Cait left, with her mom. Just like that. She left me.

And I was alone, somewhere between Cait and Lucy and this big ugly secret that wasn't even my secret and so it shouldn't have been mine to keep. But it was, and that was so unfair.

The world had ended, and Lucy wanted to know why, and I couldn't tell her. So I just stayed away.

She called me all the time, and at first, I picked up when she did.

She cried every time, and she would say things like, “I miss Cait too, you know,” and, “She's gone, but I'm not,” and, “Why don't you love me anymore?” and, “What did I do?”

I had nothing to say and so after a while, I didn't answer when she called anymore. But she kept calling, and every time she did and my phone showed her picture and it said, 'Lucy calling', it hurt so much and it made me cry, so finally I had to text her.

'Please don't call me anymore.'

And she stopped.

But that just hurt more.

And the way I treated Lucy was the way Cait treated me. I called her but she didn't pick up, and I texted her but she didn't answer. The only times she did was when I texted her and asked her if I could tell Lucy, and she just wrote 'No'. Or I texted 'I'm telling her, I can't take this anymore' and she wrote 'No!' or 'Don't you dare!'

Then one day Lucy's boyfriend came over, alone. I wasn't at home when he showed up. I was sure mom was, but when I came home he was sitting on the steps in front of the door, even though it was raining, and when I saw him there I stopped, maybe twenty feet away, and just stared at him.

He was smoking a cigarette, trying to cover it from the rain with his right hand, but when he saw me he put it out under his shoe and then he stood up and walked to me. I wanted to run away but instead, when he was close to me and he opened his mouth to say something, I whimpered and I said, “Please don't be mad at me.”

“I'm not,” he said, and he put his hand on my cheek and he smiled, and I threw my arms around him and put my face in his chest and I sobbed.

I cried so much and he just held me and let me cry, and then we went inside and I was still crying when I took my jacket off and we went into the living room.

I was shaking, and he took my hands and said, “You're cold, I'll make us some coffee.”

“Thanks,” I said.

Mom was nowhere to be seen, and he looked around for the kitchen, and then he saw my blanket on the couch and he gave it to me and said, “You should get out of those wet clothes too."

So when he came back with the coffee, I was just in my underwear under the blanket.

He sat down next to me and gave me a cup and then he said, “How are you doing?”

I shrugged and shook my head and I said, “I don't know,” because I didn't really. Every day was like I wasn't even there, like I was just an extra in a movie or something, just walking by in the background. The sun came up and then it went down again, over and over and I didn't care. I went to school and then I went home and then I went back to school again, and nothing was important.

"Look," he said. "I've tried, but I can't figure this out and I'm not going to ask you to explain anything, but I'm begging you to come with me so you can talk to Lucy. I'll just drop you off and leave you two alone for however long you need."

I was already shaking my head, and he said, “She's hurting really bad.”

I howled and I sobbed again, and I said, “I can't."

“Of course you can," he said. "She loves you. She's always loved you and nothing you can say or do will change that. And when someone loves you, you can tell them ev…” and I jumped up and I spilled all my coffee and I was standing there shaking my finger at him.

“No!" I shouted. "Fuck that! Fuck that, because you don't tell people anything because it fucks everything up! It ruins everything, so you don't tell people anything because they don't need to know so it's just evil! And everyone is fucked up and everyone has secrets and no one needs to know and I don't want to know!”

Now I was crying almost uncontrollably, and I just sat down on the floor, and I said, “I don't want to know. I didn't need to know.”

He got up and sat down on the floor next to me and put his arms around me.

"It's not even my secret," I said. "It's not fair."

He just held me, and suddenly I was so horny. Maybe hornier than I've ever been in my entire life, and I wanted him to fuck me. I needed him to fuck me, I needed to feel him inside of me again so bad and so I kissed him and he kissed me back and I rubbed his cock through his pants and he let me for a little while before he said, "Maybe this is a bad idea?"

"Maybe," I said as I unbuttoned his pants. "Probably," I said as I opened his belt and pulled his cock out.

