I buried my face in my pillow and cried until a large patch of it was soaked.

As I sobbed, one particularly pathetic thought kept circling in my head.

Why had I insisted on meeting him?

If we hadn't met, Z would still have been Z.

I could have kept lying to myself that he liked me. That he loved me.

But now?

I'd thrown away the only person who had ever treated me well.

I scrubbed at my face with my sleeve. My nose was so blocked I could barely breathe.

Zachary must have known for a while.

Why hadn't he said anything?

Why had he kept dating me online?

Was he laughing at me?

Or was he curious about what an intersex person's body looked like?

Was I really that much of a slut?

By the time I woke again, the apartment was dark.

I rubbed my eyes. They hurt badly.

I rolled over and heard a faint sound from below my loft bed.

A hand reached up.

"Ba—Sam. I bought an ice pack. Put it on your eyes. Otherwise they'll be too swollen to open tomorrow."

Humiliation washed over me.

He'd had his laugh.

Why was he still being nice to me?

"Keep your fake concern to yourself."

I turned my back, my voice thick and hoarse.

Zachary sighed.

Then the bed shifted. Someone was climbing the ladder.

He came up onto my bed.

I was forced to curl against the wall, leaving barely a fist's width between us.

He held an ice pack wrapped in a towel and carefully pressed it against my eyelids.

The coolness was so soothing that I almost made a sound.

"Sam. I say the wrong things. I'm terrible at talking."

His head was lowered. His shoulders were slightly hunched.

He looked nothing like the arrogant Zachary Hayes I knew.

He handed me a black bank card.

"Everything I've earned over the past few years is in that account. Whatever I earn from now on will go into it, too."

I stared and instinctively pushed it back.

"Why would I want that?"

He lowered his eyes, looking hurt.

"Sam, don't you remember? We agreed that when we met, you'd be my wife. What's mine would be yours."

Of course I remembered.

But I'd thought he was joking.

A rich boy like Zachary probably had dozens of cards.

He looked up.

In those usually cold eyes, there was a restrained heat.

"I know you hate me. That's exactly why you should keep it."

"You can treat me the way I treated you."

"Wouldn't that be a better way to get back at me?"

He pressed the card into my hand.

His fingers accidentally brushed my palm.

I hadn't even decided whether to refuse when my body reacted first.

An unwelcome flush of heat rose through me.

The bed was too narrow.

The tiny space between us didn't hide a thing.

Zachary's gaze darkened. His throat moved.

He slowly leaned down, his breath warm against my ear.

"Sam, let me help you. Please."

"You don't even have to think of me as a person. Think of me as something you can use. You don't have to do anything."

...