“Most of the time!” I yelled back, deciding that I was a little raging too.
Luke didn’t let go of my shoulders with my returning shout. Instead he shook me again, just on the edge of violently. “Driving fucking drunk is stupid and dangerous, Rosie. Fuck. Don’t you have people to drive you home? The one thing your brother does that I agree with is that he doesn’t let you drive drunk, and he even failed at that,” he seethed.
I narrowed my eyes. “Let’s get one thing clear, buddy. No one lets me do anything, I do what I want.”
“Including wrapping your car around a fucking pole and then making me come and find your dead fucking body?” he hissed.
“My car is in the parking lot, unharmed. And I’m very much alive, as you can tell,” I snapped.
My gaze was pointed at his hands which were bordering on painful. His eyes followed but his grip didn’t loosen.
“Yeah, you’re alive,” he said. “For now. You keep pushing it, Rosie. The boundaries. The rules. One day, they’re gonna push back. And I don’t want to ever fucking see that day.”
I blinked at him. “And why is that, Luke?” I whispered. “Why is it that you’re so passionate about my well-being when I’m just another dirty outlaw?”
He flinched at my words, the quiet tone that screamed loud, too loud, with my emotions. Alcohol made me honest. Too honest.
He stayed silent and still for a moment until he stepped back, erected the shield between us once more. “You’re not dirty,” he murmured. “I never have and never will think that.”
I eyed him. “You sure about that?”
He eyed me right back. “Never been more sure about anything in my life.”
I swallowed whatever that sentence did to my emotions. “Apart from your determination to ruin my family, right? You’re pretty sure about that.”
Luke’s face darkened. “Rosie,” he warned. “We can’t get into this. You shouldn’t be here.”
I stepped forward, backing him into his desk. “But I am here,” I said, confidence or stupidity fueling me. “I’m here, and no one else is, and I’m not going anywhere until—”
“Until what, Rosie?” His voice was ice.
I stuttered on his response, on his demand of an explanation, an uttering of what had been, for years, unmentioned.
On my side, at least.
Maybe it was all on my side.
I lost all my bravado, my confidence, sobering in the worst way, shrinking down into a vulnerable girl who didn’t want anything more than him, the guy, to love her.
“You know what,” I whispered, unable to say anything else. Anything else would be too risky, to real to reveal, even without my few inhibitions.
Luke looked at me for a long while, as if reading the unsaid words, like I’d written them in the air. “You want me because I’m the one thing you can’t have, Rosie. It’s not real,” he said, not unkindly.
The tone may not have been unkind, but what did that matter when every word was a blade?
“Real?” I whispered, choking out the word. “I’ve had a brutal and continuous education on real, Luke. I’m not a child. I don’t live in fantasies, don’t entertain myself with them. I’m all about real. So trust me, I didn’t want to feel this for you. I didn’t trick myself that forbidden romance would be exciting or passionate or magnificent. That’s the fantasy. But the real? The real is fucking ugly. Because it’s not what I can’t have. It’s what was never mine in the first place.” The words tumbled out though I had no intention of saying them.
Not even in the most perfect of circumstances would I have done it. And this definitely wasn’t the most perfect of circumstances. But I said them anyway, like a drowning person scrambling for that life raft that they knew had a hole in it but hoped beyond hope might somehow save them anyway.
“Rosie,” he whispered, barely audible. “It’s not. We’re not. I’m not right.” His own words tumbled out, much fewer than mine, trickling almost incoherently, painfully.
I was proud for the way I tilted my chin up and for the fact that my eyes stayed dry.
“No, you mean I’m not right,” I corrected. “I’m not right for your image. For your lifestyle. For the good guy.”
“Fuck, Rosie, no,” he pleaded, stepping forward as if to touch me.
Self-preservation kicked in at this point and I stepped back before his fingers could grasp mine.
“Yes, Luke,” I snapped. “You’re clinging to your mold, and admitting anything about me, acknowledging me, will ruin it all, I’m sure.” My voice turned cold. “It’s what people don’t realize. In life, you don’t actually have to act a certain way, dress a certain way, live a certain way. It’s a big and brilliant fucking con by the Man that has us thinking so. The only reason I see them, the strings that are attached to 99 percent of people on this planet, is because of where I live. Where I grew up. In the 1 percent. And I know what you think of that. Murderers, rapists, criminals. Whatever. Scum of the earth, right?”
I laughed. “Well, that’s okay, because that 99 percent? That’s exactly what they are. They just hide it when they put on their fucking suits every day. Everyone’s pretending, for each other. It’s comical when you think about it. Yeah, there’s laws you don’t break. I kind of get that one. But then there’s the invisible ones about how to dress, where to live, what age to pop out a spawn, what shit to spout at cocktail parties. That’s the shit I don’t get. Most people act like it’s the gallows if they step out of it. This great big lie called life. People live it and don’t even realize they’ve wasted it. Never made it theirs. I’m not going to do that. I’m going to make it mine. And I’ll fuck up. I’m good at that. But I’d rather fuck up a life I’ve designed than perfect something someone else controls.”
I took in a strangled breath after yet another word vomit. I didn’t even know if I could blame alcohol for this. It was years of pent-up emotions, of unsaid words, unshed tears, all packaged into one rambling speech.
He stared at me, at my words, as if they were floating around in the air.
“Different time, different life, we woulda been perfect.” His raspy voice was full. Of regret, of hope, and of resignation.
“We only have now. We only have this life,” I whispered, my heart breaking. “Imperfect is all there is. It’s all I need. I know it’s not the same for you. You need perfect. Not me.”
Luke was just staring at me, still—shocked, maybe.
But he didn’t say anything.
I didn’t wait to see what new and careful way he’d structure his words to break my heart.
“Don’t worry. In regard to you, I think I’ve made enough Fuck-Ups to last us both a lifetime.” I turned on my heel and intended on stomping out, hopefully waiting until I was at home to shed the tears that were prickling the backs of my eyes.
“Rosie.”
One word gave me pause. Hope.
This is it. What happens in the movies. When you thought all was lost, it was really just the climax needed to show you that the guy, the good guy, would never let the girl he really loved walk away.