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He doesn’t want me. The words beat in my head like a particularly virulent mantra as I slide my laptop into my backpack. I gather up its charger and my phone charger and slide them gingerly, carefully, into its front pocket. I take more care with them than I need to—they’re just cords after all—but I do it because I feel like I’m the one who’s been slashed to pieces, the one who will fall apart the moment I make one wrong move.
He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t want me. He doesn’t want me.
No big surprise there, right? It’s pretty much the story of my life. Too bad I never saw it coming from him.
Every ounce of self-preservation I have tells me to leave quietly. Just gather my stuff when he’s in the bathroom taking a shower, and slink out before he realizes what I’m doing. No harm, no foul. The last thing I want is a big melodramatic scene where he tells me we’ll always be friends.
That’s what my brain tells me to do, what I know I should do. What I do instead is something entirely different.
“Why did you fuck me?” I demand, following him into his bedroom. “Why the hell did you fuck me if you never wanted me?”
My voice is high and shrill and nearly unrecognizable, even to me. I never sound like this. I never yell like this, not at anyone. No matter how mad I am. But I can’t stop myself from screaming at Luc. It’s a train wreck, but one I apparently plan on riding as far as I can.
“Was it payback for what happened before? Did you do this to get even with me?”
“You don’t really believe that,” he says, looking shocked. Looking haunted.
“You don’t get to fucking tell me what I believe! I trusted you. I fucking trusted you!”
“And you can still trust me. Cam, I’m still Luc. We’re still best friends. I’m just tired.”
“Fuck you!” I scream at him, picking up a coffee mug from his nightstand and hurling it at him as hard as I can. It shatters against the wall, about an inch to the left of his head. “Don’t you at least have the balls to tell me the truth? If we’re best friends don’t you think you owe me that much?”
He stares at the shattered shards of the mug, dumbfounded. “What truth do you want me to tell you? Where is this coming from?” he demands.
“Are you kidding me? What did you think was going to happen? You were just going to let me move in with you for a little while, fuck me a few times, and then toss me out the second you got bored—”
“I’m not tossing you out! You’re staying here—”
“Like hell I am.” I grab one bag, heft it over my shoulder. Then grab the other and head for the door. I ignore the pain in my feet, the throbbing in my knee where I hurt it falling down the stairs earlier.
“Cam, come on.” Now he’s the one chasing after me, the one trying to get my attention. I ignore him, shrugging off the hand he lays on my shoulder, the fingers that clasp my elbow.
“Get away from me,” I tell him. “If you aren’t going to be honest, then stay the hell away from me.”
I open his front door, but he reaches out, slams it shut—hard—before I can get so much as a toe through it.
“What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me the truth. What’s going on here? Why are you being so hot and cold? Why did you make love to me last night like we were the last two people on earth and then disappear for the whole day? Why are you giving me the cold shoulder now?”
I’m breathing hard by the time I finish hurling my questions at him and I can feel tears pricking the backs of my eyes. But fuck that—and fuck him if he thinks for one second that I’m going to give him the satisfaction of seeing me cry. Of making me cry. I don’t cry for anyone.
He doesn’t answer my questions. Instead he just stands there, fists clenched and face empty, like he’s waiting for me to do something. But I don’t know what to do, except leave. So that’s what I do. I grab the door handle and pull it open, this time getting my shoulder and bag in there fast, before he has a chance to slam it shut on me again.
I’m halfway through the door when he asks in a voice that’s little more than a whisper, “Do you have a date with Josh Greene this week?”
At first I think I’ve heard him wrong.
“A date?” I repeat, searching his face for some kind of clue as to what’s going on here. “With Josh?”
“Do you?”
“Of course not! Why would I make a date with him when I’m sleeping with you?”
“I don’t know. Why would he think you’ve made a date with him if you didn’t?”
“Is that seriously what you’re going to do here? Answer every question I ask you with another question?”
