Chapter 0371

“I was embarrassed,” he says, looking away from me again. “Because…when I came to the city and started watching TV, people of course talked about sex casually – that husbands and wives did it, and mates, and boyfriends and girlfriends. But…they talked about it like it was this big thing – especially losing your virginity, how intense and emotional and special it was. And I was so interested because I was like…well what the hell is that? What’s sex? What could it be? And then I saw some movies that showed people actually having sex…

His words fade off, and suddenly it all snaps together. “Oh,” I say, sitting up a little straighter. “And you realized that you’d…you’d done it before.”

“Yeah,” he says, looking down at his hands. “And I felt… I don’t know, kind of robbed? Not by Tasha – but by the Community, by my education. I should have known that it was…important. That it was big. That it’s not something that most people casually do by the river, but it’s something that a lot of people understand as an act that…brings people together. People who love each other.”

We’re both quiet now, and my hand slips down from his hair, down his neck to rest on his shoulder. I study him carefully, his handsome profile, his powerful frame. Physically, he can withstand so much. And yet it’s this – these small, stolen things that truly break him down.

“Did you love her?” I ask quietly, curious. And as I ask it I realize that I won’t begrudge him if the answer is yes. That instead I might even be happy – I will have wanted him to have that love in a world that took so much away from him.

“No,” he answers, looking at me seriously. “I liked her a lot, Ariel, I was really fond of her. But what we had, how I felt about her?” He shakes his head softly. “It is… nothing compared to…” he gestures to me now, to the bond between us. And I nod, accepting it, understanding.