Page 7 of Dual

I look at him impatiently. "She'll still just lie and say she's me."

"Doesn't that feel like a problem for you?"

"No." I swear it's like he doesn't listen. Still, I curl my fingers into his shirt. I hate any space between us, even if it's just the kind born of misunderstanding. So I try to explain. "Domhn, she spent her whole life with him. Good and bad don't mean the same things to her."

"You grew up with him, too," Domhn whispers, and I hear the furious heartbreak in his voice. I know there's still some ridiculous part of him that blames himself for not being able to find me and rescue me from the big bad wolf.

"Not the worst part," I say back, swallowing hard so my voice doesn't crack. "Yes, Mads might lie and scheme, but in her heart," I grab his hand, "we're still the same person."

I see his eyes cloud over.

No matter how many times I tell him, he doesn't believe me. What the hell did Mads say or do to him last night?

I stiffen. "Did she hurt you?"

"Of course not."

I breathe out. I didn't think so. Mads and I might argue in therapy, but if there's one thing we always agree on, it's that we love Domhn. Passionately. Obsessively. Single-mindedly.

Even when we disagree about everything else.

During the year in Chicago, I did a lot of work to find myself.

I tried different foods. Went to different kinds of movies and shows. There was always some sort of music playing downtown. I met people. Read books. Watched TV.

I tried to answer the question: what do I like, with no one else around to be influenced by or to try to please?

Mads kept busy, too, though I don't think she was "finding" anything except trouble.

Sometimes I'd wake up in strange places: in a twenty-four-hour diner at four-thirty in the morning, in a club bathroom being asked to leave by an impatient cleaning crew, curled up on a stranger's couch as the barest bit of morning sunlight peeked in through the windows.

That one freaked me out the most. I was only slightly relieved when a petite but absolutely naked woman gave me a wink and a finger wave as she walked past me and calmly started making a cup of coffee.

I'd scrambled for my purse and keys and got the hell out of there, taking the Red Line straight home to scribble in thejournal that acts as a means of communication between me and Mads:

What the hell was that? I thought we agreed on no sharing this body with anyone except Domhn! If you don't love him as much as I do, fine, but that doesn't mean you get to—to—be a hoe with my body!

I waited on pins and needles until waking up the next day to find a response from her.

Don’t get it twisted, little girl. I’m the one who fought for all this time for him, so don’t you dare question the love I have for him ever again. I loved him deeper than your little pea brain could ever imagine. But this is my first time being free, too, bitch, and I’ll explore whatever I want to explore. No fluid exchange, fine? That’s all the assurance you get from me. ‘Cause let’s not forget it’s you who’s keeping us from being with Donny right now. So stick that up your ass and smoke it.

Speaking of the journal…

"Mmmm, that coffee you're making smells delicious, babe. But I'm going to put on some real, human clothes before breakfast."

"Breakfast can wait," Domhn says, eyes dark. "I'm happyto help you take off all your clothes and keep them off for a while."

I laugh and put my hands on his chest, feeling both giddy and anxious like I do every time he expresses desire for me.

I go up on tiptoes and kiss him, lingering for longer than perhaps I should. Because naturally, he starts to deepen the kiss, and it makes my belly flip in ways I both want and have been afraid of ever since I got back from Chicago.

"I'll be right back!"

I pull out of his arms and skip away from him down the hallway to our bedroom.

As difficult as I'm making things for him, I just don't yet know how to tell him that I switch every time things start to get intimate between us. That it's Mads he's having sex with each time, and I?—

I don't begrudge them that. After my year of finding out what I liked and didn't like, discovering opinions I think are actually mine?—