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A trio of clearly underage boys walks in, interrupting us while Banjo has to go politely but firmly turn them away. There isn’t much left to do tonight, and when Kayla asks if anyone wants to go home, my hand shoots up the fastest. I’m not going to make much money anyway, with almost no customers and a complete inability to fake a good mood. I zip out of the parking lot and back home in less than ten minutes.
I feel him a lot sooner this time, having had the practice the last few weeks. There’s definitely someone behind me the whole way up the stairs, and I know I’m not going to be able to unlock the door and get inside before he catches up to me. Even knowing he’s there before I turn around, I still jump at the sight of Jesse, typical sneer twisting his lips.
“We can’t keep meeting like this.” I attempt a joke to preserve my own sanity. He reeks of beer and cigarettes, and his bun is hanging crooked on the back of his skull. Anybody with a single functioning eye in their head could tell he’s been drinking, even without the obvious forty-five-degree tilt to each step he takes. Just what I need right now. An unpredictable, drunk ghost of boyfriends past. I don’t understand why he still has such a hard-on for me. Why can’t he find some new girl to torment who doesn’t know yet how bad he really is?
“I’m here, Elowyn,” Jesse slurs with a slight whine. “Can we just go into your apartment and talk?”
I put my hands across my chest and my back against the wall, trying my best to look somewhat intimidating. Talking to drunk Jesse is like trying to corral an oversized four-year-old with a propensity for violence an hour past their bedtime. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think we should talk in public.”
“Are you afraid of me? What do you think I’m gonna do?” He scoffs, turning away from me with a slight stumble.
After a second of hesitation, he whips back, lurching at me with a curl of his lip and his chin stuck out. The Elowyn of a year ago would have backed down in fear. Now I’m just so tired and annoyed. The man I want doesn’t seem to want me, and the man I don’t want just doesn’t get the message. This game has gotten old, and the consequences of ending it no longer matter. Looking at Weston’s door, I realize that no one is coming to save me this time. It’s on me. I’m so upset at being treated like this, left out in the cold by someone I care about, that I find myself angrier than I am scared. Jesse being here is just icing on the cake.
Something finally snaps inside of me, like a dried-up twig under a boot heel, and I temporarily lose all sense of self-preservation.
“You know what, Jesse? I don’t have time for your bullshit. I’m not afraid of you. You have no power over me. This is pathetic. You are pathetic. Go home. Find something else to do with your free time other than terrorize me, or I will call the cops and file charges for stalking and harassment. I will get a goddamn restraining order and a good lawyer.”
The longer I yell at him, the smaller he seems to get. Where he used to loom inside of my worst nightmares, I now see how sad he is. How washed up and alone. I can’t believe I ever used to let him dictate what I did or said or let him make me feel anything I didn’t want to. I can’t believe I let him intimidate me into serving him. I can’t believe I let him scare me until I resembled only a shell of the woman I was before him.
I choose my next words carefully, letting my voice drop to an almost whisper. “You miserable fucking loser. Never, ever speak to me again. I’m dead to you.”
He opens his mouth to speak, then closes it again, sucking his teeth and letting his hand hang in the air. His eyes are glazed over from drinking, and it takes him a good deal of effort to turn and walk back to the stairwell, letting the door slam shut behind him. I hope he falls down every flight, but the series of thuds never comes, just the sound of him shuffling his way back out to the lot, then laying rubber as he peels out of the parking lot.
My hands shake with the adrenaline as I push my hair away from my face, trying to get enough air in without letting myself hyperventilate. And while I never get the satisfaction of Jesse meeting his demise in the stairwell, I do hear a soft sound from behind Weston’s door, like someone accidentally dropping a phone or a cup onto the carpet.
I walk over and press my ear against the wood, and sure enough, I can make out the sound of breathing on the other side. There’s no way he didn’t hear us out here. The idea that he sat there, just listening, when God only knows what could’ve happened to me, breaks my heart in two. The idea is so ridiculously hurtful that I’m rendered immobile, my limbs aching under the strain of the pain. I let it wash over me for what seems like hours, but then let out a small, wounded laugh before placing my palms flat against the door and leaning in to rest my forehead.
“And you?” I hiss through the two inches of wood between us. “Thank you so much. Thank you for abandoning me. Thank you for reminding me that I am the only one who has my back. Thank you for showing me who you are and stopping me from wasting any more of my time. I’m the best thing that ever happened to you, Weston Langmore. And you tossed me away like garbage. I won’t forget.”
