College Life

Freshmen year was everything I expected and more. My classes were easy enough, but balancing school life with my growing social one was a challenge. I probably could have half-assed my classes and coasted along with a B, but the academic in me wouldn’t allow it. Besides, it wouldn’t do to establish bad habits now when classes were easy only to trip up when taking harder ones.

It took a few months for things to develop into a routine of sorts. Classes and hanging out with Mike, Austin, and his friends usually took up most of my days. Evenings were for school work and Emma. I usually spent weekends with Emma and her friends or Mike and Austin in some capacity. Every so often, Emma and I would head home to spend the weekend with our families. By and large, normal stuff. Even our sex life was fairly normal, with Mike joining us every so often.

It wasn’t until winter break grew closer that things began to change. Emma had gotten closer to her roommates over the months and they were a lot more like Sarah than my initial impressions of them. Friday nights became a girl’s night. Armed with her fake ID, Emma went with the girls to the numerous clubs and bars downtown and around campus. As her tales of conquests grew, so did her comfort level. She loved teasing me about how I never had time for her, forcing her to find relief in other men. More often than not, Emma pressed me on how I wasn’t enough to take care of her needs and until I proved myself capable, she would continue.

In a way, I was glad her roommates were party girls. Emma told me in one of our check-in conversations how they had rules to protect one another. For one, when they went out to pick up guys, no one was left alone. Drinks were watched and they always brought the guys back to their place. So long as Emma was safe and having fun, I found myself enjoying her stories—especially the ones where the guys they brought home didn’t stay with the same girl all night.

During Winter break, I spent a few days with Emma at her place before we joined my parents, James, and Lilian in our usual tropical paradise. The resort was more oriented towards older couples and I was pretty sure the four of us were the youngest people there. We had a good time relaxing and playing on the beach. Sucked that Emma and I were sharing a room with James and Lilian though. I think Mom figured that if we were all in the same room, we would have less opportunity to ‘get frisky’ with one another. It might have worked, but Lilian was pretty open about sex. She and Emma were kindred spirits of sorts and I was learning more about my brother’s sex life than I ever wanted to know. Lilian was a lot like me. She enjoyed James having sex with other women—something I could understand. The biggest difference was she wasn’t afraid to join in. I knew James wasn’t all that happy when she slept with other guys, but he had no right to complain considering he was sleeping with a lot more girls than she was guys. I think he was just happy she didn’t break up with him when she confronted him about sleeping with her best friend.

By the end of vacation, I’d seen plenty of Lilian naked since she had no qualms walking around naked in the room or having sex with Emma and I there. The way Lilian eyed Emma, I think she wanted to invite her to join them in bed. Thankfully, she never asked. I had no idea how I felt about that. It didn’t make much sense considering how active Emma was with other guys, but I was leery about her and my brother. It felt wrong.

After break, my girlfriend had fully embraced her role as the slutty girlfriend and I found myself approving. Some of the hottest sex we had was her playing a sex tape of the guy she had been with while I fucked her. Living off campus and in large part to her roommates, her social group was a bit larger than mine and she always seemed to know when the next big party was. She pulled me along whenever she went to one and it was always amusing watching her fight off the attention of guys whenever I left her alone for a moment. Seriously. The moment I left her alone some half-sober guy would take his shot. One of her favorite ‘roles’ was playing a single girl there to have fun. She would pretend I was just another guy trying to compete for her attention. I always did my best. It was always a great feeling when I won out since I knew she wasn’t giving me any preferential treatment in those situations.

It helped that losing was a win in my book.

I’ll admit we were wild that first year, especially once Riley introduced Emma and Sarah to some guys she was friends with. They were in the same frat that liked to throw huge parties we’d been going to. Being a part of the ‘in’ group meant a completely different experience. It wasn’t uncommon for the night to end with me at the back of a line waiting my turn with my girlfriend. Probably something that wouldn’t have happened sober and without a second-hand high, but after discussing it with Emma after the first, neither of us was opposed to it beside her always complaining about being sore after. Every time she swore that would be the last—until the next party found her beside Sarah and Riley welcoming the next guy with a giggle while shooting me a smile.

