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Never mind his reaction to my body a second ago, the tone in his voice and his general body language is like I imagined it all.
"Lately, I’ve become a big believer in not wasting time," I tell him defiantly. Especially when I’m running out of it, I add to myself.
He just stares at me, or at least it feels like he's staring at me, since I still can't see his eyes through his dark lenses. He finally lets out an exaggerated sigh, like I'm inconveniencing him. For some reason, that just makes me feel more out of control. A little part of me reminds myself that my emotions are probably heightened because of the tumor and not because Carter has done anything specifically, but of course I ignore it.
"You haven't apologized," he finally mumbles, which catches me totally off track.
Apologize?
It’s almost comical to me that they don't know how hard it had been for me to walk away. How hard it had been to keep myself away. It was such a prominent theme in my head that it felt like everyone should know. I'd thought about begging for forgiveness a million times over the years. I'd thought about begging them to come find me, to love me, to fix me.
In the beginning, sometimes at night, it would get so hard to keep myself from calling them that I would give my dorm roommate in college my phone and ask her to keep it for the night. I would huddle up in my covers and cry, repeating the reasons why I could never have them again over and over again in my head, so that by the time the sun rose in the sky, I was strong enough to not call.
That first year, I would have to make lists of what I was going to accomplish that day. And I couldn't deviate at all, or I would be lost in memories of them and all my regrets.
It was the most excruciating pain I have ever felt, and that’s saying something, since my life was never an easy one. I honestly didn't think I would live through it. I almost didn't.
As the years passed, I would have less moments where I was out of control. It became easier to keep my mind occupied from the ghosts of the past. But then I would hear a song, or someone would say something that only the loves of my life would say, and I would be immediately transported back to that desperate heartbroken girl.
I'd finally given in about two years after I left. It had been a particularly terrible day. The gloom of London had been too much, and I'd seen Quaid come up on the local bar's TV screen, his performance so record-breaking that it even made it across the pond to a country that cared little for American football.
That night when I'd gotten back to my flat, I called Quaid, reasoning that I was just calling to congratulate him.
I'd smashed my phone when I found out that his number had been changed and that "my call could not be completed as dialed." In a panic, I'd called Logan and Carter too, and the results had been the same. That was one of the worst nights of my life, and I'd experienced quite a few of them. But that one was particularly anguishing, because while I had tried my best to keep away from them, they also cut the cord, and I was only getting that memo now.
"It didn't even cross your mind, did it?" Carter growls, lurching up from his chair in a fit of rage that took me a second to understand.
Apologize.
He wants an apology.
While all I want is him.
He’s about to stalk off like the petulant man-child he's evidently become, so I grab the leg of his swim trunks, preventing him from moving another inch.
"What do you think I need to apologize for?" I blurt out.
He turns around and looks down at me like I'm crazy. Well I guess at least I'm getting some emotion out of him. Not the one I was hoping, but right now, I’ll take whatever I can get.
"I don't know. What about the fact that you ruined my whole fucking life? I'm sure the string of girls I've left in my wake would thank you for making me the emotionally distant commitment-phobe that I was in all of those relationships. If you could even call it that. When you're fucking pining for a ghost the whole time you're with someone, I'm not sure that it's actually called a relationship. Or what about the fact that I've built a career throwing myself into life-threatening situations just so I can actually feel something for half a second, since the rest of my existence consists of me walking around like I'm a motherfucking void."
His chest is heaving as he looks down at me. He said a lot just now, and it takes me a second to unpack it all. Just proving how irrational I am, it of course piques my interest in his mention of his previous relationships.
"Well?" he asks, throwing his hands up in the air.
I finally remember we aren't exactly alone right now. There are several waiters peering interestedly at us from their station a few rows away.
"Maybe we should talk about this somewhere else," I say softly.
"You brought it up. So you better believe we're talking about this now," he rails.
Just as I’m about to open my mouth with a snappy remark, Logan and Quaid walk up, looking like someone's wet dream with the water droplets streaming down their obscene bodies, provoking me in slamming my lips shut to keep the drool at bay as well as my temper.
"What's going on?" Logan asks warily.
"Valentina is just doing what she does best," Carter hisses.
"And what is that?" Quaid asks, lifting his eyebrow. "Because I'm positive we're not thinking of the same things."
