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Next, barefoot and bleeding, I stood back up.
He’d been acting.
As if going through a checklist, I swallowed, pulled back my shoulders, and lifted my chin. I clutched my dumb little purse with one hand and let the shoes dangle from the fingers of the other.
And then I limped back down the driveway as if the whole world were watching me go.
IT TOOK Athousand years to reach my car.
For one thing, I was walking barefoot on crushed granite, which feels more like broken glass than you might expect.
For another, all my senses were going haywire.
So I had to take it slow.
From the outside, I probably looked like a woman with a foot injury, sensibly taking her time.
The inside, of course, was a different story. My mind was positively assaulting itself, replaying every minute of that encounter at Jack’s front door over and over so vividly that I could barely see in front of me.
It’s a wonder I didn’t wander off into traffic.
It’s a wonder I didn’t die from misery.
It’s a wonder I didn’t just cease to exist.
But… in the end… I made it to my car.
A car that had been driven here by a very different person than the one returning to it.
I walked up to it, bent over, and pressed my head down against the hood.
What the hell just happened?
The person I should have been hating at that moment was Jack. Obviously. I knew that. I should have hated him for being the most callous, soulless jackass in the history of the world. I should have burned with incandescent and purifying rage.
But Jack wasn’t the person I hated right then.
The person I hated was myself.
I hated myself for being taken in. For being fooled. For wanting to be loved so badly that I’d so easily become somebody’s mark.
I should have known better.
I should have protected myself better.
The part of me that was always supposed to be on guard, and on alert, and on duty—the part that was tasked with the job of protecting the rest of me—had failed. Massively.
Again.
I was supposed to anticipate these things. I was supposed to keep a watchful eye. I was supposed to keep all my flaws and shortcomings forever at the front of my awareness so I’d never foolishly—ridiculously—hope for more.
I knew that. I’d known it since the night of my eighth birthday.
Later, I decided, I’d get angry at Jack. I’d summon my self-righteous rage, and salvage my dignity, and find the strength to carry on.
I was not the asshole here. I hadn’t done anything wrong.
I’d stand up for myself, eventually. I would.
