Page 22

He raises an eyebrow. “Since when do you drink coffee?”
“East Coast thing I guess.”
Finally, he looks at me, eyes bloodshot, persuasive, then away to the wall. His jaw tightens and he lifts his chin to the door. “I’ll make you some.”
Though I don’t want to make myself known downstairs, I take comfort in knowing my dad is off today. I follow him downstairs only to be met with the dark eyes of the other monster in the house.
Tiller’s arrogant eyes sweep over my body. He winks. Roan notices his gaze on mine, grabs his coffee from him and tosses it in the sink. Tiller growls at him. “You finally close the deal?”
I fight off the need to slap him upside the head. “You’re such as ass.” He really hasn’t changed much, as if I expected him to.
“Yeah, well.” He takes an orange, the closest thing to him and throws it at Roan’s head. “I should have fucked you in the ass.”
Rolling his eyes, Roan nods to me, a cup of coffee in one hand, the other wrapped around my shoulder. “Ignore him,” he whispers, leading me back upstairs. I follow. Always.
Back in his room, he turns on the flat-screen TV mounted to the wall and then lounges back on the bed in nothing but his shorts from last night. I sit next to him. He smiles, but I know he’s thinking something too. He’s different. I can’t place what it is.
I draw in a breath, my hand reaching for his. He lets me take it, a sudden vulnerability surfacing when he shifts his position toward me. He’s tense, waiting, and I think he knows what’s coming. I’m afraid to say it, to tell him the truth, but I swore I wouldn’t lie to him again. But still, his unpredictable, impulsive nature leaves me never knowing what his mood will be from one moment to the next.
It takes me twenty minutes, but finally, I whisper, “I… slept with someone.”
His entire demeanor changes in that instant. Complete one-eighty. He sighs, his jaw tight and then he draws in another breath, shaking his head.
God, what have I done? How do I keep ruining this for us?
Roan blinks at me and I can’t tell if he’s caught off guard, or just annoyed with me that I waited until after to tell him. And then comes the harshness I suspected, and the words, “You should leave.”
Shock hits me like a slap to the face. I mean, I knew he’d react this way. It’s who he is. His moods are so unpredictably predictable. I know that doesn’t make sense, but it does. It so does. A million thoughts go through my head at once. “Why?” I swallow, the burn of denial stinging my throat. “Because I didn’t save myself for you?”
He stands, his interest shifting to his phone beside him. Picking it up, he looks at it, then tosses it on the mattress. I fight the urge to look at it. His intimidating stare focuses on mine. “No, because I don’t want you here.”
His words sting. They sting deep down to my soul, a rejection I knew was coming, but hadn’t quite prepared myself for. “You’re such an asshole. Why is it that you make such a big deal out of me being with someone else but it’s okay for you to fuck around?”
He laughs, his face twisting impatiently. “I never said I was fucking around,” he growls, in all seriousness.
My heart pumps in my chest, a reminder that despite feeling like the world just collapsed around me, I’m still alive. “So the past year you were in Paris, Madrid, Eisenerz… you didn’t sleep with anyone?”
His jaw twitches, the way it does when he’s trying to ignore Tiller, but this time, it’s me he’s resisting. “At this point, that’s irrelevant, isn’t it?”
Tear-filled eyes lift to the one I keep disappointing. “You’re so fucking frustrating!”
His thick dark brows pull together. Does your heart pound like mine? Do you find it hard to swallow not knowing what’s going to come next? I think if you know Roan by now, you’re familiar with how he deals with hurt.
“Like I said, you should go. I have shit to do today and you’re not one of them.”
Those words, his meaning, the austerity in which he delivers them, that’s when I know it’s over for good. Whatever life I have here, it slips away in the darkness of his room and words.
Well, that sucked, didn’t it? Did you notice I didn’t tell her I hadn’t slept with anyone in two years? I wanted to, but I didn’t because I knew what it would do to her. It would only make her feel worse about herself and I think I already did a pretty good job at that. So I took her words, lashed out in the only way I knew how, and internalized it.
Here’s the thing that most don’t understand. We’re all a product of our environments. If you’re never given the tools, the understanding, a way to deal with your emotions and reactions, you can’t. You do what you know. I knew to bottle it up and distance myself. Deal with your shit and not let others see it. That’s exactly what I do.
In real life, nothing happens the way you think. Just like people don’t magically wake up from a coma and start talking. Relationships, or rather love, doesn’t fall into place. Nor does an apology for acting like a fool. Ask Tiller.
I know what you’re thinking, I shouldn’t have reacted that way to her moving on and having a life without me. I’m man enough to admit I reacted badly. That’s on me.
The moment she leaves the house that morning, I try calling her. She doesn’t answer my calls.
For months.