As for Mike, he was the luckiest unlucky person I’d ever met. Our summer of Hell had paid off and he was always dragging my lazy ass to the student gym near the dorm. His confidence had skyrocketed beyond what it already was and the ladies couldn’t resist. Mike always seemed to have a hot date and things usually ended up well for him. My room being next to his, I’d spent plenty of time listening to him rock his date’s world. Sometimes he impressed them so much, they brought along friends to share. So Mike was certainly lucky with the ladies. The problem? He had zero luck landing a serious relationship. No idea why. He was always a gentleman and the girls always seemed to have fun, but it always ended the same way. Every time things seemed to be getting serious, the girl told him she found someone she wanted to be ‘serious’ with and dumped him. Every time. The man was cursed and neither of us knew how the hell he could be lucky and unlucky at the same time. A complete mystery.

True to her word, the moment summer ended and we started our second year of college, the wild slut I’d come to know and enjoy was gone. Emma had simply closed the book and walked away without a single look back. Our first party in the new year, I teased her about the guys wondering when she was headed upstairs and she shut me down. Hard. I never brought it up again.

That said, she was still having more sex with other guys than with me. Beyond the frat guys she’d befriended, she’d collected quite a list of guys who were fantastic in bed. One thing she enjoyed doing was inviting one over to my dorm every Friday. I always got home from class to find her in bed with one of her guys. Since the others were always out doing other things, I was treated to a private show of my girl having the time of her life. The way she looked at me after he left was beyond words. One simple look was more than her passionate cries of how much she loved me as I overrode the previous man’s efforts. Sometimes we had wild, passionate sex. A raw and primal experience. Other times, I made love to her. A gentle and loving experience that she didn’t get from her other men. I think she enjoyed that more than anything and I was happy to indulge her.

I’ll admit there were issues, especially with some of the frat guys. Most of them were okay, but some were straight assholes. Emma fucked them anyways, saying it would cause issues with the group if she slept with some and not others. Fortunately, she did try to minimize things but it didn’t stop them from taking shots at me. I think a few were jealous and hoping they would steal her away from me. They certainly tried, but the idiots never figured out that Emma was mine in ways they would never have. They may have been able to fuck her and Emma enjoyed it, but the way she looked at me made it clear there was only one man in her heart—and it wasn’t them. No matter how many times they called me a beta cuck or other derogatory names, I could only smile at the anger they felt when they knew Emma would drop them in a heartbeat if I told her.

Winter break was much the same as our first year. After a few days at her house, we were off with my family. Lilian and James were still going strong and the four of us had a great time. Lilian did eventually ask Emma if she thought I would let her join her and James in bed. I didn’t find out until later since Emma politely declined. Beyond Emma not being interested in girls, she wasn’t comfortable with sleeping with my brother.

Probably for the best. Certainly took a load off my shoulders trying to grapple with that question.

As our second year came to an end, the three of us returned home for the summer. I could tell Mike was getting depressed at his lack of success in the dating market. He’d worked hard to reinvent himself and it seemed like things were backfiring. It was like he was too attractive. Girls only saw him as a fling and not serious boyfriend material. It was the only thing we could reason out. The type of girl who was confident enough to approach Mike knew how attractive she was and could get pretty much anyone she wanted. They eventually found someone else and moved on. The girls who were looking for a more serious relationship probably figured he was a player, and who could blame them? At this point, Mike was fairly well known for his skills in bed.

It was a feedback loop. He had a rep of being great in bed and having experience, which attracted girls looking for that while chasing away girls who wanted something serious. Even if he wanted something serious, no one seemed to believe him.

