I used to see metal bars,

like I was a caged blue bird.

wearing an orange jumpsuit,

fighting for my little life.

I was the exploding sun,

existing for other lives.

Letting the small planets thrive,

off of my lonely bright light.

I knew how I would go out,

disappearing into space.

Unlike the sun, I would leave,

no mark on the universe.

Until I met him.

What an asshole.

The metal bars of my life,

I began to see as a

white picket fence in front of

a nice house and a nice kid.

No longer the lonely sun,

I came down to earth with him.

The brown eyes that made me feel,

and freed me from my dark cage.

"You need a rebound," Ashe informs me as we're eating lunch on Wednesday.

"No," I say with a small. "I really don't."

"I'm serious," She insists. "You always liked Marcus, why not call him up and see if he'd be up for a little bit of kinky rebound sex."

"Kinky?"

"It's the best sort of rebound," She explains to me. "This Micah guy can go fuck himself if he can't accept you for doing what you needed to do to survive. You shouldn't be so hung up on him."

"He said that he needed time to think," I tell her as I'm eating my salad. She wasn't busy today, so she decided to visit me for lunch at work today. "That isn't a solid no. I'm not going to ruin whatever chance we have at getting back together by sleeping with somebody else. Again."

"I don't think that you should wait around for him," She says.

"I won't forever, but I think that it's fair to give him just some time. I can't give up on him," I say with a small shrug. "So, I'm going to put a hold on the rebound sex until I'm absolutely sure that he's not going to get over this."

"Alright. Whatever you say," Ashe lets it go. "How are things going with your brother? When my family found out that I was a sex worker, they wouldn't talk to me for a solid month."

"He seems as okay with it as I could hope for him to be," I say slowly. "He was shaken up, and surprised, but he understands that I'm okay and if I'm okay then he's okay. So yeah, it was good. And surprisingly, I'm really enjoying working in an office. It's definitely not as exciting as what I used to do, but I'm enjoying it."

"Well, if things don't work out with Micah, I'm sure that Jill will let you come back after some of the heat as died down," Ashe tells me. "I know that she has a rule against letting girls work after getting arrested, but you are one of her best girls. She must be really bummed to lose you."

"Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I liked doing that work before I met Micah but then, I just started feeling gross," I try to explain to her. "Even if Micah and I don't work things out, I think that it'll take me a long time to be able to sleep with somebody else without thinking about him. Whether it's for work or not."

"That's sweet. But also kind of sad," She sighs. "You're a sucker. Should never have caught feelings."

"I tried my best not to," I promise her. Although that's probably not true, I did try a great deal at the beginning to push Micah away but he was just so stubborn and eventually, I just let it happen. I'm glad that I did though. No matter what happens, I'm glad that I met Micah. I'm glad that he nudged his way into my life, despite how brief his stay was.

"Just do whatever makes you happy," She tells me as she's twirling her hair in her fingers. "You know, after all that you've done and been through, I think that you deserve to just be happy."

"I don't mean to sound like a sap, but Micah makes me happy," I mumble with a long sigh.

"I'm throwing up," Ashe informs me with a disgusted frown on her face. "You literally made me almost throw up in my mouth a little bit. That is ridiculous."

"I know."

"Find a hobby, climb a mountain, watch an entire TV show on Netflix within 24 hours," She suggests. "You do not need a boy to make you happy, don't ever say that again."

"I know that I don't need Micah to make me happy and that I can eventually be happy without him," I promise her. "I'm just saying that he is one of the things that makes me happy, and he's really good at it."

"Was there a sexual innuendo there?" She raises her eyebrows at me, suddenly more interested in the situation.

"There wasn't supposed to be, but I guess that it could have been," I say with a laugh and a shrug. I've finished my salad and it's about time to get back to work, so we start heading out. "He's really good at that too. I know that it sounds dramatic to say this because of how much sex I've had in my life, but I think that he's the best that I've ever had. I know that it makes you want to throw up, I'm sorry, but it's true."

"Oh, well that does change some things," She realizes. Her car is out front of the restaurant because she drove us there. We both get in so that she can drive me back to the office building to finish my day out at work. "Sexual compatibility is a lot harder to come by than romantic compatibility."

"I'm not sure that that's true," I say slowly.

"It is," She insists. "I rarely ever find a guy that can sexually satisfy me, but I fall in love with nearly all of my regular clients."