"Definitely," I murmured as I kissed the tip of it and let my tongue run around the head.

"But I don't care."

Then I opened my mouth and slowly let his cock slide down my throat as far as I could get it.

I didn't care if mom was home. I didn't care if she could hear us. I wouldn't have cared if she was sitting there on the couch watching us. All I wanted to do was have him fuck me again like he would do a million years ago when we were all together. When everything was perfect.

All I needed was to just for a little while pretend everything was the way it was before.

I kept his cock in my mouth as I straddled his leg, and I humped his leg until I came.

Then I pulled my panties off, and I put two fingers inside myself, all the time with his cock in my mouth,

I don't think I'd ever been this wet before, and I sucked him off and fucked myself until I came again.

But I needed more.

I pushed him down on his back and mounted him, and when I put his cock inside of me, he said, "What about your mom?"

I looked around, and I realized I was actually hoping she was around somewhere, watching. I wanted her to see.

'Look, mom. See? I'm normal. Not with a girl this time, or several girls, and no toys or anything, just me fucking a guy I'm not even related to.'

But she wasn't there.

So we fucked like crazy, or I fucked him like crazy, I guess, and I could have kept fucking him forever. I came twice like that, and he came once, and when he had, I got off him and put his cock in my mouth again, licking his cum and my juices off it until it got hard again before I lay down on the floor and pulled him on top of me and we fucked more.

I moaned and I screamed and I shouted. I pulled his hair, I clawed his chest and I pushed hard back at every thrust he made.

"Fuck me!" I yelled. "Fuck me harder!"

I grabbed his hands and put them on my throat, letting him choke me. I wrapped my legs around him and grabbed his head and lifted myself up and kissed him. I bit his lips and I hissed, "Harder! Oh fuck! Oh fuck, yes! Fuck me harder!"

He did.

And then we both came.

He was sweaty and still breathing hard when he pulled his pants back on, and I said, "I love you."

He looked at me and smiled.

"I love you too," he said. "We'll work this out, I promise."

Then he put his belt on and said, “Do you have Cait's new address?”

“She's her sister," I said.

And I don't know why I said it. I just did. The words just kind of fell out of my mouth.

“What?”

“Cait," I said. "She's Lucy's sister. Her dad is, was, her dad too. She didn't know.”

And he said, “Oh.”

Then he stood up and he said, “Oh,” again.

I looked up at him.

“I'm sorry,” I said. Like it was my fault. And sometimes I think it was because I kept Lucy in my life even when it was supposed to be just Cait and me. And I was the one that kinda brought them together because I never could choose between them, and that's why they had hated each other, and maybe that's why they had to fall in love, because they both felt that the only way they could be with me was if they were just as messed up as I was.

Before me, Cait wasn't even into girls, and before me, Lucy was pure and innocent, but I didn't want them to be like that, and I held them like prisoners in this haze that Cait's mom had told me about.

But she had been wrong. It wasn't like a haze at all. It was like a spider's web, and people got stuck in it, helpless and unable to get away, just waiting for me to come and poison them.

“You can't tell her,” I said. “It's not your secret.”

“It is now," he said.

"I'm sorry," I said again.

And before he left, I gave him Cait's address, and he kissed me again and he said, “It'll be alright” and I nodded but I didn't believe him.

Then the next day I was at home, and there was someone at the door.

Mom went and opened it, and when she came back I heard her say, “I'll leave you two alone." I turned around and it was Cait.

I jumped up and I ran to her, and I thought she smiled but it wasn't a smile at all, and before I could get to her she said, “You bitch!”

And I froze.

“You selfish bitch! You had no right. I told you not to tell her but you did anyway and now you've ruined everything. You always ruin everything!”

And I said, “Cait, I'm…”

“Sorry?" she said. "Are you sorry? Of course you are, because you're always sorry. You ruin everything and then you're sorry.”