Emma and I did our best to cheer him up and had some success. That summer, it was pretty much the three of us doing stuff both sexual and not. After all the crazy things we’d been up to, it was a refreshing change of pace and a much-needed breather. Emma and I spent a lot of time going on dates and grounding ourselves. Instead of having other guys join us, we spiced things up with our games, taking on all sorts of roles and situations. Mike even joined us for our ‘sexy DnD.’ One of the best was him playing the guy who ‘stole’ Emma away from me. I think he enjoyed it too considering there were a few times the two took on roles while I was regulated to observer.

I think the summer with the three of us had a major impact on Emma because my relationship with her changed once again during our junior year. She dropped most of the frat guys and we cut back on the number of parties we went to. After trimming down the list of guys she slept with on a regular basis, it was clear the ones who made the cut were either extremely skilled in bed or were okay with me watching and joining in. So. Many. Threesomes. Not that I was complaining. Emma was particularly weak to moments where I took a gentle, tender role while the other guy was more forceful. I could tell it pressed a button in her knowing the man who loved her was having a tender moment exposing his emotions and heart while another man used her for pleasure at the same time. In our solo play, she often teased me how the only way I could truly drive her wild was if another guy assisted me.

Junior year was also the year she moved in with me. Us, I guess. Mike considered the dorm thing a bust and finally agreed that maybe things would be better if we lived off-campus. I jumped on the chance and immediately asked Emma if she wanted to move in with us. I managed to find a decent house close to campus and Dad did what he usually did, buying it outright with the intent to rent it later. As much as Mike teased me about it, he had no complaints when I told him he could stay rent-free. When I went to help Emma move some of her stuff from home, her dad was giving me the standard tough-guy act as he grilled me about my intentions with his precious girl. That tough guy act fell almost instantly when I mentioned ‘rent-free’ and how I was planning on helping Emma with what her grants and scholarships didn’t cover. Emma had slipped he was worried about Emily’s college fund earlier. I knew he was too proud to accept outright help, but me helping Emma helped her sister out too. By this time, Emma and I had been together four years and were as solid as ever. We were hitting the point where people treated us differently. As much as her father gave me a hard time, I knew it was all in jest. He treated me more as a son-in-law than his daughter’s boyfriend. Mom and Dad were like that too. Mom especially liked to spoil Emma and Emily rotten when we were back in town for the summer, betraying her deepest desire to have daughters instead of sons.

We spent Thanksgiving with Emma’s family and winter break with a split. When I asked Emma if she wanted to skip Christmas in the tropics to spend it with her family, she looked me square in the eye and said, “Isaac, I love my family, but not enough to give up a week in paradise.” Best thing about having money was we didn’t have to do one or the other. Talking to my dad about it, I invited Emily and their dad along with us.

Best part? Emma and I finally got our own room.

That Christmas was both the weirdest and best all in one. Stefan brought his usual gusto and energy that was opposite my dad. Mom loved playing ‘Mom’ to Emma and Emily, taking advantage of Christmas festivities to once again spoil them. I think she was hogging Emma more than I was, constantly dragging her, Emily, and Lilian off to spa time, pedicures, and spending ‘girl time’ together. The woman was showing her true colors. She may have had sons, but the moment we brought home our girls, she kicked us to the curb to adopt them. When I complained to her at the family dinner about her treating the girls more like family than her own flesh in blood, Emma sided with Mom and told me to get over it. The betrayal cut deep.

The weirdness came from a few things. Emily, being eighteen and passing the halfway point in her senior year had a serious crush on James. Serious crush. Sure, I got it. The man was a mix between male model and superhero-made-flesh. Her turning to a blubbering mess whenever he tried to have a conversation was both endearing and sad. I had to listen to both Emma and Lilian hammer the poor dude about all the horrible things they would do to him if he so much as touched the innocent girl. He looked hurt, saying he had no idea what they were talking about. Honestly, I agreed with him. James might have been a manslut, but he had been nothing but a complete gentleman toward Emily. Even with Emily making it painfully clear she would be completely okay with something happening between them, James had played oblivious to her intentions and taken everything at a PG meaning.

