She lectured me for a solid hour over FaceTime while Elliott stood over me, not-so-subtly shoving a bottle of pills and a glass of water in my direction. I gave him the most scathing look I could muster—one that promised a slow and painful death—before swallowing the pills and enduring my mother’s wrath. She screamed about me hiding the pain, about me being a martyr, about me "protecting" her when she was supposed toprotect me. By the time she hung up, I felt like I’d been in the ring with a heavyweight champion.
Not long after, the medication pulled me under.
When I woke, Elliott was in the same chair as before, but he wasn’t asleep. He was wide awake, staring me down with an intensity that made the hair on my arms stand up. I wondered if his gaze alone had pulled me out of sleep; a stare that heavy is impossible to ignore.
“I can’t believe you called my mom,” I said groggily. My voice sounded like it had been buried in a tomb for a century. My head was pounding to the rhythmic, synthetic beat of a club song—reason one hundred and two why I hated painkillers.
“How long?” Elliott asked. His voice was dangerously quiet.
“How long what?” I propped myself up against the stack of pillows. I didn't dare try to walk; every tiny movement made the room tilt on its axis.
“How long are you going to continue this martyr shit, Vanessa?”
I went from zero towhat the hellin less than a second. “Excuse me?”
“Why didn’t you tell your mom you were fired?”
The pounding in my head sharpened into a spike. This was an argument I didn’t have the energy to start, let alone finish. “That’s my business, Elliott. You have no right to poke into my life.”
“Itismy business when I have to find out from your sister that you’ve been financially supporting your parents for years.” He ran a hand through his hair, his composure fraying at the edges. “If I had known...”
I made a mental note to give my sister a knuckle sandwich the moment I saw her. She’d broken the sacred code: sisters before misters. Also, when the hell had they even talked?
“What? You wouldn’t have fired me?” I let out a dry, jagged laugh. “Save the guilt trip, Elliott. I’m glad you fired me. I was burned out. Truth is, I should’ve been let go two seasons ago when the work stopped being my best. We both know that. Please don’t do the false modesty thing where you pretend it’s not true. Javi and Ava did me a favor. Maybe I’ll send them a gift certificate.”
The scowl he gave me could have leveled the resort.
“Don’t pretend to care now,” I snapped, clutching my head. “It doesn’t suit you.”
“I’m not pretending! I’m mad. I'm furious. I’m livid!” He started and stopped several sentences, his hands gesturing wildly before dropping to his sides. “How could you keep all of this inside? Why didn't you tell me about the accident?”
“Oh God, not this again. I can't, Elliott. I don’t owe you—or anyone—an explanation. I made a decision to move on, and I don't regret it. Do I regret the way you found out? Absolutely. But if I could go back, I’m not sure I’d change a thing.”
“Let me just ask one thing,” he said, his voice dropping to a low, bitter hiss. “Does Javi know? Did he know the whole time?”
My face scrunched. What did my ex have to do with this? “Of course he knew. He’d seen me naked, Elliott. It’s not exactly a detail I could gloss over.”
Something shifted in his expression—a flicker of pure, unadulterated pain that looked a lot like jealousy. “God, Vanessa,” he choked out, looking at me in disbelief. “That doesn’t make it any better.”
He wanted me to say something—to apologize, to explain, to bridge the gap. But between the pounding in my skull and the "Satan" in front of me, I was empty.
“You’re right. Don’t tell me anything,” he said after a long, suffocating beat. He stood up, violently tossing the blanket back onto the chair.
He began grabbing his clothes, shoving them into his bag with jerky, aggressive movements. A part of me wanted to reach out, to tell him everything just to make him stay—but that part of my brain was offline. I was tired. Tired of the back-and-forth, tired of the secrets, and tired of the way he looked at me like I was a puzzle he couldn't solve.
“I can’t do this anymore,” he said, pausing at the door. “I can’t make you?—”
He stopped mid-sentence. Elliott had never had trouble finishing a sentence in his life—usually, they ended in a barb or a veiled insult. I waited, holding my breath, but the words never came.
He turned and walked out, slamming the door behind him.
Watching him storm out felt different this time. It wasn't our usual fire-and-brimstone routine. This was quiet. This was real. And for the first time in ten years, I realized that I might have finally pushed him too far.
thirty-one
VANESSA
I staredat the dinner jacket as if it had personally wronged me.
