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“Stop what?”
“Provoking you. Playing with you.”
My heart is racing for so many reasons.
For him not only actively cleaning up his language for his niece, whose face is tucked into his neck now as she sucks on her fist, looking sleepy, but also because he’s actually apologizing for his behavior. He’s acknowledging that yes, he’s been trying to provoke me for the last year.
He’s been trying to play with me.
“Why did you?” I ask. “Play with me in the first place.”
“Because you’re bright and flaming and feisty like a firefly.”
My breath hitches. “I —”
“And I wanted to light you up and make you glow.”
I open my mouth to say something. Although I don’t know what I should say at this point. I never expected this from him. Apology, acknowledgements, actual admission of his guilt. Something that he’s never done before and —
Wait a second.
He has never done this before.
He has never actually apologized to me about anything. About seeing me as nothing more than an object when I worshipped the ground he walked on for years. For showing up at my dorm room thirteen months ago to use me against my brother. For leaving me crying and broken, naked in my bed and not looking back.
But he’s suddenly feeling apologetic about what happened between us two nights ago at the bar?
Does he actually expect me to believe that?
Does he actually think that I don’t know what’s going on here?
Clenching my teeth, I go, “Are you done?”
There’s a frown between his brows. “What?”
“Are you done with your freaking crap?”
“I —”
“Do you actually expect me to believe this? This whole fake apology routine.”
His eyes narrow. “Fake.”
“Yeah. Fake.” Then, “I know why you’re doing this.”
“Yeah, why?”
“You pity me.”
A flinch goes through him.
A flinch of shock.
Not because I’m right but because he has absolutely no idea what I’m talking about. I can clearly see that on his face. That does give me a little pause and puts the brakes on my wrecking train of a hypothesis. But before I can ponder over any of this, he speaks.
“And what exactly am I pitying you for?”
His voice has been lowered and I swear it sounds… angry.
Unfolding my arms, I swallow. “B-because I said what I said. Yesterday. In the bathroom.”
His features are so tight that nothing seems to be moving or animated. “What is it that you said?”
I grip the edge of the counter to give myself some balance that I’m rapidly seeming to lose. “I… I can see that… It’s not —”
“What did you say?”
I curl my bare toes, shivering slightly, cringing that I brought this up at all. “I told you that…”
“You told me what?”
Damn it.
“I said the L word,” I finally settle on. “Okay? The L word. And it’s not a stretch for me to think that this is you pitying me. This is you trying to, I don’t know, make yourself feel… less awkward or something. Because you’ve never apologized to me for anything before and suddenly twenty-four hours after I’ve uttered the worst thing that I ever could have, you’re here saying sorry. So excuse me if I don’t believe you.”
I don’t know what he’s thinking because his expression is still blank. And he’s not saying anything either.
I wish he would though.
Even if it’s to confirm my suspicions. Though as the seconds pass, it’s becoming less and less likely that they’re true.
Finally, he says, “I can see why you’d think that. But this isn’t pity.”
“So what is —”
“If I felt pity for you, then you wouldn’t be standing in your little yellow dress like you are right now.”
“What?”
“You’d be on this island, flat on your back with your dress on the floor. While your bare skin matched the color of cotton candy.” Then, “Because I’d finally be giving you what you’ve wanted ever since you were sixteen and I found you hiding out behind the bushes. Something that you still want. No matter how much you deny it or dress it up as disgust. It’s a thing called D. I. C. K. That people use, in similar circumstances, to pity. F. U. C. K.” Then, “So this isn’t pity, this is me trying to do the right thing for the first time ever.”
Chapter Twelve
He is doing the right thing.
For the first time ever.
I wonder if that was why I let him stay and didn’t kick him out of the house like I should have.
Or if it was the fact that I believed him. That his whole unexpected apology wasn’t because of his pity. Because I did believe him.
It was right there on his face.
His shock. His obvious anger. The very fact that he went all vulgar and assholish was because he hadn’t liked my assumptions. And the relief of that was so big that I didn’t want to sour it by fighting. Or it could be because Halo really wasn’t in the mood to let go of her favorite uncle. And since she was sleepy and lethargic and it’s never a good idea to mess with her when she’s like this, I decided to let it all go.
