I offered a guy I genuinely wronged a grudge fuck as an apology and now I have a crush on him and I hate that.

Let me start with an honest assessment of myself: I was pretty awful to this guy for a while.

Not going to deep dive into the specifics because I don't come out looking great. Short version is I caused genuine problems in his life. A romantic situation I torpedoed, some group stuff I made unnecessarily complicated, the kind of quiet sustained pettiness I'd convinced myself was justified at the time and was not. Found out recently he'd been really struggling. I felt the specific shame that comes with realizing you were a meaningful contributor to someone's bad year.

I saw him at the campus coffee shop last week. I sat down. That part took more nerve than I expected.

We talked. Slowly at first, like people who have said things they can't take back. Then more normally. Then actually normally, the way we used to before I decided to be a nightmare. Somewhere in there I touched his arm and told him there was nothing like a grudge fuck for clearing the air.

He looked at me.

"Are you serious," he said.

I told him I was fifty fifty and he could decide which fifty percent I meant.

He came back to my place.

I told him he could do whatever he wanted. That he could take out whatever he needed to. I meant every word of it. There was this pause where we both just sat in what I'd said, and then he stood up, crossed the room, and pushed me against the wall and kissed me like he'd had all this energy with nowhere to put it for months and had finally been given actual permission.

Which, fair.

What followed was the most intense sex I have ever had and I want to be clear that I have had sex. He was not gentle. He was not attempting gentle. He pinned my wrists above my head and used his knee to get my legs apart and I was completely fine with all of this. Hand in my hair, head pulled back, he said something in my ear that I'm keeping to myself because some things are mine.

He spanked me until I made sounds I hadn't planned on. Fucked me against the wall first, then the bed, then flipped me over and took his time in a way that was somehow more intense than the rushed version. I rode him until my legs stopped cooperating and he grabbed my hips and finished what I started. He came with his face in my neck and both of us breathing like we'd survived something.

Then we had the most normal conversation of my entire life. Two completely reasonable adults who had definitely not just done what we'd done. We agreed it happened, we'd move forward, we'd actually be fine.

I shook his hand. I literally extended my hand and he shook it.

He left. I stood in my apartment for a while thinking about everything.

Here's the part I didn't want to be true: I think I have a crush on him now. I spent months being quietly terrible to this person and one evening of him being completely feral in my apartment and now I'm checking my phone more than usual and thinking about texting to ask if he wants coffee.

I really am the problem sometimes.