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“I think life’s easier if we just accept who we are.”
“And who am I, Parker? Do you see me as some naïve little girl who stupidly throws herself against the currents of this fucked-up world only to get trampled in the end?”
He stiffened and sat up. “God, no, Scout. Why would you even say that?”
She threw up her hands. “How should I know what you think?” There was no need to snap, but it felt good. “You go around spouting all sorts of literature instead of speaking clearly. You compare me to the children in the grown-up stories you read. Do I really come off so hopeless and naïve?”
His head shook. “Why are you suddenly angry?”
She didn’t know. All she knew was that she wanted to scream because maybe he was right. Maybe she was just a dumb kid, too innocent to play in the real world. She blinked and, to her mortification, a blurry line of tears clouded her vision. She didn’t want to be the kid. She wanted to be the recluse, if she had a choice at all.
“Scout, I adore you. You’re not a kid to me. You’re my friend. When I quoted Gatsby, I was trying to be an asshole to Patras. He had you convinced he was this nice guy, and it was killing me to see you falling for his bullshit act—”
“Don’t criticize him when he isn’t here to defend himself. You don’t know him.”
He looked as though she’d slapped him. “Are you serious? Scout, he isn’t here because he left you. How can you defend him? Whatever, we don’t need to talk about him. I don’t care about him. I care about you. Please, don’t think that I would ever make fun of you. You’re my friend and I . . .” Whatever he had been about to say faded away. “Just . . . don’t. Okay?”
She sniffled and they sat in uncomfortable silence for a moment. Parker looked as though he wanted to hug her, but seemed unsure. Finally, she admitted, “I hate that he can make me cry like this. I’m not used to being this emotional.”
“I know you’re sad,” he whispered.
The heel of her palm rubbed at her eye. “He isn’t coming back for me. I don’t know why I defend him when he clearly doesn’t give a shit about me. I just want to forget I ever knew him. I want to start over and get away from everything that reminds me of him, but my life is so empty without him. It’ll take years to rewrite those memories with new ones. He’s everywhere I look.”
Parker gazed around the apartment, his eyes cataloguing all the things that weren’t really hers. “I told you. You could live with me.”
“I don’t want that either. I want to be my own person.”
“Well, you can be. Get rid of all this stuff that reminds you of him and get new stuff.”
“I don’t have any money,” she said as though she were talking to a two-year-old.
“Well, you now have a job. You’ll get money. Things take time. It took me months to save up for my own place, but I did it. I don’t have much furniture, but it’s a home and it’s mine so long as I continue to pay the rent.”
He pressed his lips tight and drew in a breath. “Scout, if you lived with me, you could pay half the rent, and then the place would be half yours, as much as it is mine. You don’t need any of this shit he left you.”
“Parker . . .” She shook her head, but wasn’t really sure why she was so against the idea. She was miserable there, because she knew the place was really Lucian’s. What would he do if he came back from his little honeymoon in Paris and she wasn’t there? Would he know if she left? How long would it take for him to find out she was gone?
What if he never came back and she withered away there, waiting for him?
She glanced up at Parker, who was anxiously awaiting her reply. “Is there enough room for both of us—”
“Yes.”
He seemed to really think it was best she leave her place. He was probably right. She’d been there for almost two weeks, and the place never stopped being oppressive. Every corner revealed a hidden memory of Lucian, the door a looping nightmare of the moment Dugan deposited her there like a broken dove.
Anger and shame suddenly burned through her. She gritted her teeth with a renewed sense of pride. She would not be one of Lucian Patras’s thrown-away, soiled and broken doves.
Yes, she loved him, but he left her. She gave him all that she could give of herself, and it wasn’t enough for him. Yet, she never looked for more than what he could emotionally offer her.
