Page 50 of I Love You, I Hate You

“Weren’t you just threatening to murder me maybe an hour ago?” he joked. He hoped she wouldn’t notice how fake his smile was now, and his heart pounded as he frantically tried to come up with the right words.

“Chicken,” she teased, but she didn’t seem too upset. “Wouldn’t think a little threat of murder would keep you from getting laid.”

“What can I say? I’m very attached to this whole ‘being alive’ thing.”

“Then I should probably . . . get going,” she said, but she was stalling. And he knew why, but he also knew he needed to not kiss her and just rip the band-aid off. Because if he kissed her, he would lose his nerve, and if he lost his nerve he would never forgive himself. He had to tell her the truth. Victoria shuffled her feet and moved closer, chin tilted up and lips level with his. She leaned forward, mouth parted, and for half a second he almost gave in.

He took an unnecessarily large step back. “There’s something we should talk about,” he said in a rush, exhaling heavily.

Her expression crumbled. “You know what? Forget it. Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it. This whole week has been shitty, and I don’t need anything else to make me feel like crap,” she said, and the resignation in her voice hurt more than any of the insults she’d thrown at him the other day. She turned and walked towards the door, only stopping when her hand was on the handle. “I don’t need your pity, or your—whatever. Just leave me alone after this, okay?”

And then she was gone.

Chapter Nineteen

Humiliation and sadness blinded her. Victoria didn’t remember walking into her apartment, or locking the door or throwing her purse across the room. All she remembered was a loud, insistent pounding in her ears while her cheeks burned with shame.

She was a goddamn idiot. She had gone and fallen for Owen’s charade again, thinking he genuinely felt bad about the shit he pulled in court rather than just pitying her for having had a bad day. There was only so much humiliation one woman could take in a night. Luke bailing had stung, but Owen seeming to want to make it up to her had been just sweet enough for her to shove it to the back of her head for now. She figured if Owen wanted to be with her tonight, she might even be able to forget about Luke and his rejection for a whole twelve hours.

But now, not only was Luke not interested in her, neither was Owen. That felt like a particularly pointed slap, since physical chemistry was the one thing she could always count on with Owen. Even when he didn’t like her, he wanted her.

But now, he liked her but didn’t want her, which was apparently the same problem Luke had. Someone who had been interested in her before, who then abruptly changed his mind once he saw her. She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, trying in vain to find what hideous flaw had driven them both away tonight. There was nothing in her teeth, her hair was bouncy and perfect, and her clothes were immaculate.

No, they were just assholes. Victoria had spent so long trying to convince her mother of that very fact: men suck up all available emotional energy and give nothing in return, and she was furious that she’d allowed herself the fantasy of believing that not one, buttwomen weren’t utter pieces of shit. This was what she got for opening herself up. She knew better, and she was not about to make that same mistake ever again.

Now was when she should turn to someone—her mother, the girls, anyone—to talk her down, but she didn’t want to be talked down. She wanted to destroy Luke, the same way she felt destroyed. It was what he deserved.

In flagrant defiance of Owen’s earlier prediction and direct contradiction of her own wishes, she left the wine bottle on the top shelf. Opening Twitter on her laptop was easy, and calling up the most recent DM from Luke was even easier. Just the wordstonight won’t workwere enough to send her heart rate spiking, and anger began clouding her vision again. Her armpits started sweating and her hands were trembling visibly when she placed them on her keyboard.

@Noraephronwasagenius

Okay look, I don’t know what the fuck happened tonight. And don’t give me any stupid excuses, because I know you were there. I saw the roses in the garbage. Don’t tell me it’s conceited of me to think those were for me, because there’s a reason I picked having a pink rose sitting out on the table and I know you knew why I chose that. You know everything about me, including shit I’ve never even told my own mother. You know my favorite movie and my favorite food and my favorite color and yes, my favorite flower, so don’t fucking bullshit me. Another customer said she thought she saw someone standing outside the window with a bunch of roses looking in right before I got your message, okay? I was so nervous I asked her if she’d seen anyone waiting outside, and when she said she saw a man with roses I was so happy I wanted to cry.

And then I got your cowardly ass message, and realized you don’t deserve my tears. What the ever living fuck, Luke? Really, truly—what the fuck? After all these messages, you don’t have the courage to just tell me you’re not into me to my face? You couldn’t even bring yourself to walk through the door and let our complete and utter lack of chemistry be hint enough for me? You had to pretend like something “came up”?

No. Fuck you. Fuck you and every dude who has ever pulled something like this. Fuck you for making me think you cared, and then turning out to be a shallow, pathetic jackass just like every other dirtbag out there. What was it about me? Was I not hot enough for you? My tits too small? My nose too big? Or was it the other way around and you thought I was too hot for you? My clothes and makeup make me look too high maintenance? Worried your bros would mock you for dating out of your league?

Guess what, asshole? None of those fears give you the right to treat me like this. You owed me a face-to-face conversation, if nothing else. Hell, even a longer DM would have been acceptable, had you been man enough to just lay it all out there. I know it was sudden and you didn’t know I lived here, but to do this to me? Fuck. You.

I’m done with this and I’m done with you. Don’t bother to reach out, because after you get this? You’re blocked. If you make a new account to try and contact me, I’ll block that one. You don’t ever get to talk to me again, because you fucked this up. I’m not interested in explanations or apologies. Just leave me the hell alone.

Breathing heavily, she hit send with far more force than necessary. The check mark showing he’d received it showed up almost instantly, and she had to get up and pace around the couch, the urge to reach through her screen and punch him too strong. It felt good to get that out there, but it was a loss too. A loss of something she didn’t realize she’d cherished until just now—a possibility. As long as she had Luke online, there was always the hazy, future possibility of a real relationship with a man who understood and supported her. Owen had seemed like it too, with his stupid jokes and stupid smile and habit of making her skin burn whenever he touched her. And now, with both Owen and Luke dead to her, all of that was gone, and she was stupid to have put her hopes in either of them.

She clicked through to Luke’s profile—his stupid fucking cat, as always, staring serenely up at her—and hit block with vicious satisfaction. He was out of her life, for good.

“What’s gotten into you?” Ashley asked. Her eyes were glued to the astroturf field where Olivia was determinedly chasing down the soccer ball.

“It’s nothing.” Owen clapped for Olivia, who had now come to a complete stop and was staring at her coach for directions. She kicked the ball straight to a member of the opposing team, and the field dissolved into momentary chaos. “I feel like indoor soccer is a bit much for five-year-olds, don’t you?” But watching this was better than what he had been doing, which was moping around his house, annoying his cat and trying to forget how monumentally he’d fucked things up with Nora.

He had managed to go from having two perfect women to none in record time, and it was all his fault. Her fuck-you message kept running through his head, the accuracy painful to admit. He did owe her a face-to-face conversation, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it, and that was entirely on him.

“You try running a five year old ragged in the winter,” Ashley said. “There’s only so many times she can go sledding, and this doesn’t require a snowsuit, which means when she has to pee it’s not a national emergency. But really, what’s your deal?”

“No deal,” he shrugged. Ashley waited patiently and he caught another parent looking askance at them. “I assume most of the parents think there’s something scandalous going on with us, right?”

“Guaranteed.” Out on the field, the ref blew the whistle and the girls hustled and stumbled towards the sidelines for halftime. “I mean, I’m already the dumb bimbo married to a man old enough to be my dad, so of course I’d be sleeping with his son too.” Ashley tossed her hair over her shoulder and looked him fully in the face. “But nice try with the distraction. Spill.”

“You know, you’re worse than my actual mother.”