AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Malcolm
“What do you mean,dropped?”
I press the phone to my ear, listening while my lawyer spits out terms I barely hear because I know, deep down, what he isn’t saying. Ezra Shields isn’t afraid of me, and he did not just suddenly grow a conscience and decide that the beating I served him was deserved.
No, he’s afraid…which means someone got to him and made him drop the suit.
Nala.
My hands go to ice on the phone, and my heart speeds up until it’s rattling my whole body.
“Malcolm? Malcolm are you listening to me?” I nod, and then grind out ayes, focusing back in long enough to listen to the rest of his words.
“As of now, all formal charges have been dropped. You are not being sued.”
But I am being tortured.
I hang up and grab my keys. Making it to Nala and Jordan’s apartment in record time, relief blows through me to see the Jeep parked in its spot. But then I look at the clock and realize she’s supposed to be in class—that she never skips class, and I perversely hope she isn’t there when I knock, that she and Red drove to Campus together today.
I climb the two flights and knock, stomach knotting when I hear thumping from the inside, a pause, and then locks unclicking a second later. When the door opens, Nala stands framed in it, her hair in that complicated braid she favors and swears isn’t really complicated—blonde tendrils, too wild to be tamed, tugged free and curling around her face.
She’s wearing those silky flower shorts she had on the first day she picked me up at the airport, and a plain white V-neck that looks like she bought it in the boys’ section. But I barely focus on how beautiful she is, or how much this image—this one right here—is the one that will stay with me forever, because a glance at her face shows me my fears are confirmed: there are dark circles under her eyes, and her normally warm skin is pale.
“Nala.”
She turns and walks inside, leaving the door open for me in a way that tells me she does not care if I come in or not, but that she’s done waiting. Hands shakier than I would like to admit, I clump inside and close the door at my back, following her to the couch where she’s folding laundry.
“Nala,” I say again, but she doesn’t look at me. Walking closer, I put my hands on her shoulders, waiting until she tenses, turning her toward me and forcing her to make eye contact. “You didn’t have to do that.” The words…Jesus, they are so small.Didn’t have to do that?Try,shouldn’t have had to do that. Should never, ever have had to fight a battle for me.
“You didn’t really leave me much choice, did you?” She steps back while I accept the blow, turning to put all of the neatly folded clothes into the basket on the floor. “I shouldn’t really be surprised, though. Leaving me no choice is kind of your M.O.”
Anger roars through me, mixing with the pain until I feel my default defense mechanism kick into place. Somewhere deep inside, I understand I should step back and say nothing, that I should give her time, that I should apologize and tell her I love her, and that I’m so fucking sorry. But in true asshole form, I do none of those things. Instead, I attack.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
She grabs the basket off the floor and walks to her bedroom, ignoring me. I follow, unwilling to be forgotten or ignored. “Answer me,” I growl, pausing in the doorway and crossing my arms over my chest.
She continues to ignore me, placing the basket on her bed before beginning to unload the laundry she just placed into it. I want to stomp over and upend the basket, to tell her that it can fucking wait a second, but this can’t, because she and I need to talk. I’m a step into the room to do just that when it hits me. Her room is spotless. Like, nothing out of place, no stray clothes or sandals or swimsuit bottoms showing. Her bed is made; her dresser top is pristinely organized. Like every chaotic thing about her was stripped down and scrubbed off…like she couldn’t bear the thought of being still, and she cleaned until everything was perfect.
But it’s not—it’s royally fucked up, and it’s my fault.
“Nala.” I walk inside, my voice gentle now because I can see it—see what my need for revenge did to her. She’s working through it again, working to make things okay when they aren’t okay. I put my hands on her shoulders and this time I feel her tremble. “Stop and talk to me.”
“No.”
My hands tighten on her shoulders when she tries to shove out of my hold. “Ignoring me isn’t the answer.”
“It worked the first time,” she volleys back, and I take the second hit, just as well aimed as the first, willing to be her punching bag if it means she won’t shut me out.
“This is different,” I say, and now she laughs, the hard, painful laugh that she gave me the night on the beach when I found out what had happened to her—the laugh that holds no humor, but instead, the pain of wounds long closed and now reopened.
“Not really. I mean, I told you something, said what I wanted—not even just wanted, damn you—whatI needed, and you did exactly what you wanted, without thinking about how it would affect me.” She shrugs out of my hold and I’m too stricken to stop her. “Seems like a bad rerun that we just can’t stop from playing.”
“Nala—Nalani,” I say, and see the first crack in her expression.
She turns back to her dresser, unloading the handful of folded clothes. “You should go, Mal, there’s nothing left to say.”
