“I think he broke me for all other men,” I tell her, grabbing the plate of pasta she put in front of me.

“You are not broken,” she says. “But I need you to promise me right here and now that you will never again call me crying about your vagina being broken.”

“It is,” I tell her, and the tears almost come again. I look down at myself. “And I’ve been told I have a nice vagina on top of that.”

“By who?” Karrie says. “It looks normal.”

“One year, I spray painted it the color of the French flag,” I say, and she just looks at me. “Then when we went into the hot tub, the paint floated to the top.”

“Oh my God.” She laughs now.

“His parents were less than thrilled,” I tell her. “I was so carefree and so was my vagina.” I take another bite. “You know what I can do? Lure him into having sex with me.”

“Well, if you take a picture of your dungeon back there, I can guarantee he’ll run over here,” Karrie says while she eats her pasta.

“You think so?” I ask her. “Maybe I could send a picture of me pleasuring myself,” I say, and her eyes go big. “Well, without the pleasure part.”

“Promise me that you will never do that,” she says. “One of the guys went to send a dick pic to a girl on Snapchat, and he put it on his story instead.”

“Oh my God, was he big?” I ask her, and she just shrugs.

“I don’t have Snapchat. Matthew told me,” she says. “Speaking of, I should call and tell him I’m still in the city.”

“What were you even doing here?”

“Going over the Halloween party with Zara. It’s a good thing she didn’t come with me. There is no way we could explain all that.”

“Oh, please, she has enough sex. How do you think she got pregnant?” I tell her. The rest of the afternoon flies by, and when she leaves, I walk back into the room and put all my toys back into the box and set it aside. Maybe Karrie is right, I think to myself and then walk to my computer and type up a blog post. When I finish it, I turn it off and make plans to go straight to sleep. It doesn’t take me long before I find him in my dreams.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Mark

It’s been three weeks since we had the library outing. Between being on the road and having home games, I’ve had one day off, and I wanted nothing but to sit at home with her. I text her every two days like clockwork. I live for the day I know I’m going to text her, knowing that she will text me back.