"What?" That's news to me.

"Yeah, didn't you ever have a client where you would just secretly wish that they'd fall in love with you one day?" She asks me curiously. I immediately think of Marcus, how I used to look forward to our monthly dates. I loved talking to him and looking at him and sleeping with him. I never thought that I was in love with him though.

"I mean, I've been proposed to before," I admit to her. I think that comes with the territory though, because there are some men that feel as though their lives are only downhill from now on and if they hadn't married yet, they will never be able to. They think that the best way to solve this midlife crisis issue is to hire an escort for a few nights and then propose a marriage. "But no, I don't think that I've ever wanted any of them to fall in love with me. Jeez, and you thought that I was cheesy."

We pull up to the building and I start to get out of the car as Ashe responds with, "Oh, fuck off. Anyway, my point is that you'll figure shit out. With or without him."

"I know," I confirm positively. I do know that I'll figure shit out no matter what. I'm tough and I've been through worse things, but I jut want to figure things out with Micah. "I'll see you later."

Once in the building, I have to use a key to the office to get into Harrison's office because he isn't in. I'm concerned, however, when the door opens without me having to turn the key, meaning that it's already unlocked. There aren't very many people with a key to the door, so I just assume that maybe Harrison needed to come back for something.

That is, however, until I walk into the office and see Micah sitting on the couch.

I shut the door behind me, since the door is supposed to be shut whenever Harrison isn't here. "The senator is at the Capitol today," I inform Micah, just assuming that he's here to see his dad. I haven't seen him since this weekend but now that we've talked, I feel like being in the same room with him won't be so awkward. It's still a little bit uncomfortable though.

"Yeah, I know," He stands up from the couch looking a bit nervous. "I'm here to see you."

"Oh," I blink at him in surprise. I feel all fluttery and anxious all of the sudden because I'm not sure what's going to happen. He's not very easy to read. "Okay."

He lifts up my book of poems that I'd given him over the weekend and says, "I read this."

"Okay," I say again, still pretty clueless. "There wasn't really anything in there that you didn't already know."

"You wrote about me," He informs me and then he opens up the book to a page where I'd scribbled down a poem about him when he was studying and I was at my desk without much to do at work. He needed to focus on his work, so I kept myself busy by writing. It's about how before I met Micah, I didn't see a future for myself other than maybe going to jail. But then here he came, and I feel like there's something about my life that I have to look forward to.

I mean, I've always had Casey, but his life isn't mine. I'm excited to see Casey graduate, fall in love, and just basically grow up. But I've never had anything in my life to be excited about, and he gave that to me.

"I know," I say slowly. "Is that really surprising to you?"

"I want to be with you," He responds which doesn't really answer my question but it does put a huge smile on my face. "What you said in that poem, about seeing a future with us, I want that too. We come from different worlds and I realize now that it's been ingrained in you for forever that you have to do everything for your brother, so of course, you would put his wellbeing and education before our new relationship. I get that now and I'm sorry that I was such an ass last weekend. But I don't want to miss our chance at a white picket fence just because I didn't quite understand your sacrifices. If we really don't work out, we should break up because your too bossy or I get too jealous or that we're just not compatible."

"I'm bossy?"

"No, that's not what I'm trying to say. I just... okay, that was confusing. You aren't bossy. I'm just saying that I think that we are compatible, and I've never felt like this with anybody before in my life. It'd be stupid to throw that away," He explains to me. "I love you a lot and I absolutely lose my goddam mind when I'm around you. The thought of not being with you has made my mind go absolutely numb in the past week and a half. I haven't been able to focus on anything, or think about anything else. My grades have probably tanked and usually, I'd be really stressed but I don't care about anything right now. I just want to be with you."

I don't say anything at first because I'm really trying my hardest not to cry. I did my makeup really well this morning and it'll all start smearing if I cry. I'm so happy though that it's really hard not to let any tears fall. I know that if I open my mouth to say anything, I'll start to blubber. Instead, I just walk closer to Micah until we're hugging. I hold him tightly and feel his strong arms wrap around me as well.

Once we're hugging though, I realize how much I've really missed being in his arms and it gets even harder to hold back my happy tears. It's only been a week and a half but it's been miserable. After we talked on Sunday and he said that he needed time to think, I thought that he'd need at least a few weeks or something, and I was still very pessimistic that he'd even come around. I can understand how me being an escort is a hard thing to come back from, so I wasn't holding my breath that he'd ever forgive me for that.

