Chapter 17: The Aftermath
The scent of wet leaves and stagnant pond water filled the cold morning air. Erica pulled her wool coat tighter, her breath misting before her as she walked the familiar path. She told herself she was just taking a break from her thesis notes, that the aimless walk was a needed distraction. But her steps had carried her unerringly to the duck pond, and her eyes scanned the benches even before she admitted she was looking for him.
He was there, a hunched silhouette on a bench facing the grey water. A cigarette glowed between his fingers, another smoldered at his feet, a third tucked behind his ear. Daniel stared at nothing, his shoulders rigid under his leather jacket.
She approached slowly, the frost-crisped grass crunching under her boots. He didn’t turn. He took a long, final drag from the cigarette and flicked it into the pond with a sharp, contemptuous gesture.
“Hey,” she said, her voice too soft in the vast, damp quiet.
Now he looked. His eyes were bloodshot, the shadows beneath them bruised purple. He looked older. Worn thin. A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Go away, Erica.”
“I just wanted to—” she began, but the words died. Wanted to what? See if you were okay? After what we did?
“You wanted to check on the collateral damage?” he finished for her, his voice a gravelly rasp. He lit the cigarette from behind his ear with a quick, practiced motion, the lighter’s click abnormally loud. “Mission accomplished. I’m fucked. Happy?”
His bluntness was a physical blow. She took a half-step back. “That’s not fair.”
“Fair?” He barked a laugh that held no humor. It was a dry, cracking sound. “What’s fair, Erica? You tell me. Was it fair when you looked back at me over Blake’s shoulder? When you moaned my name? Was that in the rulebook?” He inhaled sharply, the tobacco burning bright. “Because I missed that fucking page.”
The memory was a hot knife in her gut. She could feel the ghost of his hands on her hips, the startling, full stretch of him inside her. The look in his eyes now was the complete opposite of that moment—not desire, but a kind of ravaged contempt.
“I didn’t… he said…” she stumbled, the intellectual confidence of her academic life utterly deserting her.
“He said,” Daniel mimicked, his tone savage. “He says a lot of things. He has a whole philosophy. It’s very convincing in a candlelit room.” He finally stood up, turning fully to face her. Up close, she saw the raw, red skin across his knuckles. He’d been hitting something. “But out here in the cold light of day, it just sounds like bullshit he uses to get what he wants.”
“And what do you want, Daniel?” The question left her lips before she could stop it, charged and dangerous.
He went very still. The anger seemed to drain from him, leaving something colder, more desperate. His gaze dropped to her mouth, then snapped back to her eyes. “Don’t.”
She shouldn’t have. Every rational cell in her brain screamed at her to turn around, to walk back to her orderly life of books and annotated margins. But a part of her, the part that had thrived in the dark of Blake’s bedroom, was tired of being careful. She reached out, her gloved fingers intending to maybe brush his damaged hand.
He jerked back as if scalded. “Don’t touch me.”
The rejection was a slap. She flinched, her hand falling uselessly to her side. Humiliation burned her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’ll go.”
As she turned, his hand shot out. Not to hurt, but to grip her wrist. His hold was iron-tight, freezing through her glove. He pulled her to him, not into an embrace, but into a collision.
His mouth came down on hers, hard and unforgiving. It was nothing like Blake’s calculated kisses. This was pure, unmediated need, flavored with bitter ash and regret. His free hand clenched in the fabric of her coat at her hip, fingers digging in, holding her in place. She made a small, startled sound against his lips, her hands coming up to push against his chest, but the resistance was momentary, crumbling under the avalanche of sensation.
He kissed her like he was trying to consume the memory of the other night, or maybe brand it into her permanently. It was possessive and angry and achingly lonely. When he finally pulled back, they were both breathing in ragged, visible puffs in the cold air. His eyes were wide, a little wild, as if he’d shocked himself.
“We can’t,” he growled, the words a hot breath against her wet lips. Yet his fingers were still locked on her hip, his other hand a vise on her wrist.
“I know,” she whispered.
“He’s my best friend.”
“I know.”
“This is a fucking disaster.” This time, it sounded like he was telling himself.
He leaned his forehead against hers, a gesture of exhaustion more than intimacy. The scent of him—leather, smoke, cold air—wrapped around her. Up close, she could see the faint pulse thrumming in his temple. The raw skin on his knuckles looked painful.
“He’ll ask you about this,” Daniel muttered, his eyes closed. “He’ll want every detail. How I tasted. What I said. If you liked it.”
A shiver that had nothing to do with the cold ran through her. Because it was true. Blake would. He’d frame it as shared experience, as intimacy, but he’d crave the narrative. Daniel knew him better than she did.
“What do I tell him?” she asked, the question a secret passed between them in the morning chill.
Daniel opened his eyes. The conflict there was a live thing. He searched her face, and for a fleeting second, his thumb stroked the inside of her wrist, a tiny, betraying caress. Then his expression shuttered. He released her all at once, stepping back as if putting distance between them was the only solution.
“You tell him the truth,” he said, his voice flat now, emptied out. He turned back toward the bench, picking up his pack of cigarettes. “Tell him whatever you want. It doesn’t matter.”
He walked away, his boots leaving dark prints in the silvered grass, not looking back. She stood frozen, the imprint of his mouth still burning on hers, the ghost of his grip a brand on her wrist and hip. The truth. What was the truth? That his kiss had felt more real, more devastating, than any of Blake’ carefully orchestrated scenes? That she was standing alone in a park, her careful life irrevocably split, aching from a kiss that felt more like a goodbye than a beginning?
A lone duck paddled across the pond, rippling the grey, reflective surface. The image shattered, re-formed, but it was never quite the same again. She touched her lips, still feeling the pressure, the taste of ash and despair. Blake would be waking up soon, stretching in his tangle of sheets, smiling that knowing smile. He would ask her about her morning.
She turned and walked in the opposite direction Daniel had gone, the weight of the unspoken truth settling on her shoulders, heavy and cold.