It's easy for me to see why people get so addicted to being in relationships. There's a lot to like. For example, the constant company provided by a significant other. It's hard to be lonely when someone has basically designated themselves to spend as much time with you as possible.
And then there's... well, there's what some would call the skinship portion of the whole thing. For a teenager navigating the choppy waters of puberty, experiencing sex on a regular basis for the first time is a shock to the system.
I'm not just talking about me either. Megan was very enthusiastic about hooking up as much as possible, which still wasn't as much as either of us liked. The only obstacle in our way to do it more often than we did was our respective roommates. But when one of us could get one of them out of the way for any reasonable period of time... oh boy.
I had managed to get Wolf to leave my room for a night and stay with Ruth, with the conditions that he got to take my Nintendo Switch with him. That was fine. It wasn't like I didn't have five other consoles in my room at any given time, and it wasn't like I was going to be playing many video games when I had a girl to play with instead.
"You sure your codename isn't 'Rabbit' instead of Pixie? Jesus, girl," I joked, but this was a very welcome thing, "Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I'm just saying," As long as I could afford the condoms needed to prevent any accidental pregnancies, we could do it whenever she wanted. The only reason I hadn't asked more often beforehand was because I didn't want to come off as a sex-obsessed jerk.
Megan pinched my goddamn nipple of all things. It fucking hurt, and I didn't expect it, but I didn't give her the benefit of letting her know, "Oh, shut up. I'm serious, Bel! I missed you during the break," She said, before admitting something more reservedly, "...And I was jealous."
Oh no. We had already had our little talk about that. There was no need to dwell on old stuff. Especially less than pleasant old stuff, "You don't need to say anything else. We already talked about it."
Fortunately, for the sake of us both being unclothed and in close proximity, it didn't devolve into a rehashing of the Laura thing, "No, I'm jealous of your team, actually," Megan said, "It feels like they know more about you than I do. I mean, I get that it's easier to be close to somebody when you deal with what you guys have had to. But it just... I don't know. This sounds dumb."
"No-no, I get it," It made perfect sense to me. Megan and I didn't really start getting close until bad things happened that we'd both had to handle, "Pix, for some reason, people find it easier to bond in misery."
She didn't like that idea. It was understandable. What kind of psycho would be excited about dealing with problems just for something like that, "So we have to suffer together to get super-close? That's awful. That can't be the way normal relationships work."
Since when were any of us normal? I didn't say that though, "I don't know, we seem close enough already, at least physically," I tried to joke for a moment, "If bad shit happening speeds up the process, I'd rather not. I don't exactly like you watching me get my ass kicked," I didn't want her to see me in action at all. She'd probably notice the thing I was going to therapy for, and I doubted that girls found a complete lack of empathy sexy, "And I definitely don't want anything bad happening to you."
"Bad things happen to you a lot," She observed astutely.
That was the understatement of the school year, and we had just started it, "I would rather they didn't, believe me," I tried to reason back, "But I knew what I was getting into when I decided to come here, so complaining too much would be a jabroni move."
Megan nodded a look on her face showing that she was listening to me seriously. It was adorable, "Right. I'll take your word for it, because I don't know what 'jabroni' means."
I didn't know how to respond to that, "It means-," I suddenly felt too tired to go into any kind of detail, "You know what? Fuck it. I'm exhausted. All you need to know it that it's not good," I said with a laugh.
Megan took the opportunity to try and tease me, "I thought you didn't get tired."
I rolled my eyes, "I don't get physically tired. I still get mentally worn down."
She got smug and held my cheeks to shake my head around, "So, I wore you out, huh?"
"You want to see how worn out I am?"
It was a good thing that the walls between dorm rooms were fairly thick. I'd have hated to be the guy that ruined his neighbors' evening enjoying himself too much.