Page 136 of What You left in Me
“Please what?”
I let out a furious scream and surge forward. He’s not expecting it, and I flip him onto his back. His hands clamp down, thinking I’m trying to escape, but that’s not my plan. I straddle him, bracing my hands on his chest, and ride him with abandon, chasing my own pleasure. My hair falls wild, my mouth open as I gasp and moan, too lost to care how I look. When the orgasm hits, I scream.
Then, he pulls me down, his mouth meeting into mine. His hands grip my hips, spreading me as he thrusts harder. My second climax rips through me, and I pound the mattress with my fist as he groans my name, raw and guttural. I collapse onto him, stunned and sated. It’s never been this intense.
Epilogue – Finn
A few months later, the city’s noise overwhelm and calm me at the same time. I spend mornings on calls and afternoons breaking other people’s bad ideas into salvageable parts. Nights are for the woman I don’t deserve.
I still check on Eleanor. Not out of kindness, but insurance. A quiet monthly audit, bankruptcy filings stayed, trusts locked, the oxygen line to her old lifestyle crimped to a respectful trickle. She’s not starving, just… not thriving. She rents a narrow walk-up in a part of town that smells like fried dough and ambition, wears last season like penance, and pretends she prefers it. I let her. I don’t harass or gloat. I just make sure she isn’t enjoying herself too much on money that never belonged to her. Call it justice with the volume turned down.
Dad recovered. Slower than he liked, but much faster than the doctors predicted. He lives at the estate, but without the drama. He eats vegetables without complaining, walks the lake trail like it’s holy ground, and designs beautiful homes for private clients from the long sunroom that used to be Eleanor’s kingdom. When we visit, he pretends not to time my hugs, then times them anyway and adds seconds the next week. He laughs more now. It’s a good sound to live with.
As for us: New York fits Ariane better than she thinks. She still apologizes to pigeons and thanks bus drivers like she’s grading them, but the city has made room, wider sidewalks where she herds fourth-graders on field trips, a bodega that keeps extra glitter glue behind the counter because “Ms. Vale’s class” is a problem for supply chains, a coffee shop that spells her name wrong in three distinct ways and she loves all of them. Irun Capital City Corp from a top floor. She teaches ten-year-olds to read myths and spot metaphors. We meet in the middle: she gives my days shape, and I give hers a room to breathe.
Tonight, it’s late and warm and our apartment smells like garlic and crayons because dinner and tomorrow’s art project collided. She’s barefoot on the couch grading papers, red pen clicking, hair up in a knot that’s broken all known laws of physics. I’m at the kitchen island with my laptop closed for once, pretending to care about the Knicks.
“Would you still love me,” she says without looking up, “if I came home covered head-to-toe in glitter for the next decade?”
“Bold of you to assume that isn’t already my life,” I say. “I’ve been finding gold sparkles on my suits. Board is going to start thinking that I’ve joined a cult.”
She grins. “You did. It’s called education.”
“Sounds expensive.”
“Worth every penny,” she says, and then, softer, “Most days.”
I bring her a mug of tea. She eyes it suspiciously. “Is this your terrifying coffee disguised as chamomile?”
“Smell it,” I say. “See? Flowers. No threat.”
She sips, winces. “Okay, minor threat.”
I drop onto the couch beside her; she swings her legs over mine like she always does. A stack of vocab quizzes slides into my lap. I pick one up. “You gave a sticker for spelling ‘labyrinth’ wrong.”
“He drew a minotaur. Emotional accuracy counts.”
“Your rubric is chaos.”
“And yet you love me,” she says lightly, as if it’s a joke we tell to keep the world from looking too closely.
I don’t answer right away. The TV mutters about a trade; a siren hustles past the window and keeps moving. She leans her shoulder into mine and breathes out like she finally believes the room will still be here when she inhales again.
I love her. I love the way she leaves a trail, paperclips, hair ties, the day’s small mercies, and the way she looks at my worst parts and loves them anyway. I love that she argues like a lawyer and forgives like it’s a private language. I love that she made a life out of teaching kids the gods were messy and still worthy and then taught me the same.
“Yeah,” I say, thumb tracing a line over the ridge of her ankle where her anklet used to be. “I do.”
She tilts her head, warmth dancing into that smile that knocks me back every time. “Even if I keep stealing your hoodies?”
“Especially then. It’s called a tax.”
“What’s the rate?”
“Variable. Based on how fast you get over here.”
She pushes her papers aside and crawls into my lap like gravity changed its mind. “Economy’s wild these days,” she murmurs, and kisses me with all her might.
Later, she falls asleep with her hand open on my chest. The city is buzzing outside. I count the good things like beads: my father’s laugh in a sunroom full of drawings, Eleanor’s silence where the noise used to be, a school bulletin board with crooked letters and too much yellow, this apartment that smells like us, and the weight of her hand, claim, promise, and proof that we were capable of getting here.
Tomorrow, I’ll work and she’ll teach and later we’ll drive up to the estate with bagels that actually taste good. We’ll sit on the back steps with Richard and argue about trellises andbudgets while the lake acts like a mirror and none of us believe it. It won’t be perfect. It will never be. Not with Eleanor still alive and my mother dead because of her. But it’ll be something.
That’s the thing I never learned and finally understand now: redemption isn’t fireworks. It’s repetition. It’s choosing, again and again, the hard right over the easy ruin. It’s checking the doors, paying the bills, making tea that tastes like flowers, and saying I love you out loud even when the room is already full of proof. Even with these sweet gestures during the day, our bed is still our battlefield. Ariane tells me that she hates me, feeds into my fantasies and cries out in bliss every time. Our life isn’t perfect, but in the bedroom, nothing could be sweeter.
That’s all that matters.