The Professional Lover II (18+) | [Complete]

20 : Romanticizing It

A whole day later, I'm still fuming. The shrink is a stupid bitch. Award-winning, high-ranking, or whatever the fuck she was in sex therapy, she doesn't know shit about love. Not that I do either, but that's not the fucking point. I am not in love with Remy. 

There were two things the bitch really didn't understand; the first being how obsessed Remy was and still is with my sister. He may try to hide the way he still feels about her, but she will forever consume him, she will forever be the standard to which he measures all other women. And how could I blame him? Z was damn near perfect.

The second thing the shrink didn't understand was that Remy and I almost tried the "more than family" thing before. As is true for anything with us, it was fucked up.

When Z died, Remy came back to town for the funeral. He was as inconsolable as me, and we clung to one another. He was the only other person there who saw her as more than a junkie who ended up where everyone expected her to be: in a grave.

I remember we sat outside in the backyard on the porch of the guesthouse where Z used to sleep. Probably where she used to sleep with him. I was anxiously gnawing on the bracelet she gave me the night before it happened, lost in the memories and the pain. He gave me his flask and let me finish off the rest. We sat on that cold, concrete patio and cried together for what seemed like hours while everyone else was inside smiling, laughing, and moving on.

I don't like to think about that night much -- the desperation I felt, the way we figured out Remy wasn't the only one that preferred to cover pain with pleasure. I was a bit shy of legal and quite a bit past tipsy, but somehow, I convinced him to come with me to the guesthouse bed. I wanted to go further -- so much further -- but Remy, drunk or not, had the wits about him enough to know that us being together was wrong in plenty of ways. Rather than giving in to my desperate attempt, he pinned me down and got me to bare it all in a different way. 

I spilled. I told him where the money was really coming from; what, and occasionally who, they sold to make it. I told him about what my father made Z do with his associates when she was younger, the way my mom encouraged her to keep quiet by guilting her and eventually feeding her addiction. I even told him how I sat by and watched, never saying a word. 

Then Remy told me he already knew.

He knew all of it, all along, but he hadn't said a word either. He knew every fucked up thing she had been through and still loved her, just like me. For the first time since she passed, I didn't feel alone.

That's when everything changed for us. That's when we became the brutally honest, no-filter level of close we are today, and there was no going back.

I wouldn't have it any either way now, but I know I had every intention of being with Remy that night, but when the morning, everything was different. Now, we don't talk about what almost happened. We only talk about the shit we did the next week to get my parents thrown in prison.