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I don’t know how or why it happens but it’s always been this way.
Since the beginning. Since she started calling and texting me.
I’d have a shitty day — maybe a fight with her brother or Conrad riding me hard during practice because he didn’t think I was doing enough as the captain of the team — and my phone would beep with a random text from her and I’d take my first calm breath of the day.
Sometimes I wonder how is it that someone who’s named Tempest and who’s got a firecracker of a personality can be the one to give me peace.
But she did.
She gave me calm and in return, I gave her violence and pain.
My apology the other night doesn’t even begin to cover the damage I’ve done. Both deliberately and by accident. Staying away won’t fix things either.
I don’t know what will though?
In any case, I open her text.
Feisty Firefly: I’m not your girl.
Feisty Firefly: You said that. When you came over to Callie’s and my brother’s house. But I’m not yours.
I can’t help but smile as I let my bloody fingers type up an answer.
Me: You are.
Chapter Fourteen
He came over for me.
That night at my brother’s and Callie’s.
Something that Callie told me after he’d left. Not in so many words of course. Just that he’d known they’d be away and that I’d be there babysitting Halo. Which can only mean one thing: he’d come over to see me.
He’d come over to… apologize.
I mean I know. He did say that he was apologizing for being a douchebag to me at the bar and that he’d back off and let me live in peace from now on. But it was more than that. It was bigger than him doing the right thing.
It was his attempt at not only apologizing but also punishing himself in the process.
Right?
That was what that kiss was all about, wasn’t it?
Holy mother of God, that kiss.
That my brother almost witnessed. That he wanted my brother to witness.
He’ll give me what I deserve…
That’s what he said.
I’ve been thinking about it and thinking about it for the last two days and that’s the only conclusion I can come up with: he not only wanted to apologize but he also wanted to get punished. But I’m not going to do what I did before. I’m not going to assume things and blow them out of proportion in my head, no.
I’m going to ask him.
So sitting in the middle of my bed, my legs folded and my phone in my lap, I very reluctantly but also somehow eagerly pull up his name in my contact list and with a deep breath, type out a text.
Me: I’m not your girl.
Me: You said that. When you came over to Callie’s and my brother’s house. But I’m not yours.
I don’t know why I started the conversation the way I had three years ago, when he’d found me behind the bushes, but I did. And now my heart’s pounding in my chest with a fierceness that scares me. It also scares me that he might not reply.
Or worse, he’ll reply and I’d be so overcome with stupid joy that I’d disgust myself.
That is not the purpose of this exercise, I remind myself.
My phone beeps with a text and it’s him. In my haste to read what he said, I accidentally hit wrong apps twice before making it to the right place.
Beautiful Thorn: Yes, you are.
I narrow my eyes at his answer. Which if I’m being honest is totally expected because he’s crazy that way, but still.
Me: No, I’m not. I never was.
Beautiful Thorn: Unless you’ve been crying over some other random asshole for the past year that I don’t know about, you’re mine.
I don’t know how is it that I can practically hear him growling mine through the phone but I do. I’ve always been able to, even back then. And back then, it used to make me all kinds of restless and achy. It used to make me so desperate to be with him that when we were done, I’d… do things to myself.
While weeping in my pillow at the same time.
It was a weird combination, I’ll say that. Being sad and horny, but that was what he made me feel.
Good thing I deleted all those messages from my phone after everything happened. I should’ve deleted his number as well, but I guess by this point it’s a given that I’m pathetic enough to have memorized his number, so it wouldn’t have helped.
Anyway.
Irritated, I stab at my screen to type out my reply.
Me: So what, I’m your heartbroken, lovelorn, pathetic girl?
Beautiful Thorn: No, you’re my heartbroken, lovelorn, feisty Firefly.
Me: So what does that make you?
Beautiful Thorn: A cruel, sadistic, should-be-kicked-in-the-nuts asshole.
No.
You’re my cruel, sadistic, beautiful Thorn.
Not that I’d ever say that to him.
