Link opens his mouth, but I cut him off with what’s intended to be a firm statement that comes out as a pathetic cry.
“Don’t you look at me that way!Ichased after her. She didn’t want me. You’re wrong.”
“She played you. I wish I were wrong, not only because I don’t want to see you hurt, but because this means Raven lied to me, too.”
Through the agony that feels like being torn apart on a cellularlevel, I straighten up, only to find Link coming my way.
“Don’t!” I put my hand up as a warning for him to stop. I need my space to breathe. I need a moment of clarity...or maybe inebriation.
I stride for the kitchen cabinet, rummaging for whatever booze there is, pouring myself what’s left of a whiskey bottle, filling the glass to the brim, and knocking it back. The burn down my throat does nothing to lessen the pain in my chest.
“Do you want—”
“No!”
“No?”
“What she and I have now—” I steady my breathing. “It can’t be faked. It isn’t something you can ever walk away from. I fuckin’ love her, Link! Even if she started this for the wrong reasons—” My throat closes up, the words scraping out raw. “It doesn’t fuckin’ matter anymore. Her love is real now. The most real thing I’ve ever had. It’smine. And I’ll never let her take it back.”
Fuck the stages of grief! I’m not getting to the last one. There’s no accepting a reality where her love is a deception.
I take another bottle from the shelf, this time vodka, but before I can open it, a wave of rage hits me, and it flies from my hand, shattering against the wall.
“Fu-u-uck!” A visceral scream comes out of me as my foot finds the lower kitchen cabinet, kicking it over and over again until it no longer hangs in its place. “She fuckin’ loves me!” Gripping the countertop, I squeeze hard to ground myself in reality. I don’t know if I say those words to convince Link or reassure myself, but I need them running in my mind as the only thing capable of lessening the pain.
“But does she love you enough to give up her agenda?” Link’s hand lands cautiously on my shoulder.
Would she choose me? I hope...No!Vengeance won’t outweigh what we have. Shewillchoose me.
Taking a couple of steps back, the weight of my body feelsunbearable, forcing me to drop onto a nearby chair.
She bumped into me. She let me believe I was chasing her, knowing damn well what I crave, even if I didn’t realize it yet. It’s like she was deep inside my mind, before I had officially rolled out the red carpet for her.
The thing about pretending, however, is that no one can keep it up for long. That’s her. No pretense in what she gives me.
Link gets a chair, pulling it closer, taking a seat across from me.
“How big a fool am I to not have seen how she played me?”
“No one saw it. She was too good at the game.”
“That’s my girl!” I choke out. Through the hurt, the betrayal, the shame of being manipulated and lied to, through the uncertainty that twists my core, wondering if she loves me enough to choose me above all, there comes this fucked-up sense of pride. I have the most special, the most precious one of them all. The one who stops at nothing for the people she loves.
That’s the thing, I am the one she loves now, and with all her tricks and witchery, she fell into her own trap. Now she’smine. So, how big a fool am I if I have her? Truth is, if I knew where this road was leading, I still would’ve walked it, ignoring every red flag along the way.
“Do you want me to drive you back to your place?”
I get to my feet, but while Link heads for the door, I choose to deviate and rifle through the kitchen cabinet once more, finding another bottle of whiskey.
“You shouldn’t,” Link warns. “You’ll need your wits for that conversation.”
I snort, brushing past him and heading straight for the car.
“Like that could ever help me.”
Half an hour later, more than half a bottle down, I enter our home still uncertain what it is I’m going to say to her.
The lights are out, and she’s gone to bed, probably already asleep. She won’t like it if I wake her, but she’ll like it even less whenshe finds out why that is.
