“Well …”
“You made my power go out for two days? You caused my refrigerator to stop working? You made me late for work meetings and made me drop more cups of coffee than anyone should ever have to suffer though?” Dom clarified. “That’s what you are telling me right now?”
My lips parted as I took in his list. I had a feeling it was only a small portion that he wanted to hand over to me and certainly not so we could commiserate over all the poor coffee lost in the last few weeks. “I didn’t do all those things specifically.”
He groaned. “I just don’t get it.”
“What don’t you understand?”
“Why would you do this to me?” Dom scoffed. “Obviously.”
“Why would I do this to you?” I mocked, as if there weren’t a million reasons. I was trying to be nice here.
He ran another hand through his thick patch of dark hair. “I get it—I upset you.”
Excuse me? I to set the bowl of popcorn down on the table.
“I don’t go cursing people because theyupsetme, Dominic.”
He raised his eyebrows. I was honestly surprised I’d held back as long as I did since he had shown up. His words, his actions, his hands … every piece of him haunted me, and he had the audacity to look at me as if I were some sort of stranger.
Worse, he looked at me just as I had probably stared at him. As if we had both planned never to have to see the other again and likely never wanted to.
I knew that look.
I hated that look.
“It isn’t like you weren’t the one who shoved me out the door.”
What was he talking about? Ridiculous, self-absorbed …
“You told me that you could no longer stay here. You …”
So many things rose to meet the surface.You made promises you didn’t keep, I wanted to tell him.You spit words in my face that I thought I was above getting hurt by. You—you—
“You told me I wasn’t good enough! You told me that I wasn’t who you could see yourself with after you told me that you loved me. You cared about me and made plans with me before you stabbed me in the back and told me that I wasn’t worthy of you and your lies, basically. I ran you out, Dominic? How dare you!” I sneered.
You ruined me.
“Are you surprised?” He looked around the space we now stood in.
Yes, it was small. It was cluttered. But it was the space where I had brought him home after meeting him at the bar the first night.
We had both been too drunk to even do anything anyone could describe as incredible. But we danced in the two-foot span of tiles in the kitchen and passed out on my unmade, wrinkled sheets. Then, throughout the next few weeks, we cooked noodles with butter and too much garlic in one of my only pots, and we watched thunderstorms from the floor on the other side of the sliding door, making bets on which raindrop would slip down the glass the fastest.
He told me about his childhood and how we both knew what it was like to partially grow up with cousins instead of parents. He told me his favorite color was a bright, obnoxious orange. We ate pizza with half his favorite toppings and half mine since he believed pineapple and cheese was sacrilege. We woke each other up when we had nightmares in bed, though we never nagged the other to share why.
It might have only been about two months we had been together last summer, but that summer felt like a piece of a lifetime. I’d felt like I knew everything about him. Until, suddenly, I knew nothing at all.
All the memories that he had brought with him the moment he stepped through the doorway made me ache. The feeling pressed and folded my insides until all that was left was me standing in one place, this place he had gestured to.
“Your excuses are getting old. You said I was selfish,” I whispered angrily, my voice taking on some sort of snarl. Then, finally, away from the memories, I stood and stepped toward him.
It almost made me pleased to watch as he took a step back. The big, bad Dom needed to get away from the little witch of Barnett. To think, I’d once found his angry passion charming.
These days, you’d call it a red flag.
Why was my favorite color red?
