“I—I should go, Mr. Black.”

I had a feeling he didn’t quite understand what’d just happened—the true depth of this situation. It would take him a few hours of recouping and getting sober to realize the act of sin we’d just committed. “Wait—Chloe… hold on. Did I just… did I just take—” He was unable to get it out, still stunned. Still drunk. Still at a loss for words and on the verge of passing out.

I opened the door. “I think this will be the last time I help you when you pass out, Mr. Black.”

“Chloe?” he was still confused, struggling to come to a stand.

“Please be careful, Theo. Have a good night.” I shut the door and hurried home, feeling like the entire neighborhood had heard me—or at least watched me through X-ray goggles or some shit. It didn’t help that Ms. Rhodes’s stupid dog barked, bringing attention to the night. I quietly entered my house, tiptoed upstairs to my bedroom, took a quick shower, and then got into bed.

My head fell to the left, my cellphone sitting on the nightstand. I picked it up. The only person I was concerned about was Izzy. I wanted to tell her that I’d made a mistake—that we’d made a mistake.

But I knew if I did, she’d never forgive it or look at me the same, no matter what he was going through. She’d blame me for getting close to him in his hour of need. She’d blame me for everything and sympathize with her father. She was the only true friend I had. I never kept secrets from Izzy, but this was one I was taking to the grave.

So I dropped my phone, looked towards the window, and figured it was best not to ever let her know. I tossed and turned all night, remembering just how he took me, claimed me. His mouth on mine, tongue desperate and needy. His masculine body close, bringing me to absolute euphoria. I never thought I’d feel so much my first time.

I sighed because I’d never felt so amazing and so horrible all at once. This would change the way Theo saw me, especially the whole popping of the cherry thing, so I prepared myself for the worst. I prepared to be ignored by him, never to be looked at in the same, innocent way.

I told my emotions not to get involved because, after all, it was just sex. I made him feel just a little better and that was what I wanted. For him to forget his pain for a little while. To feel normal again… at least a tad bit happier, even if there was a cost on my behalf.

But I was only fooling myself.

It was much more than that to me. Just sex. No matter how hard I tried, my feelings for Theo only became stronger. I became attached to the idea of him. Weak and vulnerable for him. I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand myself for giving in. Falling victim to my fantasies. My desires. I knew better. We, as adults, knew better.

Theo had no care for right or wrong the moment he lost his wife.

His well-being became polluted with misunderstanding. Rotten from prolonged anguish.

His soul was tainted black, and there was no going back.

“Fuck,” I thought. “Where do we go from here?”

THREE

WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME?!

Chloe… fucking Chloe! The girl from across the street. The girl that just so happens to be my daughter’s best friend. I watched her grow from this oddly proportionate twelve-year-old to a nineteen-year-old woman with a huge rack she couldn’t conceal, full lips that moved fluidly when she spoke, and a perky round ass I couldn’t help but occasionally stare at whenever she was around.

She had it all, the full package, and to top it all off she was book smart. She never missed a day of school—never missed a class assignment or forgot her homework. Shit, I wished Isabelle could be like her—about the books and school, I mean.

When I came to, realizing what’d just happened—the blood on my fingertips, the way she ran out of here—I sprang up, but the bedroom door was already shut, light footsteps scampering down the staircase. “Chloe!” I called after her, shooting for the door. Unfortunately, my fucking pants were still around my ankles, cock limp.

Stumbling ahead, I landed face-forward on the carpet, groaning as I created a loud thud. My palms burned the carpet, head swirling.

God damn it.

I was so fucking drunk and so fucking stupid.

Pulling my shit together as much as I could, I walked towards the window and saw her enter her home, a place that felt so far away from me. A place I knew I could never enter without permission.

It took several minutes for her bedroom lights to flicker on, but when they did, I saw her standing still for a moment. Her sheer curtains always showed where she was. She was looking into the mirror, most likely trying to figure out what in the hell just happened.

I swallowed hard as she moved away from the glass. I didn’t see her anymore after that. “So fucking stupid,” I scolded myself, sitting on the edge of the bed. My fingers roughly raked through my sweat-dampened hair, a soreness already migrating to my head.

Why couldn’t I pull it together? Even my own daughter had swept up the pieces of her heart, ready to start fresh. I still couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Janet… she was fucking gone.

My wife was gone.

Dead.

Just like that, within the blink of an eye.

I loved her to death. She was half of me—the reason I kept breathing so long ago. She was part of the reason I still stood on this earth, her and my daughter.

I slowly spiraled that night, considering myself a complete fuck-up. A low-life. A fucking idiot.

Only idiot thirty-eight-year olds fucked nineteen year olds.

Only fuck-ups spiraled so hard and so fast that they saw nothing but a blur and soon ended up passing out in the garage.

Only a low-life would have the audacity to come onto such a sweet, innocent girl. A girl who so clearly wanted to help me get through this pain. This harsh, unbearable pain. Only a fool would end up taking something that sacred away from her, like it didn’t even matter.

But it mattered a lot.

The ache that I had was there, but the crazy thing about it was I lost sight of all losses while she was around. All the pain, all the suffering, and all the hurt just seemed to disappear. While I was buried deep in that tight, mind-blowing pussy, all agony faded. While I held that sweet, young girl close, feeling as she accepted me—took me whole, inch by savory fucking inch, it was gone. All gone.

She had wanted me for years. I could tell when someone was interested, but the thing about her was she didn’t put it on display for everyone to see. Hell, I don’t even know how I figured it out.

Chloe had always had a thing for me, and perhaps my bantering and teasing her as she grew didn’t help get rid of those feelings. If anything, I’d only enhanced them, making her wonder. Making her dream… question.

I was trying to play it cool, but I never had to become someone else while she was around. She accepted us. She understood us. She understood me. She was an amazing person, but just like that, I’d stolen her innocence and filled her with guilt and a spill of my own darkness.

It was a curse, the darkness. It always snuck up on me somehow. Right when I thought I was doing well, it would show up, stealing all the goodness away from me. The blackness would seep through me, ruining my life, turning me into someone I couldn’t stand to look at.

“Fuck!” I barked, rising to my feet. I watched the mirror, how my chest heaved and my body dripped with prohibited sweat. I couldn’t stand what I saw. The dark circles around my eyes from weeks of depression, the way my eerie reflection stared back at me, almost taunting. Laughing. Mocking.