“You tell me.”
He pins me with a stare cold enough to frost the entire Caribbean.
I try to speak, but no words make it past my throat. I don’t know what to do.
I’ve never seen him in this state and it scares the hell out of me.
“Alright, I’m not going to waste time. Have you been using me to get that position?”
“Wait, what?”
Fuck. Erin handed Tom to me because… How did he find out?
The floor seems to vanish beneath my feet. I want to step forward, to reassure him, to make him understand it’s not true, but my body feels too exhausted. My body feels like stone.
“Who… who said that?”
“You’re avoiding my question.” He raises his voice. “Is it true?”
“But who told you that?”
I try to sound indignant, but my voice breaks. It’s too soft. Too weak.
He smashes his fist into my desk and screams.
“IS IT TRUE!?”
My breath stutters. My hands fly to my hair, fingers digging into my scalp.
No, no, no. That’s not true.
How can I tell him? I can’t.
He starts laughing, dark and cynical.
“What a fucking Greek tragedy. I trusted you. I showed you the deepest parts of myself. My pain, my fear. I’ve never told anyone, any of that. Now I understand why Jay always warned me about this. No one outside the pack can be trusted. No one.”
His words twist around my throat like a noose. I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing a hot tear to glide down my cheek. This is too much. All of this is too much.
“You know, I’m not even mad at you,” he says. “You mean nothing. I’m mad at myself, for thinking things would be different this time.”
You mean nothing.
The words are arrows, each one embedded in my gut, bleeding me dry.
“Tom, please… it’s not like that. Really, it’s not,” I stammer, but I don’t have any power in my voice.
It feels like I’ve lost before I can even say anything.
He’s already made up his mind, and I can’t deny any of it. Not without telling him my side of the story, the truth as it is, but there’s only a broken sound coming out of my troat. I feel powerless.
“Surprising,” he mutters, cynically shaking his head.
He turns to the door, and just before he leaves the room, he looks at me one more time, his eyes cold.
“I thought we had something, but I’m sure that was part of your plan too.”
The door slams shut behind him.
