Page 61 of Between Desire and Denial

He was becoming a good friend. One that I would miss, but shouldn’t. I dreamt of him and then woke to my headache gone, though he was too. I heard him rustling around in the kitchen.

I knew I had to thank him and tell him that what he’d done was completely unnecessary. It was more than that, it was unwarranted and shouldn’t be done in the future.

I padded out to the living area, still in my small shirt and shorts from the night before, ready to tell him how wonderful he’d been. Yet, I found him at the sink, frowning down at my birth control in his normal white collared shirt and slacks. He was reading the back of it with disgust on his face.

Then he was shaking his head and grumbling to himself.

“What are you doing?” I asked, tapping my foot on the ground waiting for his explanation.

“Your head feel better?” He threw the question my way, not answering mine.

“Much better.” I nodded.

“Good. Have you read all this?” He held up my pills, and I groaned before closing my eyes and rubbing them.

“Sure… at some point I did, or my doctor told me.” As I opened my eyes again, though, I saw him popping each of my pills into the sink.

“Dimitri! What are you doing?” I screeched, frozen in place from what I was seeing.

He looked up, his eyes completely determined as he dragged one thumb hard against the packaging. I heard them pop from the foil quickly one by one. A whole damn row of birth control. “Getting rid of these.”

“Are you stupid?” I yelled and rounded the island fast, trying to reach for the package but he held it out of reach and waved it in my face. “They’re gone already. All down the drain.”

He didn’t apologize. He didn’t look remorseful. Instead, he turned the garbage disposal on.

“You idiot! Those are stopping me from having a literalbabythat I don’t want.”

“Interesting.” He leaned against the counter, like this was completely normal. “Why don’t you want a kid again?”

“You think we’re going to have a casual conversation right now?” I said, my eyes wide in shock as I felt my blood starting to boil. “Is this a joke? Of course I don’t want children! It’s why I’m on freaking birth control!”

“Well”—he tipped his head back and forth—“people get on it for a lot of reasons. My sister-in-law—”

“I do not care.” I stomped my foot, ready to shoot fire at him. “I do not want children, Dimitri.”

“Why?”

“What’s it to you?” I threw up my hands. “You just got rid of my birth control!”

“I did.” He nodded and meandered over to the plush white couch, not one ounce of him concerned. “They’re probably giving you migraines.”

“You… I…” I took a deep breath. We had to live together, we had to be nice. I didn’t need to lash out or overreact, I told myself. “I’m going to ask you to call my doctor tomorrow and tell them I need new birth control because of you.”

“Oh. I do want to talk to your doctor.” His misty green eyes were vibrant with an angry glow as they snapped to my direction. “I’m going to ask why the hell they’re giving you a drug that can intensify migraines and blood clots.”

“What?” That couldn’t be right.

“Says on the back of the packaging. You’re not taking that shit anymore.”

“Obviously. Since you put them down the drain. That was a complete overreaction, Dimitri,” I said, still in disbelief.

“Honeybee, I saw how much pain you were in. If someone causes that, you can expect a reaction more catastrophic than that in the future.”

I shook my head at him, not really knowing whether to be mad or think he was sweet for watching out for my health. “You realize that’s not the way to handle it? You can’t just do the first thing that pops into your—”

“I’ve never been a person who doesn’t weigh the risks, Olive. I knew what I was doing when I threw them down the drain.”

I placed a hand on my hip and popped it out then. “So, you’re willing to have me sleep around with no birth control?”