The weirdest thing by far was it being the vacation Emma and James hooked up with another couple honeymooning there. The couple hadn’t realized this was a resort that catered to older couples. Seeing we were the only people their age at the resort, they sort of attached themselves to us. After a few days of getting to know them, Lilian found out the newlyweds had an open relationship. She practically threw Emma and James at them. The whole thing brought mixed feelings. On one hand, I loved how the six of us would sneak off to a private area we found where Lilian and I would watch our partners enjoy sex with another person. Seeing the way Lilian watched James go wild on the new wife made me feel a kindred spirit of sorts with her. She understood.

Then Lilian took Emma’s place, enjoying some fun herself while watching her boyfriend drive another woman to orgasm. It was especially hard when she joined James in a threesome I would never experience. I was perfectly happy with my relationship with Emma, but seeing the way Lilian and James looked at each other even when they were fucking someone else drove home that there was a step beyond where our relationship was. Good or bad, I would never experience it. It was fine, but damn it, I was human and could dream.

I never said anything, but I was an open book to Emma. I didn’t need to tell her for her to figure out what I was thinking—which was why I was floored when she asked if I wanted to sleep with Sarah. Since Emma shared a room with me, her friend had moved into the room Emma was supposed to take and had been living with us. The whole thing was completely out of the blue and her look told me she was completely serious. It was probably the single greatest display of love she’d ever done. I knew how much she hated the idea of me and another girl and here she was asking if I wanted to try it.

Knowing it was my one shot, I accepted.

The most nerve-wracking night of my life. Undressing Sarah, kissing her, touching her; all while Emma watched. The pressure was crushing. I knew it was doomed to failure when I glanced at Emma during her friend’s blowjob. She looked physically ill, forcing herself to watch. Damn near lost my erection right there.

The pressure was much less when I realized it wasn’t going to happen. I did go down on Sarah, returning the favor. I was probably terrible, only having a single time with Emma as experience to draw from. Still, she seemed to appreciate the effort and I was happy I got to do it even if I wished it was Emma…

I managed to get a condom on, but the moment I moved between Sarah’s legs, Emma shouted ‘red.’ She was a mess, sobbing about how sorry she was, but she couldn’t do it. Sarah and I spent some time calming her down. The way she was acting, I think Sarah knew from the beginning this was a doomed operation. Once Emma had calmed down, the three of us talked a bit before I floated the idea of a threesome. I figured if I stuck to oral stuff with Sarah, we might be able to salvage things. Emma was on the fence and I knew if I pushed a bit, I could make it happen. In the end, it wasn’t worth it. As fun as it would be checking off that from the bucket list, Emma was simply more important.

Sarah wasn’t put off in the slightest, leaving with a smile as she went off to wake Mike up.

That night, I made sure to give Emma lots of loving and put to rest the idea of having another girl join us in bed forever. She had tried, and that alone meant the world to me.

Our final year started without much fanfare. There was a smooth flow to life. A comfort of simply experiencing the day with the ones you love. Living with Emma was as natural as breathing and it was hard to remember what it was like when we lived apart. I still watched Emma with other guys and she was always inviting them to join us in bed. It wasn’t as if our relationship was unchanged. The change was gradual so it took me some time to recognize the pattern, but we had stopped using condoms when we made love. We still used them for when we had more casual fun, but when Emma was in the mood for something intimate, she never bothered with the condom. A small thing, but significant. More than ever, she was making sure I knew that I had no competition with the other men she brought to our bed.

