Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108905 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
“I know you do.” Holli put her arm around my shoulder, and I leaned on her.
Of all the friendships in my life, Holli was my most important. She understood me in a way most people couldn’t—she knew things about me that even Neil didn’t—and while she never sugarcoated things when she thought I was making stupid choices or fucking up royally, she didn’t judge me.
Oh, she gave me hell about it and mocked me mercilessly—once, when I was nervously awaiting the results of an STD test, she taunted me with previews of the jokes she would make for each of my possible diseases should I have one—but somehow, that kind of helped.
Since I knew she wouldn’t judge me, I added, “And I’m lonely. Like, in the pants department. I know that’s really super selfish of me, but there it is. I like physical intimacy. And I’ve gotten so used to it that I need it. It’s like an addiction.”
“So, what’s up with your whole open marriage thing?” she asked, lifting an eyebrow. “Because Deja might excuse a little sympathy—” Holli made a circle with her thumb and forefinger and plunged her index finger into it.
“First of all, ew,” I said giving her a push. “You’re my best friend. I am not DTF my best friends.”
“You’re DTF Neil, and he’s your best friend,” she teased.
“And, second,” I went on, rolling my eyes at her, “it wouldn’t be like this—” I repeated her hand motion. “It would be like this—” I made scissors out of my index and middle fingers and jammed them together.
“No, it wouldn’t. Grow up, Sophie, everybody who’s, like, over the age of five knows that scissoring isn’t really a thing.” She shook her head at my ignorance.
“Five, huh?” I whistled. “Public school has changed since our days.”
She shrugged.
“Neil and I don’t have an open marriage,” I corrected her. “An open marriage implies that we could seek out other sexual partners individually. Maybe go on dates with them or whatever. We don’t do that. Right now, we’ve just got one guy.”
“Ah yes. Emir.” Holli fluttered her hand against her chest and pretended to swoon. “Seriously, you two better lock him down. He won’t stay single for long.”
I sighed. “Yeah, I don’t know about that.”
“What? You don’t know if you could handle having another dude worshipping at your feet? If Neil will share your feet,” she amended.
Sometimes, maybe I didn’t need to tell her everything.
“It’s not that. It’s more like…” I hated to admit this to cool, sexually adventurous Holli. “I don’t know if I could handle sharing Neil. There’s already something kind of between them that I can’t quite put my finger on. I’m not threatened by it, but if we made it official? I don’t know.”
“I get that.” Holli shrugged. “I couldn’t share Deja. We’re doing the sexually monogamous thing, because that’s what she’s into and I love her more than I love getting freaky in bathrooms at clubs. But, even if she was down to have sex with other people, I wouldn’t be cool with bringing someone into the relationship full time.”
“Is it weird that hearing about your monogamy made me feel a lot better about my non-monogamy?”
She shook her head. “Nah. You’re probably just happy to be the sexually adventurous one, now.”
There was definitely some truth there.
As fun as my sleep over and heart-to-heart with Holli had been, life continued as normal, with no sign of any forthcoming communication with Neil. I went back to work at the Brooklyn office, but only three days a week. Deja acted like my return had saved her life, when, in reality, I felt like I was just taking up space. The magazine ran fine without me. Deja knew exactly what she was doing. So, it was yet another place in my life where I didn’t feel needed.
The only place I did feel needed was at home, with Olivia. And that turned out to be a good thing, because Mariposa’s grandmother died the first week of May, and she had to return to Trinidad for the funeral.
“You’re sure it’s not going to be a problem?” she asked me for what had to be the four hundredth time. We stood in the foyer, waiting for Tony to take her to the airport.
“It’ll be fine,” I reassured her, though my stomach did clench a little at the thought of being truly alone in caring for Olivia. I’d always had either Neil or Mariposa to help. “You just worry about you, right now.”
Yeah, the “I’ll be fine” careened wildly off the tracks somewhere around the third morning. Mom had offered to come up and help, but I had this weird feeling that accepting her help would be akin to admitting defeat. Emma and Michael had put me in charge of caring for Olivia, and I was going to do just that.