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“No!” I roared. “You’re not listening to me. We are not your responsibility. Okay? You need to stop this. You’ve already gone above and beyond what any uncle ever has for Ava—”
“Only because—”
“Enough!” I stomped my foot against the ground. “I’m not done talking. I already told you; if you keep this up, I’m seriously going to take advantage of your good graces. And I don’t want to do that, so I’m cutting you off as of right now.”
“You’re not taking advantage if I’m offering.”
“Yes, I am. And I’m beginning to think you’re not even doing this for Ava anymore, anyway.”
Because only someone completely unhinged with their own problems would consider arguing with me right now.
Vaughn pulled back and blinked in shock. “What the hell does that mean?”
“You’re avoiding yourself, Vaughn,” I told him without an ounce of compassion in my tone.
But even as I spoke, I knew I should shut up. We’d already had this discussion, and he’d confessed to me why thinking about himself was so hard. But I just kept going, needing to say whatever it took to get him off my back, no matter how much I knew it’d hurt him. And I hated myself for it.
But I really needed him to leave me alone, so I snapped, “Stop pointing out all my problems to me when you have plenty of your own you can work on.”
“What!?” he cried incredulously. “I was not pointing out a problem. I’m just trying to help.”
“And why do you want to help me so much?” I growled, stepping toward him and poking a finger into his chest as I went. “Because you think I can’t take care of myself, right?”
“No,” he insisted as he backed away from me, his eyes wide with surprise as I kept pursuing until his spine bumped into Sheetrock, where he had nowhere else to go. “That is not at all—”
“As if,” I snarled. And once I had him literally backed into a wall, I went on the offensive. “You think I’m weak. Well, fuck you. I will figure out my money situation on my own, earning it through my means and not your charity.”
“Lucy, I—”
“If you’re so hot and fired to take care of someone, why don’t you focus on yourself for a while. I mean, God. You deserve it more than anyone I know. I bet you spent so much energy taking care of Duke and his needs that you probably don’t even know how to pamper yourself anymore. And that scares the shit out of you, doesn’t it?”
Wincing, Vaughn turned his face to the side and whispered, “Stop.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I growled, just getting started. Feigning pity, I tipped my head and asked, “I’m prodding at a sensitive issue for you, aren’t I?” Then I sneered, “It sucks, doesn’t it? So get off my fucking back about everything I already know I’m doing wrong.”
Snarling my anger into his wide brown eyes one more time, I shoved at his chest and then spun away, intending to stalk off to go anywhere that he wasn’t.
But he caught my elbow and whirled me back to him so hard that I bumped into his chest. Catching my other arm firmly so I couldn’t leave, he held me against him as he hissed into my face, “I have never once thought you did anything wrong, so stop putting words into my mouth.”
I choked out a hard laugh. “Oh really? What about the morning you caught me leaving your brother’s room?” Lowering my voice, I purposely gave a bad imitation of him as I quoted, “Do you not realize what condition he’s in? How fragile his immune system is? How could you screw my brother, you fucking whore?”
A puff of shocked air exited his lungs before he cried, “I did not call you a whore.”
“Well, you were thinking it,” I snapped, trying to struggle free of his hands, only for him to tighten his grip and spin me around before nudging my back against the wall.
“The fuck if I was!” he boomed. “Don’t pretend to know how my brain works. And the only reason I said any of that other shit was because I was surprised and agitated. I wasn’t—”
“Oh!” I said with emphasis as if suddenly understanding. “Surprised and agitated, huh? So you must’ve been super agitated a few months later when you bitched me out for not wearing protection with him and getting myself knocked up?”
“I…I…” Shaking his head, he sucked in a breath and let go of my hands, backing away from me. “I was wrong there,” he admitted, gripping his head and begging me for forgiveness with his eyes. “I don’t have a good excuse for saying that to you. I was in a bad headspace then, and it brought out the ass in me. I’m sorry. I—”
“No,” I said. The lost, helpless look in his brown eyes broke me. Feeling my chin tremble, I wrapped my arms around myself and sobbed, “You weren’t wrong because it wasn’t anything I hadn’t already asked myself. Why did I agree to sleep with him that night? It wasn’t like I even wanted to. And how in the hell did I completely forget birth control? Who does that?” Folding in on myself, I wiped my wet cheeks and tried to hide my face from him.
Vaughn tried to touch my shoulder in a comforting gesture. “Lucy…”
But I smacked his hand away and looked up at him, seething, “What do you even want from me, Vaughn?”
Blinking in confusion, he shook his head and stuttered, “I-I-I don’t want anything.”