He smells just like he always has—it's a grapefruit/saffron cologne by Ralph Lauren that he always wears. When I found out that it was so expensive, I teased him a lot about how fancy it was. He continued to remind me that it was a gift from his grandmother and definitely not his choice to buy such a fancy cologne. It smells good, and it smells like him.

Once I've gotten my emotions in check, I pull away from Micah and I'm careful to angle my face away from his so that he doesn't try to kiss me. I want to kiss him more than anything right now, but I've still got half a day of work to finish and I know that once we start kissing, my self control is going to go out the window and it'll be a while before we stop.

"I've missed you so much," I sigh, realizing how dramatic that is to say considering it was only about ten days. However, when I felt like we may never get together again, never kiss his lips, smell his grapefruit cologne, it felt like it was longer. It felt like I hadn't seen Micah in at least two months. "But I've got to work."

"I know," He promises me. "Do you have any more time on your lunch break?"

"No, I had a long lunch with a friend," I say apologetically. "And we can't start something that we can't finish."

"We can finish it," He assures me, stepping closer to me but I quickly step back. "Like you said, my dad is at the Capitol all day."

He's really tempting me right now but I know the one argument that will shut this down. "You do realize that that would mean that your father is basically paying me to have sex with you, right? Look, just come home with me after work and we'll catch up then."

"That's not as romantic as I was hoping for. I had this big speech and then there's supposed to be the big romantic reuniting kiss, not senatorial phone duty and civil law homework," He complains. "I'll take care of it."

"How?" I question him.

He doesn't answer me but walks over to the desk and grabs the phone there. I don't know who he calls but when somebody answers, he greets them by saying, "Hey Chris, this is Micah Williams. We're down a secretary in our office over here and was hoping we could get your help?... Awesome, I owe you one. Thanks."

When that short phone call is over, he dials a few settings on the phone and then calls somebody else.

"Hi Dad. I know that you're in a meeting right now but I just wanted to let you know that I'm stealing Eleanor for the rest of the day. Chris from Kilmer's office is taking your calls and we'll lock up. If you have a secretarial emergency, call somebody else because she will be busy. Also, this is all on me and Eleanor really has no say in it at all, so don't be angry at her later. Love you, talk to you later."

"That was so transparent," I accuse him with wide eyes. I'm feeling mortified at the idea of Harrison knowing that I'm skipping work just to have sex with his son. "Don't call because I'll be busy? He's going to know exactly what we're doing."

Micah doesn't seem worried—he just grabs my purse and my jacket from the desk and then starts pulling me to the door. "Don't worry about it. Let's just get back to your place because I'm feeling impatient and I want my romantic reuniting kiss."

I want that too, so I don't disagree with him anymore. I just get my car keys out and we go into the parking garage where my car is parked. The drive back to my apartment never felt so long.

"You read through the whole book?" I ask Micah as I'm driving.

"I did," He confirms. "You're really good, you know. You should share your writing with other people."

"No," I deny. "I'm more of a reader than a writer. It's like therapy for me, and people don't broadcast their therapy sessions. I just thought that maybe it would give you some answers, I guess."

"I appreciated it," He tells me. "There was a lot in there about your foster home."

"Yeah, talking about that right now is not the right way to get a great reuniting kiss," I warn him slowly. "Not really setting the mood, you know."

"Right, sorry. It's just really awful, everything that happened. And how lonely you felt-"

"Micah," I stop him. "I'm serious. We can talk about it later."

"Okay," He stops talking about the sad poems in my journal. When we get into the apartment, Micah urges us both forward until the door is shut and he immediately spins me around so that my back is pressed against the closed door.

He doesn't kiss me right away, we just stand together and I can see the different shades of brown that fade in his eyes. I've missed being able to stare into his eyes. My eyes flicker down to his lips, which causes my body to light on fire at all of the intense memories of where those lips have been, what they can do, and what they're about to do.

"We're going to last," I promise him, putting my hand on his cheek. "I love you."

He starts to lean closer and says, "I love you too, Eleanor."

And then he kisses me and I'm convinced that it is the best reuniting kiss that has ever existed in the history of anything.