Kara
***
The door clicked open, and I stopped swinging my legs back and forth off the edge of the desk. Dahlia stepped in and I couldn't help but to smile when I saw her. She looked refreshed, a definite improvement over the stressed - almost scared - woman that scurried out of my apartment just hours ago.
I, on the other hand, was as anxious as could be. This was it, I reasoned with myself. Whether we stay together or not, everything would be in the open between us. I swallowed hard, hopping off the desk right as Dahlia rushed over and embraced me before the door had even swung shut.
I held her, breathing in her scent as my arms rubbed her back. Finally we ended our embrace, smiling at each other. "So..."
"So..." She responded, before we both chuckled. She smiled at me, shifting her weight from foot to foot.
Well, shit. Here goes everything. "I want to talk to you about my past... relationships. One in particular. And I also want to talk about our future." I realized I'd still been staring at Dahlia's heeled feet, so I forced my gaze back at her face. To my surprise she stayed quiet, nodding to show she heard me. "I was with a girl at the start of the school year. We broke it off a few months ago. She's in one of your classes, Felicity?"
A strange look spread across Dahlia's face, and she immediately looked away. She knew her, that's for sure. Maybe she was thinking about the ethics of a grad student - a teaching assistant, even - being with a freshman. I hoped she wouldn't judge me for that too harshly given our own relationship, but there were still enough differences between the two pairings to be left uncertain.
I pressed on. "Yeah, so Felicity and I were a thing for a while. It started similarly to you and I... Except with Felicity, she didn't like being told what to do. She kept rebelling and fighting for control, trying to get me to listen to her while still begging me to boss her around. Things got... unhealthy..." I choked, my throat tightening. For a moment, the memories overwhelmed and swarmed me. Our fights, our arguments, the way we spoke and touched each other.
In the end, there wasn't any love left between us.
In the end, there was only anger and spite.
I looked up at Dahlia, more emotions written across my face than I could identify in myself. What she saw must have worried her, because immediately her hand was holding my own, with a thumb running across the backside of my hand.
"We got nasty with each other. It wasn't right, it wasn't healthy... but most of all, it wasn't safe. We fought, and when sex is tied to power and control, fighting can make things..."
I took a deep breath, steeling myself to say what I needed to while looking into Dahlia's eyes.