A good thing, because a few months in and the stress was crushing me. My class load was brutal. Advanced classes on top of taking a few extra to make sure I graduated on time made it so there wasn’t a lot of free time. Dad was starting to ride my ass too, having me intern at the company so I could hit the ground running. It meant that I couldn’t spend as much time with Emma as I wanted to. When I did make time, I was often too tired or stressed to do much. The worst was when she pulled out all the stops only for a certain someone to simply not work. There were times that were so bad, I could watch her and another guy go at it from start to finish without getting a single twitch from Junior.

Emma for her part was a saint. I leaned on her hard, and she was there without complaint. She even decided to stop sleeping with other guys since I wasn’t in much mood to enjoy it. She only continued after a long conversation with me convincing her I still enjoyed it even if I wasn’t in the mood to act on it. Besides, I knew she still enjoyed teasing me about it and it was relaxing to hear her talk and tease me about it. Knowing my love was being taken care of helped me push on.

It wasn’t all bad. Even though it seemed like hell, there was a nugget of light in the situation; a sweet woman named Rebecca. Fate had her late to the first day of class, meaning she took the seat next to me since it was the closest to the door. That single moment was the greatest thing to happen in my life behind Emma asking me to help her study because it allowed me to fulfill something I’d been desperately trying to achieve. It allowed me to introduce the brilliant but shy girl to my best friend. He was instantly smitten with the reserved and quiet woman and she seemed to enjoy his company as well.

The first time they went out, I’d waited like a concerned parent on prom night. Emma was right there with me. When he showed up at eleven, I’d been terrified that things had fallen apart. For a guy who hadn’t even managed a hug from the girl, he was over the moon because he got something far better. A second date. Then a third. A fourth. Mike was a completely different man. There was a lively energy that had been missing for the past year or so. Sarah teased him relentlessly about how he was whipped and constantly tried to tempt him, even though I could see no real intention from her to follow through. It took a month, but they finally went official. Mike, after nearly four years of struggle and countless flings, had finally landed himself a girlfriend.

Things got better during break when I had a moment to finally breathe. Emma and I did our best to catch up on lost time, but it was hard. I invited Mike and his girlfriend along, having been dating for a few months now. Rebecca seemed nervous about coming along since her relationship with Mike was still new, but Emma managed to convince her having become a fast friend. Unfortunately, it meant that Emma and her shared a room while I roomed with Mike. Not the end of the world, but James took the opportunity to hound me about how I’d finally shown my true colors and started playing for the other team. Needless to say, he was an insufferable prick that never missed an opportunity to make some sort of gay joke at my expense. Standard older brother shit.

It was worth it though. Rebecca and Mike seemed to have fun and the two made progress. Mike was super happy having finally managed to kiss the girl in something more meaningful than a peck on the cheek. Glacial progress, but progress all the same.

All too soon, vacation ended and it was back to the grind. Emma and I managed to enjoy some threesomes, but all too soon I was buried in work and obligations. Emma continued to invite guys over, but it seemed more like habit than enjoyment. It sucked. I was getting snippy and irritable. Over the years, Emma and I had fights but we usually separated to collect our thoughts before talking about it before it blew up into something major. As major deadlines approached, we had some pretty big fights. Usually, I said something rude to Sarah about her latest boy toy. Emma took her side, saying something like I wasn’t lord of the house and they weren’t my subjects. Things snowballed from there and regrettable things were said.

Seeing that the stress was turning me into a grouch, Emma made an executive decision that I needed to destress. Mandatory and non-negotiable. Considering she was right, I went along with it. Some of Emma and Sarah’s old roommates were throwing a party and since we hadn’t been to one in ages, we both figured it would be a nice change of pace. It was a nice change of pace. I got to see some old friends, let loose, and drink some beer. Lots of beer. In my defense, Emma was pushing it pretty hard. I was under orders to enjoy myself after all.

The real trouble was the brownies. We both knew they were ‘special.’ Her old roommate said as much. We both ate one, and when nothing happened, we stupidly ate a second. Under normal situations, I would have never eaten any in the first place. We tried weed a few times back when we were freshmen and I didn’t like the way it made me feel. Emma enjoyed it but stopped when I refused to have any more. It wasn’t like I was stopping her, but she didn’t want to have any if I wasn’t.

