Page 163 of The Man Upstairs

He looked up at the ceiling. “What you’re really saying is that you won’t stop fucking teenagers.”

My heart pounded. My senses were on riot, wishing to God almighty that he could get so much as a glimpse into my soul.

“That’s not what I’m saying at all,” I told him. “What I’m saying is that I won’t stop loving Rosie.”

His eyes narrowed. “Rosie? The girl downstairs? This denial is all about her?”

“I love Rosie. It’s not denial, it’s the opposite. It’s the truth.”

“You can’t love a teenager!”

“I can love a young woman.”

“As if.” He shook his head. “Fucking hell. She’s just another seedy fixation, like the others. You saw her, you snared her, now you can’t let go of her pussy. Do you scrawl marker pen all over her? Call her derogatory names as you film her on camera?”

“That’s none of your business.”

That did it for him, he stood taller, pointing a finger.

“It is exactly my business, because it says it all. She’s another one of your dirty little treasures, and unless you get therapy, you aren’t going to change at all.”

“You’re wrong,” I told him. “I’ve already changed.”

His lip trembled.

“You haven’t changed, Jules, but we want you to. All of us. Please.”

My legs almost buckled under the weight of turning this down, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lie anymore and I couldn’t leave her behind. What is the point of life if people won’t love you as you are, only the person they want you to be?

“I’m not leaving Rosie,” I told him simply. “I’ll do anything else you want. I’ll take alcohol therapy, and lie detection tests, and whatever else you want me to do, but I’m not leaving Rosie. I love her too much.”

He sucked in a breath, and nodded. He knew me well enough to know my answer was resolute.

“I’ll let Grace and Ryan know. I’ll tell them you’re not coming back, because you prefer another girl.”

That stabbed me in the heart.

“IT’S NOT LIKE THAT!”

“It is like that,” he said, and a tear fell down his face. “Please, to God, let us know if you change your mind, and please, to God, come back to us when you see sense, rather than holing up here and planning to kill yourself. We’ll all be waiting with open arms.”

But those arms wouldn’t be wide enough.

I could feel my soul shattering as he walked away from me over to the front door.

“Michael, please…” I called after him, but he held his hand up, firm.

“You know where we are,” he said. “Just a shame we didn’t know where you were, or this may never have happened in the first place. People can scream in anger, but we never stopped loving you.”

Just as I’d never stop loving Rosie.

I couldn’t stand to say goodbye, so I didn’t. I held my weight as steady as I could, leaning against the wall as he closed the door. And then I cried. My God, how I cried.

My heart was torn open, all over again, but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want to bury myself for the sake of another round of living a lie.

I wouldn’t leave Rosie. Not ever.

If love is as unconditional as they claimed, then they would have to love her alongside me. Or not at all.