds his arms and takes a step toward me. And then another and another, slowly but deliberately prowling toward me. I spin around and grab the edge of the counter. “Shepard, please. You?—”

He reaches me and he stops so close that I have to crane my neck really high up to look into his eyes. I attempt to say something to him again, but he leans down. And reaches behind me to, I assume, grab that little box of pills.

“W-what are you doing?” I ask, my chest heaving.

Instead of answering me though, he steps back with the box clutched in his hand. I look down to find his fingers are so tightly wrapped around my purple box that his knuckles are jutting out. The veins are standing, thick and proud, on his forearm. As he steps back from me.

“Shepard, what?—”

“You take it every day, yeah?” he asks, his voice thick, his eyes intense.

Still standing at the sink, gripping the edge tightly, I nod. “Yes. I-I have to.”

“Same time?”

“More or less.”

“You take one today?”

I shake my head. “Not yet.” Then, “M-my doctor… When I first started, I’d get really bad nausea.” His jaw clenches at this and I know it’s because of the discomfort I mentioned. “So she told me to switch times. She said if I took it at night, before going to bed, I wouldn’t feel it.”

“So you need it,” he concludes.

I look down at the box in his hand, still clutched just as tightly as before, as if he doesn’t want to let go of it. And my heart nearly beats out of my chest. I look up again and nod. “Yes, please. ”

He watches me for a beat, his eyes going back and forth between mine. “Make your case then.”

“What?”

He’s been stepping back slowly all this time. Not that there’s anywhere to go really. It’s not a huge space. But now, he’s across the sink, where the toilet is. He takes his seat on the closed lid and replies, “You want this back, tell me why.”