Loads of **** after months of minimal consumption on top of two brownies from hell had me in front of the toilet in no time. Feeling like shit, I stumbled around looking for Emma wanting nothing more than to head home and sleep off this mistake. After five minutes of searching, I finally managed to catch up with a friend who knew where she was. Stumbling through the packed house, I managed to find her. A lot of that night was sketchy, but I will never forget the sight of her on the bed enjoying the guy drunkenly humping against her. Or the guy who went after. Or the third. Still had no idea why I just stood there and let it happen.

That night, seeing that, something broke.

It made no sense why I was so angry. This wasn’t the first time Emma fucked multiple guys at a party. Hell, I remembered enjoying the hell out of playing caboose. All I knew was that something was fundamentally wrong with what I was seeing, but my mind wasn’t working properly to figure it out.

I could blame the **** or the brownies, but I didn’t. It was my stupidity for not acting when I knew something was wrong. I let six guys go before my brain finally kicked into low gear at the sight of my then barely-conscious girlfriend. I got a split lip and a bruised cheek from a few drunk guys who thought I was trying to cut. Might have been worse if not for a few guys who recognized me as Emma’s boyfriend and rushed to help out. Thanks to them, I was able to get her cleaned up and back home.

Waking up was a worse form of hell.

Maybe things would have turned out differently if I took a moment to clear my mind and get everything organized. Alas, I didn’t. Something was still wrong and I still didn’t know what it was. Emma fussed over my injuries but went about like normal. It wasn’t until she grinned at me and mentioned the ‘crazy party’ we’d gone to and how she hadn’t been sore like this in a long time that it all came crashing down. She remembered. She knew she slept with those guys and was treating it like it was no big deal. Maybe she was just hoping we would ignore it and move on, but it didn’t matter. Like putting on a pair of glasses for the first time, everything instantly became clear. Why I felt like absolute shit. Why I was so angry about last night. Emma had told me she was done with that freshman year. She was adamant that it was in the past when I teased her about it. What happened that night at the party should have never happened. It wasn’t that she slept with other guys. That was a regular part of our relationship. What she did was a far greater sin.

She broke her word.

There had been numerous times when we crossed a line or stepped on some toes, but we always managed to take a step back and talk things out. This? It gutted me in a way I never knew was possible.

All she had to do was ask.

I would have happily accepted. Hell, I probably would have enjoyed it.

But she didn’t.

She didn’t, and she knew that.

The fuel was set by me snapping at her about what she did.

She sparked it by firing back about how I didn’t seem too keen on stopping it.

I don’t remember the specifics of the hellfire that followed. Probably for the best. The only thing I remembered was Mike pulling me away as Sarah comforted a sobbing Emma and the disgusting feeling of feeling satisfied when I left. Rage cloaked in the righteous anger of justice that she was feeling the pain I felt.

The weeks that followed blurred together. I was living at a hotel and buried myself in work. That’s what you did when you wanted to avoid something unpleasant. Worked for my dad, and it worked for me.

A part of me knew the rift was growing each day that passed and mending it would only get harder the more time passed. Confronting it meant confronting the pain, so I avoided it. Always had something to work on. A deadline that needed to be met. Work at the company that needed to be done. Anything to avoid the swirling vortex of pain festering inside me.

No idea how long I was in that dark place. Too long. Mike was the only reason I managed to get out. His persistence managed to break through my shell and make me care about something other than losing myself in work. Feeling a bit more like myself, I didn’t think much when he had me meet him for coffee after class.

But seeing her there with him almost drove me back as dark thoughts circled, promising nothing but pain.

Or how she reacted to my silent rejection as I backed away. A resignation that hurt more than any words could.