“I know. I'm sor…”

“It had to be me," she said. "I had to be the one to tell her. So I could fix it, so I could make her see that it's okay, that I didn't know and I don't care. So I could go back to her, to them. So she would take me back. So you would take me b…” and her voice failed and her lips quivered and she started to cry.

“I'm sor…”

“Stop!" she shouted. "Oh my god, just stop!”

She looked down and then quietly she said, “Just stop, okay?”

We just stood there. I was staring at her and she was staring at the floor for what seemed like forever. She didn't say anything and I didn't say anything, and the words she had said were ringing in my ears, like an echo that just wouldn't quit. 'You always ruin everything!'

And I wanted to run away again, just run through the door and down the street and far away and just run and run until I was in another world, until my tears had dried up. Just run until I forgot why I was running. Just run forever.

Cait kept looking at the floor. She was sobbing and her shoulders jumped up every time she caught her breath, but then she raised her head and looked at me, and slowly she lifted her arms to me and said, “Babe?” like she just now realized it was me, and this time I ran all the way to her, into her arms.

I whispered, “Let's just go. Just you and me, let's just run away from here, from everything,” and I stroked her hair and she nodded in my neck.

But we didn't, of course. We sat down and we talked, and mom stayed away, and Cait said, “I don't know what to do. He's going to tell her and she's going to hate me. She'll hate me because I didn't tell her and she'll think I knew the whole time. That I'm a freak. I am a freak!”

“You're not a freak,” I said.

"But I am," she said. "It's in my blood. Holy shit!"

“So it's in her blood too,” I said.

“Aargh! Seriously?? You're not helping.”

“Sorry,” I said.

"If you say sorry one more time, I'll break your neck, I swear."

"Okay," I said. "I apologize."

And Cait actually laughed, just a little.

I picked up my phone, and Cait said, “Who are you calling?”

"Toby," I said.

When he answered, he just said, "Hey."

“Did you tell her?” I said.

“No. I haven't made it home yet.”

“Please don't," I said. "Please, let Cait do it.”

“When?” he said.

I looked at Cait, and she was shaking her head so I said, “We'll come over, right now.”

Cait shook her head hard, and he said, “That's great. Thank you so much, we'll wait up for you.”

So we went, and it was the middle of the night when we got there, and this time I knocked on the door.

Lucy was the one that opened the door, and she was still so beautiful but now she had these black circles under her eyes, and I hated myself for doing that to her.

She just looked at us for a while, and then she said, “I've made coffee.”

We followed her into the living room, and she sat down on Toby's lap. He put his arms around her and she hid her face in his neck.

Cait and I sat down and still with her face in his neck so we could barely hear her, Lucy said, “I hate you.”

“You don't do that to someone," she said. "You don't just leave."

“Lucy,” Cait said, and Lucy looked at her and she had tears in her eyes.

“I'm sorry your dad died," she said. "I am, but I was here for you. Why did you just go?”

And then she looked at me and said, “And you. Fuck you! I did nothing wrong so fuck you for not loving me anymore. Fuck you for loving Cait more. And fuck you because I still love you and I don't want to.”

Cait said, “Lucy, listen. My dad…” but Lucy was still looking at me.

"'I just don't love you anymore, Lucy'," she said. "See, it's not hard. Just say it."

"No," I said. "I never..."

"Because you say that to people," Lucy continued. "You don't just disappear."

"I know," I said. "But, I couldn't…"

“You don't just put people through hell like that!“

"I know," I said. "I'm sorry.”

"'I don't love you'," Lucy said. "Say it!"

"No," I said. "I can't. It's not true! I do love you!"

But she shouted, “No you don't! Because if you did, you wouldn't have done that!”

And then she jumped up and ran out of the room.

Cait ran after her, and I almost did too but Toby said, “Don't,” and so I sat back down again.

He and I sat there in silence for almost an hour, and then they came back out. Lucy came to me and sat down next to me and she put her arms around me and she held me tight for so long, and then she said, “I don't hate you.”

"I know," I said.

"I love you," she said.

"I know."

And then she said, “So, we're cousins?” and my head exploded.