His jaw tics a couple of time before he reaches up and wipes off my tears, promising again, “She will know it.”
***
“Why won’t you do it?”
I can’t believe I asked him that.
But I don’t know what else to do anymore. Except ask him point blank.
He’s at the door of the glass house, his white shirt wrinkled, his suit jacket hanging from his arm. He was about to leave. Since I don’t get sick anymore, he leaves after making me lose my mind over him and putting me to sleep.
And I was asleep, but maybe it’s the whole emotional upheaval of the day because we just found out the sex of the baby, or maybe I’m just so tired of him denying himself, that I woke up as soon as he rolled out of bed.
I’m standing in the hallway and I approach him, my bare feet silent on the hardwood floor.
Still, somehow he hears them, my silent feet, and he turns around.
His shoulders sigh at the sight of me. “Go back to bed.”
I keep walking toward him. “Not until you tell me.”
“Tell you what?”
I reach him and I see that he fists his hand at his sides, as if bracing himself. “Why won’t you fuck me?”
His eyes narrow, flashing bright in the dim lighting of the living room. “Fuck you?”
I swallow. “Yes. Why won’t you?”
Something falls over his features, a coldness. “Is that the first time you’re using that word?”
The same coldness I saw that night two years ago.
The same coldness I saw the night I forgave him.
So I’m not going to be deterred.
I fist my hands too. “No. I used it the night you did fuck me. In your Mustang.”
He hates my comeback. I can see it on his rigid features, his V-shaped jaw. “So what, you’re an expert now? I fucked you once and you think you can use that word whenever you feel like it?”
I raise my chin. “I can use that word whenever I feel like it. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m free to do whatever I fucking want.”
He exhales a sharp breath. “Well, in that case feel free to go back to bed.”
“No,” I tell him because I’ve had it. “Not until you tell me why you won’t fuck me. I know you want to. I know that. I can feel it. I can feel you, all hard and horny and needy. I feel you, Reed. So why won’t you do it? Why would you torture yourself like this? Is it still about punishing yourself? I’ve forgiven you, okay? I don’t want you to punish yourself anymore.”
“Yeah, it’s about that. It’s about punishing myself. You happy now? Now go back to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Instead of backing off like he wants me to, I go up to him.
I bump his stupid shoes with my ugly cut-up ballerina toes. “I told you I’m not going until you tell me why. Why are you doing this, Reed? Why are you making yourself suffer?”
He clenches his jaw, his eyes brimming with something.
Something frustrating and angry and agonizing that I don’t understand.
But then he makes me.
He makes me understand all of it as he asks, “You want to know why? You want to know why I won’t fuck you? It’s because of you.”
“What?”
“It’s because of this,” he spits out, looking me up and down with a coldness that still has the power to chill my bones. “It’s because you just won’t let it go. It’s because you won’t stop begging.”
I draw back from him. “Begging.”
But he bends down to cover the distance that I’ve created between us. “What else do you think you’re doing? You forgave me even when I didn’t deserve it, fine. I gave you a couple of mind-blowing orgasms. I rocked your world. But now you’re back to begging. Now you’re back to thinking that I’m a fucking hero. A fucking hero who you can let inside your body. A hero who can fuck you. Where does this end, Fae? If I fuck you, are you going to fall in love with me again? Because if you are, tell me right now so I can go hide my fucking Mustang. Because I’m only going to break your heart again.”
“Get out.”
I say it calmly, evenly.
So much so that I don’t even think that I’ve said it. I think I’ve whispered it. Whispered it to the wind so it can carry my words to him.
The guy who’s standing only a few feet away from me.
But we might as well be miles apart. Millions of them.
He might as well be in a different dimension because of what he just said.
Because of what he just stupidly, callously said.
“Get out,” I say again, this time loudly, more determinedly. “Now.”
I don’t know if I’m imagining it or what but something flashes through his features. A wave of anguish, and he swallows before throwing me a short nod. “Fine.”
He turns around and leaves then.
I watch him bound down the porch stairs and stride toward his car that glints in the night. I watch him jerk the door open and get inside before peeling out of the driveway.
I watch him and watch him and when I can’t see him anymore, my eyes fill with tears.
A sob catches in my throat.
But I don’t let it out.
I won’t.
I refuse to cry for him anymore. I refuse to waste even a single tear on him. After all the progress we’ve made, all the tender and intimate moments that we’ve shared, he goes and does this. He hurts me like this.
Asshole.
God, he’s an asshole. A cruel fucking asshole. A villain.
And yet I’m crying for him.
I can’t stop the tears that I just promised myself that I will never shed for him. What is wrong with me?
What is wrong with you, Callie?
What is wrong with you that you lo…
No.
No, no, no.
I can’t. I won’t.
And suddenly I’m so angry at myself. So angry at him for pulling this, for being so cold, that I pant and heave. I march to the glass door and slam it shut.
And lock it.
I turn every lock on the door as if I’m keeping something out, and I am.
I’m keeping him out.
Even though I know he has a key and it’s his friend’s house — I still don’t know who — and he can get in any time he wants, I won’t let him.
As irrational as it is, I won’t let him come inside.
As soon as I’m done, my knees give out though and I slide down to the floor. And I completely smash the promise that I just made myself. Propped up against the locked glass door, I let myself go and cry.
I hug my knees and I sob.
I hate him. I hate him. I hate him.
I hate him so much and the thought of it makes me cry all over again because it’s a lie.
I don’t hate him. That’s the problem.
Because I’m still stupid.
Because even though all I wanted to do was forgive him and move on, I know that I haven’t. Not completely. Not how I wanted.