I fled. A coward afraid to face the pain of a broken heart. Terrified that trying to mend it would only cause it to shatter.

Mike caught me easily enough. Unlike me, he hadn’t been negligent with visits to the gym. Spinning me around, he nailed me in the gut. Mike, the sweet guy who loathed hurting people was furious enough to use ****. Grabbing my shirt, he hauled me up so I was **** to look at him.

“Enough of this shit. I don’t know what the hell happened between you two, but it’s been a month. Stop acting like a fucking child, Isaac. She’s been trying to reach you for weeks and you just ignore her.”

“She—”

“Nope. I don’t have time for your fucking excuses. I get that something happened, something bad, but do you have any idea the **** you’ve put her through these past weeks? Of course you fucking don’t. You’ve been too busy feeling sorry for yourself.” He released his grip on my shirt letting out a breath. His voice lost a lot of the heat that had been there before. “You two have always been rock solid. It’s none of my business what happened, but to not even talk about it?” He shook his head. “I’m not telling you to fix it, but you need to make a decision, Isaac.” He looked sad, looking down. “Either start trying to fix it, or give you two some closure.”

He didn’t say anything more, leaving me alone on the sidewalk.

It took me several minutes to work up the courage to enter the coffee shop again. Emma was still there, staring out the window. The look when she found me standing next to the table was painful. The brief flicker of hope, ruthlessly squashed into stoic passivity.

Taking a seat across from her, we sat in silence for a long time. Both of us had probably run through this conversation a thousand times in our minds, yet when it was time to have it, we were speechless. She had hurt me. She knew she had hurt me.

But I had hurt her too. She at least had an excuse of being drunk and high. Me? I did it because it made me feel… shit. It hadn’t even made me feel better.

I spoke first. It was nothing important, just stupid stuff I’d been working on. When I ran out of meaningless things to talk about, she took over. Like me, it was all meaningless. And even though the conversation was ultimately meaningless, what rested behind the words was anything but. Seeing Emma, talking to her, I found that I still loved her. I had to. The reason why it hurt so much was because I loved her. Being there, seeing her, hearing her; made me realize that while there was pain there, the absence hurt so much more.

We both desperately wanted to fix things but were terrified of failing. Fixing it alone was impossible, but I clung to the hope that maybe together we could mend our wounds.

Things were a bit touch and go the week after I returned home. It took a month and a few dates before we had sex again. It was like a dam collapsing. To the outside, it probably seemed like we had made up and things had gone back to normal. Looking back, we were pretending. **** enough to think acting like everything was normal, things would be normal.

So when Emma brought men to bed, I joined them or watched like usual. We agreed to start slow, but it wasn’t long before I was pushing for more. She went along with just about every request I made as if terrified pushing back would cause me to run again. I hated that she felt that way, but I deserved it. I _had _run away after causing as much damage as I could on the way out.

The problem with broken things is that no matter how hard you tried, it would never be the same. I knew our relationship was FUBAR when we were celebrating graduation. Finally, I was free of the workload and had time to devote to getting things back on track with Emma and looking forward to the future. We had friends over in a small get-together to celebrate. I don’t remember exactly what triggered it, but I remember telling Emma I wanted to watch her have a threesome. Not have one. Watch.

I knew by the way she looked at me that she remembered telling me she would only have them if I was involved. Even after all this time, I hadn’t forgotten either. Yet I asked her to have one anyway.

It was her acceptance that made me realize things would never go back to normal; not when she feared the slightest bit of resistance from her would cause the whole thing to collapse.

So I watched her take two friends to bed. Watched her desperately pretend she was enjoying it for my sake as well as hers. She wasn’t one for half-measures. She made sure both were thoroughly drained before feigning satisfaction. The entire time, every position they had her, Emma’s attention never left me. **** to please me beyond the two men she was with. When they finished, she came to me. Before, she would have had that confident smirk on her face, radiating confidence of a woman who knew she was wanted. The Emma before me was a shadow of her former self. She was just as beautiful as she always was, yet she looked like a woman terrified of being rejected.

