Page 64 of I Love You, I Hate You
“You lied first,” he said, arms crossed.
“Not like this,” she said. “That was—that was nothing like this. I didn’t tell you about a Twitter account but you—you lied about who you were.”
She turned away, only to have him tug her back around. “Vee, come on—we can work this out.”
“We can? How? You fucking lied to me.”
“Just—”
“No, no ‘just’ here. You lied, and you think because everything has always worked out for you, it always will. You don’t understand what it’s like for the rest of us.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
She threw her arm out, gesturing wildly at the walls. “All of this. You grew up with it, and yeah, you know that not everyone did, but you don’tgetit.”
“My family’s money has nothing to do with this,” he snapped.
“Except it does. You’ve always had a safety net, and so you just—you assume everyone else feels as secure as you do. You always assume you’ll get a second chance, or that things will work out, because you can afford to.I can’t.”
“So your problem is with my money? You didn’t seem to have a problem with it last night,” he said nastily.
Victoria screeched in frustration. “It’s everything, okay? You thought you could get away with lying to me because you think you can get a second chance any time, and I—god, you don’t know what it’s like tonotassume that. And I just—I can’t. I can’t forgive you for that. For any of it.”
His face shifted abruptly. Anger melted away and sadness took its place. “Vee—”
“Don’t,” she said, and decided that her jumpsuit and bra were an acceptable loss. At least her shoes were still by the door, so she shoved them on. “You and me? We’re over. Once and for all. I don’t want your apologies or your . . . your whatevers. Just leave me the fuck alone.”
The door slammed loudly behind her. Outside the morning was still, the air too cold for any birds to be chirping yet. The chill went straight through her bathrobe and she turned the heat on full blast, shivering with cold and rage as she blindly drove down his driveway. Halfway home, she realized it was already far too late in the day to make it all the way from her parking garage to her apartment unnoticed, wearing literally nothing but her underwear and a bathrobe.
She didn’t really have many other places to go. All her internet friends lived in different states, and she wasn’t sure she was close enough to anyone to show up half-naked and crying on their doorstep. Kimmy would probably be at work and she knew where her mother’s spare key was usually hidden but what she really wanted right now was a friend.Someone close by, her age, who could hug her and tell her everything was going to be okay.
But instead, she drove home alone to drag herself into the tub and cry.
Chapter Twenty-four
It was a long few days waiting for everyone to get home. Owen thoroughly cleaned the house, removing all traces of Victoria before the Pohl Family 2.0 returned from their vacation. He wasn’t sure what to do about her bra and clothes, but they were freshly laundered and packed into his duffel bag anyway. He also spent a lot of time lying flat on his stomach on the living room floor, staring into Luke’s unconcerned eyes, wondering how the fuck he was supposed to move on from this.
Because that was his only option. He’d gone and lost everything, just when he thought it was finally working out. He should have known it was too good to be true, should have listened to the tiny voice of doubt in him when what she was saying didn’t fully match up to what he was thinking. He was too optimistic, too naive, too full of himself and confident that the world would work out in his favor. Victoria had been right about so many things, but that in particular stuck out.
He had put so much effort into thinking his family’s wealth didn’t matter. He knew it did, in the abstract, and he was proud of himself for recognizing that he had a lot of what he did because of his father’s money, not his own efforts. But who he was? His personality? That much he thought was independent of his upbringing, or as much as it could be. It never occurred to him that he was able to be optimistic because there were never any serious consequences to him either way. He could risk playing the hero because if he failed, he was still a rich kid. He had understood when Nora would talk about making necessary moral sacrifices to pay her bills, but he had never extended that courtesy to Victoria, nor had he thought about what that type of life might cost.
He could see now how her walls weren’t just a method of protection, but a necessary byproduct of her life. She kept him out because that was safest, and because her safety net wasn’t anywhere comparable with his. That extended to her emotional safety too. She was so much stronger than him in so many ways, and he’d been so, so blind.
And now she was gone, and that was his fault. He’d lashed out at her because he wanted it to be an equal fuckup. If it was both their faults, maybe it could be repaired.
But it wasn’t.
He handwashed the dishes from his pathetic pasta dinner simply to have something to do, and wondered if there was any possible way to fix this without trampling all over her wishes yet again.
He couldn’t think of anything, and for the umpteenth time in the past few months, he was relegated to trying to imagine the rest of his life without NoraorVictoria. He’d been there already, but only now was he really, truly realizing what that meant.
No more late night talks with Nora. He wouldn’t ever get the thrill of seeing a notification from her, or laugh at her jokes or ache at her vulnerability. He wouldn’t get to spill his own secrets to her, secure in knowing that she understood, or hear her own and know that he was being trusted with something precious.
There would be no more seeing Victoria laugh unexpectedly, either. No more watching her carefully rearrange her long, silky hair over her shoulders. No more Victoria biting down on her lower lip in unconscious thought, no more seeing her try in vain to fight a smile at him being funny. He would miss her softness and sweetness but more than that he would miss her sharp edges; the way she never, ever compromised herself. She was the type some would call high maintenance, but he just saw her as put-together and in charge, her armor visible but crisp and tailored. He’d never get to wrap his arms around her shoulders and kiss the nape of her neck, or nuzzle the spot just behind her ear. He’d never again wake up with her, eyes hazy and soft, and he would never get to tell her he loved her. Not like the way he’d joked about on his front step, but in a real way, whispered soft and low when they were curled up together in bed.
A plate slipped from his fingers with a clatter. He was in love with her. He’d been in love with her for a while now. The realization was like getting broadsided by a speeding car. “Did I really not know that until now?” he said aloud, and Luke meowed at him in response. “Fuck. I really, really screwed this up, didn’t I, bud?” He meowed again and Owen set the plate aside to drain.
He had only been in love once before. His college girlfriend, a spitfire of a Boston girl who never understood his desire to move back to the Midwest. He had loved her and then they fell apart, and he had spent a sad, bleak few months missing her when he moved back to Minnesota, but that was that. This felt different, like a gaping wound that no amount of scar tissue would cover.