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He may think I’m not meeting his eye because I’m embarrassed from the other day, but it’s not why. It’s because looking at him makes me feel like a teenager and I’m certainly old enough to know better.
His eyes widen as he takes me in. “You cut your hair?”
“Yeah, I felt like a change.” It goes quiet. “Your ten minutes have started,” I point out.
“I don’t know where to start.”
“Just start at the beginning, and don’t hold back because you think it might be something I don’t want to hear. I’d rather hear it all, ugly or painful than hear lies that come back to bite me on the arse.”
He nods. “Before I came to Eastford, you know I got into some trouble, but I didn’t tell you the finer details. I got into a fight after getting kicked out of the pub. This guy would just not leave it, he kept coming at me and I admit, I was up for a fight. It didn’t take much for me to start swinging. The last punch I threw, the guy… he went down and never got back up.”
I’d already guessed his trouble was serious for him to be staying with the Eastford chapter, but I wasn’t expecting to hear this.
“He died?”
“Yes. My president got me out of town and the rest you know. As for Shaya, the night I left, I stopped by hers to collect my stuff and let her know it was over between us. We hadn’t been together for a while, but we had this habit of breaking up and getting back together, like all the time. I swear to you when I said I was single, I wasn’t lying.”
I hate that he has the ability to draw me in and desperately want to believe every word he says. This is the cycle I’m desperate to break. I can’t keep repeating what I know is wrong for me and then wondering why life isn’t working out for me.
“Look, we all have pasts, mine is as troubling as it comes. It should but it doesn’t bother me what you did. But I can’t put myself in situations where I could end up back inside because a guy makes me believe I’m his world and then blows it up. I’m not a woman who will sit around crying, I will try to hurt you even worse than you hurt me, and the other day? It took every ounce of willpower I possess to walk away and get in the taxi.”
“You plan on being alone for the rest of your life then?” He goes for the light-hearted approach, but I hear his underlying need for my answer.
“No, but for the foreseeable I’m good to be on my own.”
He moves his chair closer and takes hold of my hands. He presses his lips to my skin before saying, “I don’t fucking know what you’ve done to me, but you’ve caught me, and I don’t want to leave here without you.”
It’s all I’ve ever wanted to hear but I pull away from him and take my hands back.
“I won’t lie and say you haven’t gotten to me too, but I need a minute to myself. I need to find who I am and truly what I want before I share my life with anyone.”
Pushing up from the chair, I put some space between us and cross my arms over my chest as if it were going to protect me from him.
“I need you to leave, now.”
“Lex, please, you need to know I’m not like the other men you’ve known.”
“That may be,” I say, adding, “But I can’t keep revolving my life around a man. Not until I figure myself out. Please, if you don’t leave, then you’ll just be like all the other men I’ve known… never listening, and believing you know what’s best for me because it makes you happy.”
My words register and he nods slowly.
“If you need time, you have it, but know I’ll be waiting.”
He stands and moves toward me. With the kitchen cupboards behind me, I have nowhere to escape. He leans in and kisses my forehead, his lips lingering millimetres from my skin.
“I’m going to prove I’m what you need.”
He leaves without another word said and I exhale long and hard. This feels crap but it’s the right thing to do for myself. Taking a deep breath, I wait for the door to close behind him, and I relax.
I’ve made my decision regarding Manik. I’m not going to sit around constantly thinking of what could’ve been or what I could’ve done differently, as that’s what I usually do. I sit back down at my laptop and Rosie begins to cry. It grows louder as Louis brings her downstairs. I take my niece as he busies himself preparing her a bottle. Bouncing her on my knees, it does nothing to stop her cries. I stand with her and rock her, still not helping.
“When she gets like this nothing will settle her apart from the bottle,” Louis tells me.
“She’s gotta do what she gotta do when she’s hungry… we certainly went extreme occasionally when we were hungry.”
He snorts. “Yeah, difference with my daughter is she’s impatient and I’m moving as fast as I can… the piece of shit that fathered us didn’t move at all.”
Reading over old journal entries is one thing, but talking like this with the only person who went through the same, no, worse than me, is another.