Some things, once broken, couldn’t be fixed. Trying to pretend things were okay and that we could fix this was only going to cause us suffering. As I made love to Emma, I knew it was time to end this broken farce we were keeping on life support.

Took me a week to build up the nerve and prepare myself. I knew I was opening myself up to pain but it needed to be done.

We were walking around the park in my neighborhood having come back home for more graduation celebrations. I think Emma knew something was up. No matter how hard I tried to suppress my emotions, she always seemed to be able to read me.

Halfway around the small trail that circled the playground, I finally broke.

“Emma,” I said as I stopped. She jerked at her name, turning to face me. “We need to talk.” She was a hard read, her face steel as she looked at me. I took a deep breath and pushed. “We both know things aren’t working. We’ve been putting everything we have in it, and it’s not getting better. I think it’s time we admit that things are never going to go back to how they were.”

She was trying hard not to react. That she expected this. Not even her perfectly controlled emotions could stop the tears from forming.

“Continuing on as we are is only going to cause more pain in the long run. It’s better for both of us if we end this uncertainty now.”

I watched the tears run down her face as she struggled to hold her emotions back.

Pulling the small box I’d been fingering in my pocket, I held it out and opened it.

“Emma Wright, will you marry me?”

The look on her face was priceless.

The slap? Not so much.

I deserved it too. It was a bastard thing to do and I got off lightly.

The kiss that followed was everything I wanted it to be. The tears, the sobbed yes.

I slid the ring on her offered finger.

“Asshole,” she sobbed, wiping at the tears that wouldn’t stop. “Fucking bastard. I thought you were breaking up with me!”

“Aren’t proposals supposed to be unexpected? In that regard, mission fucking accomplished!” I said as I puffed out my chest.

“Absolute fail. Where is the romance? The mood? Not sure I want to get married to a cold-hearted bastard like you.”

I couldn’t stop grinning. “Too late. You already said yes.”

“Ten-second rule.”

I shook my head. “No take-backsies. Sorry. Looks like you’re stuck with me.”

“Fuck.”

Reaching out, I pulled her into a tight embrace. She squeeze me tightly, still trying to get control of her sobs, which were now tears of joy rather than sorrow.

A part of me knew I was an absolute bastard. I agonized for days trying to get the words right, but a part of me I didn’t like needed this. I loved Emma. I would always love Emma, but a part of me was still hurt by what she had done. If we were going to move on, truly move on, I needed to find a way to let that go or it would fester and grow into something I couldn’t stop.

So I worded this proposal as a breakup. A breakup to the old relationship we were leaving behind so that we would have a clean slate in our new one. It wasn’t like I was expecting radical changes when we got married. I fully expected there would be plenty of men helping me take care of my future wife. No, this was a reset on a more fundamental level and something I had struggled with ever since we tried putting things back together again.

I trusted Emma.

It wasn’t that I trusted Emma would never hurt me. These past few months had taught me that loving someone didn’t mean that. People were flawed and made mistakes. There were plenty of examples where she pushed too hard and did or said something that hurt me. Each time, we had our moment to share how we felt and communicated until the cause was clear. And that was the reason why I realized that even now, even after all that, I still trusted Emma. Not once, not a single moment in our nearly six years together did she ever cross a clearly defined line. We certainly pushed things and weren’t afraid to explore new things, but neither one of us ever crossed the boundaries once established without express permission from the one who set them.

So that was why I was a bastard. I needed that closure as much as she did, even if she was currently torn between hating and loving me for my shitty move. But I could feel it, the ability for me to finally let go of that moment. To forgive her, and more importantly, to forgive myself. Never again would I run away from something, not when I had her there at my side.

“I love you, Emma Wright,” I whispered as she sobbed against my chest. “Now and forever.”