Slamming my palm against the door in one last act of frustration, I turn on my heels and head home. I don’t shower or even change my clothes. Kicking off my shoes and dropping my things in a pile on the floor, I curl in a ball on the sofa, clutching a pillow to my stomach, and I cry.
I hope he hears every tear.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Weston
I messed up. I know I did. I could say it was the worst fuck-up of my life if I hadn’t already set the bar so high by killing a guy. Definitely a close second. Elowyn’s right as rain—she is the best thing to ever happen to me, and I let her slip right through my fingers by being too busy wallowing in my own emotional damage to be there for her when she needed me.
I don’t know why I didn’t react. I heard the entire thing with Jesse in the hallway and couldn’t find it within myself to step out of the front door. Maybe it was fear. That trip to the cemetery with Mom had me so paranoid that I’d end up with Jesse’s blood on my hands, too. I couldn’t take that again, and I definitely couldn’t risk making Elowyn grow to resent me the way Mom does. I’ve only ever cared about two women in this life. How could I handle it if I turned them both against me? Too bad that my inaction caused the same exact thing. In the end, I was just proud as hell of her for standing up for herself and handling it. She closed the door on Jesse, slammed it in his face, and I hope that gives her some closure.
Which isn’t to say that I haven’t been trying to make it right. For the last few days, I’ve been hoping against hope for the chance to bump into her, just to look her in the eyes and see if it’s really over between us. I called two or three times, but she always lets it go to voicemail, and it definitely seems like she isn’t going to call back any time soon. She’s not home often. I never seem to hear her coming or going. Sometimes I can hear the water in the pipes in the wall between us when she runs the shower, but that’s about it. I’ve tried to catch her before she heads into work so I can offer her a ride, but her car is always gone long before I make it down to the lot.
Our schedules have alternated at work for the past few days, and we don’t even see each other there. It’s been slow, and I have a suspicion that she’s been giving up her shifts to some of the other girls. At least I can guess that her business is going well.
Most of all, I can take a hint. She’s avoiding me. And as much as I don’t want to stop trying, I know what her last guy was like. I don’t want to draw any parallels between Man Bun and me. I should have known nothing good could ever last for me. The best I can do is give her space and hope that we can at least salvage some kind of superficial friendship—be neighborly like neighbors are.
You really think she’s gonna waltz on over to borrow a cup of sugar, Langmore? Get a grip.
Because I don’t already have enough on my plate, in the middle of all of this self-pity and regret, Mom reaches out. Her hearing aid is on the fritz again, and she needs a lift to the doctor. Today. She’s already tried cleaning it out like I showed her last time and changing the battery. Still, no dice, so it’s got to be today. As much as I absolutely do not feel like schlepping around town with her after the less-than-spectacular day we had together last time, it would do me some good to focus on something other than my own pain. So I peel myself off of the couch, slip on my slides, and shuffle out the door.
The moment I get to the house, I know it was a mistake to come here. She’s in her usual mood, made worse by her inability to hear me, and I just don’t have the energy left to endure it. I don’t want to snap on her, but if she pushes me in the wrong way, I know that I’m going to let go of what little composure and good sense I have left and that’ll devolve into screaming.
I make it all the way through the appointment, shouldering all of her unnecessary snide comments to the receptionist and the technicians with my usual grimace and sigh, but it grates on me far harder than I can stand. I hang back a bit to issue apologies under the guise of using the restroom. By the time we get into the parking lot and start loading into the car, my fuse is dangerously short, and Mom just keeps waving around a lit match.
“I don’t understand why they had to give me this one.” She keeps scowling at it in the mirror of her sun visor, poking the piece of plastic with her index finger. If she hadn’t pointed it out so loudly in the office, I wouldn’t have noticed that much of a difference. “It doesn’t match the rest of the equipment. It looks tacky and cheap. Must be how they think of me.”
“It’s just a loaner until the custom piece comes in. They aren’t even charging you for it,” I groan through my teeth, trying and failing to sound casual and reassuring. There’s obvious annoyance in my words, no matter how much I try to bury it. “I thought it was pretty nifty of them to be able to sort that out for you today. Besides, it’s just temporary. Wouldn’t you rather be able to hear than have all of your pieces match?”
