White Space Season 2

like I can’t be happy without them.”
    Cassidy cried harder.
    “I can’t sleep, unless you’re in bed with me, and I’m always exhausted, wanting to close my eyes since at least then I can ignore the craving.” She stared deep into Jon’s patient gaze. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this, except that I don’t have any other answers, and I’m scared of losing you, terrified of losing myself.”
    Jon said nothing. He looked at the bottle in his hands, popped the cap from the top — with a twist of his hand a flick of his thumb — then looked up at Cassidy. “How many did you take?”
    She stuttered, “T … t … two,” from behind trembling lips.
    Jon tapped two pills into his palm, slapped them past his lips, just as Cassidy had done just minutes before, then said, “We all slip sometimes.”
    He then went into the bathroom and flushed the rest down the toilet, came back, and handed her the empty bottle. “All gone.”
    For the briefest of moments, she wanted to run into the bathroom and try to grab whatever pills might still be floating in the toilet. But no, she was stronger than that — especially with Jon at her side.
    “I thought you were Mr. Clean and Sober, well, except for the alcohol and weed.” She laughed hard through her sobbing.
    “Yeah, well, we’re all hypocrites sometimes,” he said, his lips suddenly on her neck, then her ears, teeth nibbling her lobes as he pulled them gently into his mouth.
    Cassidy moaned softly. Jon moaned slightly louder as he pushed her onto the soft mattress.
    His hands were everywhere, in every spot she wanted, and all the places she imagined him pressing against her, when she wasn’t thinking of Emma, or the pills.
    She was naked in seconds, but Jon kept himself from entering, instead covering Cassidy’s skin in a thin carpet of kisses, taking his sweet time to prove he wasn’t angry or disappointed or sad. They were blissed out in tandem, not just through the swirling euphoria of pills, but in their mutual hope and heartache and loss.
    After she begged him, Jon entered her, taking his time and making the sweetest, most passionate love she’d ever had.
    When finished, they lay together, bodies hot despite the room’s cool climate, sprawled as one atop the plush comforter.
    Cassidy had shared many encounters, with more men than she could count, sometimes sober and often numb, but in all her life, Cassidy had never, ever experienced anything like what she just had with Jon Conway. It felt almost as if two had briefly become one in a shared moment of ecstasy.
    Her heart beat faster than she wanted, faster than she understood. Something new was happening inside her, hatching like a baby from its shell, bringing something with it she didn’t quite — or couldn’t quite — understand. It wasn’t just that Cassidy felt post-coital euphoria. Lately with Jon she had laid there just like this, wondering if she was falling in love. Now she knew it was true, enough to feel it trembling at her lips.
    There was nothing scarier than saying “I love you” for the first time. Cassidy had said it more times than she’d meant it. Had said it more times than she’d heard it said back. It was terrifying each time, but never more than now. There was so much at risk, not just laying her feelings on the line and being willing to admit her I love you , but she was also wrestling with guilt and uncertainty; Sarah, Emma, her.
    And what was “love,” anyway?
    It was what Cassidy had with Jon, she thought: being willing to let one person in more than any other, opening doors to each of her deepest, darkest, and ugliest secrets — the stuff she was willing to share with no one else, not even Sarah when she was here, somehow confident that in the end, no matter what she said, Jon wouldn’t think less of her.
    Love was complete and utter trust.
    Cassidy wanted to tell Jon that she loved him. She wanted him to know she loved how hard he tried, adored his arrogance and frailty. Admired his strength. And through all of that, loved him like she didn’t know she could.
    Cassidy was sure she had not yet seen the best or worst of Jon Conway, but she had certainly seen the beginnings of both. And for her, that was enough.
    “I love you, Jon,” she said.
    He turned to Cassidy, draping his body on hers as he circled her right nipple with his fingers and brushed her left with his lips. “I love you too, Cassidy.”
    They lay together as Cassidy tried to untangle