“Don’t touch me. Don’t talk to me ever again. I’m done with you,” I said, pulling myself up from the ground as my ankle throbbed uncontrollably. I walked off to my car and drove home, wanting nothing more than to be a girl who was not able to feel everything so deeply.
19
Damian
* * *
When Stella left the house, I couldn’t stop wondering about where she’d gone. Instead of sleeping, I ended up going into my home office to work. I had a lot to catch up on, anyway.
I heard her when she came home. I didn’t go check on her because I was certain she wouldn’t have wanted to see me after what I revealed to her. I felt shitty for even telling her what I realized as I hung out with Kelsey. The subtle commentary she made about Jeff here and there made it clear as day. I was a master at learning people, realizing why they were the way they were. Realizing small things that they hadn’t even realized about themselves. Realizing their deep dark secrets before they’d ever spoken on them.
Most people didn’t speak about their darkness. I had a gift at uncovering it.
Connor called me the gravedigger since I was so great at uncovering anything about anyone. Yet, with Kelsey and Jeff, I knew I needed concrete proof of their scandal. I would’ve never broken Stella’s heart if there was a chance I wasn’t right about my beliefs.
So, when Kelsey left her cell phone on the table when we went out to dinner, I grabbed it and checked her text messages to see if there were any from Jeff. Unfortunately, there were hundreds. Pages and pages of conversations, confessions of their affair in detail.
I felt sick reading it.
When Kelsey came back, she hadn’t even known I’d hated her. She hadn’t known that I thought she was the biggest scum on the planet. Anyone who had enough nerve to hurt a woman like Stella was worthless in my mind.
Still, I kept my poker face. I didn’t want her to know what I’d known until I had the opportunity to notify Stella of what I knew.
Clearly, I could’ve announced it in a better way.
Around two in the morning, Stella barged into my office.
“You really think I’m good enough?” she asked with a glass of wine in her grips. Obviously, she’d been a bit intoxicated because sober Stella would’ve never barged in without an invitation. Plus, her question seemed to be extremely random, as if she pulled it out of thin air. But I knew how thoughts worked. She’d probably been overthinking that for hours now.
“Yes,” I replied.
“Why?”
“It doesn’t matter why I think you’re good enough. It matters that you think you’re not.”
She sat across from my desk and slouched over in the chair, making herself ridiculously comfortable as she sipped at her wine.
“Why do I think I’m not good enough?” she asked me.
“I don’t know. Most of the time, those kinds of thoughts come from listening to other people’s opinions.”
“Have you ever felt that way? As if you weren’t good enough.”
“Most of my life.”
“How did you overcome it?”
“I changed the type of people I surrounded myself with.” I shrugged. “I met a person who told me I was good enough. And he kept doing it until I started to believe it myself.”
“Connor?”
I nodded.
“He’s your best friend.”
“He’s my family.”
She smiled and thumbed the rim of her glass. “How was he able to get close enough to you to the point that you trusted him? You seem very hard to get to know.”
“He was a relentless pain in the ass who didn’t take no for an answer. When I tried to push him away, he moved in closer. He didn’t give up on me, even when I gave up on myself.”
“A UB.”
“A what?”
“A universal blessing. It’s something Grams made up. It’s a person or thing that feels like a gift from the universe. Something that’s almost too good to be true. It’s the brightest of bright spots in someone’s life. A universal blessing. That’s what Connor is to you.”
Interesting concept from an interesting woman. “Something like that.”
“Maybe someday you’ll let me that close.”
I released a low chuckle. “Most people give up pretty early on.”
“Yeah, but I’m not most people.” She downed her wine and went to stand to her feet. As she did so, she stumbled a bit forward, and I reached across my desk to steady her.
“Careful,” I warned.
She giggled and repeated my words, looking down at my touch on her skin. “Careful,” she echoed.
My heart did a weird pulling thing.
That was odd.
I removed my hold from her, and she stood straight.
She looked at me as if she was trying to find answers about me to the questions she hadn’t even thought up yet.
She blinked and shook her head. “I’m clumsy sometimes.”
“It’s okay.”
“Jeff always said it was annoying.”
“Jeff’s an asshole.”
She looked at me, a bit stunned by my words.
I instantly regretted them, even if they were true. “Sorry,” I muttered.
“It’s okay.” She looked around and then leaned forward and began to whisper. “Between you and me, he’s kind of an asshole.”
I matched her level of volume. “The type with asshole tendencies?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Just a big bologna-headed asshole.”
I smirked. “Bologna-headed. I’ll be adding that to my list of insults for individuals.”
“If you’re interested, I have an array of tacky names for jerks. Like fart-face fucker. Butthole bastard. Pimple-popper pain in the ass.”
I laughed. “All of those are ridiculous.”
“I’m the definition of ridiculous.”
“It works for you,” I whispered back after a long round of whispering.
“Why are you whispering?” she asked with her tone still quiet as a mouse.
“Because you are. Why are you whispering?” I questioned.
“Because I’m drunk, silly.” Her words made me smile. She tapped her finger against my lips. “When I’m sober, can you do more of this with your lips?”
“More of what?”
She stepped backward, and I missed the feeling of her finger against my mouth. I had an urge to suck on it slowly when it was there, so it was probably best she pulled it away.
She gestured toward her lips and created a big grin. “Smile. I like your smile.”
“I like yours more,” I confessed, and it felt extremely vulnerable for me to say.
“I’ll trade you some of mine if you trade me some of yours.”
You have no clue what you’re doing to me, woman, I thought to myself.
My mind couldn’t create words good enough to combat her comments, so I stood still, uncertain what to do with myself when I was in front of her. Thankfully, she was too intoxicated to notice my awkwardness.
“It was there,” she said, staring my way.