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I hated him. But I had said the same of Conor. Nick was violent toward me, but hadn’t Conor also grabbed at me? Hadn’t he also left bruises on my wrist? Nick was moody, mean. Conor was maybe even worse.
I’d thought that no one could look on Nick and think that he was Conor. But maybe I’d been wrong.Maybe my attraction to Conor, that flare of chemistry that had been sparked that very first moment, maybe it blinded me. Because Nick, too, from this angle was alluring.
Was Nick right then?
I didn’t call Conor because I was mad at him. Because he had hurt me. Because I wanted him to feel the kind of pain and rejection that I had felt that rainy night.
Maybe I called Nick because the two were no different from one another. It wasn’t that I had no one left: it was that I had two of the same.
Nick said I belonged with him. I thought I belonged with Conor. But what was the fucking difference?
I was right about one thing though: there was no one else. There was Conor. There was Nick. One had sent me away. One had picked me up. That was it. All there was to tell.
“Where are we going?” I asked, my voice sounding strange even to my own ears—dull and far away.
Nick’s voice on the other hand was perky, almost happy, though I knew that was not an emotion he was capable of, if he was capable of any at all. “To a little welcome home party. I want to show you that I’m your family, Aurnia. Do you hear me? I’ll always be here. No matter where you go, what you do to hurt me. I’ll always come after you.”
He turned the corner and pulled into a parking spot in front of a clothing department store, one nicer than any I’d ever been to. That wasn’t saying much given luxury to me meant the Goodwill’s full price section.
“A party?” I asked dully.
Nick shrugged as he switched off the ignition. “A party, a stakeout, tomayto, tomahto.”
He shifted in his seat to assess me. He yanked my shirt down to reveal the top of my bra and then tugged down my lower lip.
“Pout,” he said with a wink. “Pout for papa.”
I stared at him, feeling numb inside. He clapped his hands and began to get out of the car.
“You know, it’s funny,” he said as he ducked his head briefly back inside to where I sat frozen stiff. “I knew a Conor once.”
