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“What, so you think I’m too pathetic to look after myself?” she snaps.
This is going to end badly. They’re both having different arguments and neither are going to realize it. Ben doesn’t know what Anna thinks he thinks of her. And Anna doesn’t believe the truth.
This is such a mess.
“Of course not!” he snaps back.
He’s just as angry at her as he is at me, but he’s not intimidating her. To me, he puffs up his shoulders, gives me a glare that could kill, gets in my face to make his rage known. He’s a gentle guy usually, but he can be nasty when he’s riled up. To me. To Anna, he’s just regular mad.
“You clearly don’t need anyone else. I haven’t seen you in years!”
“I came to your birthday last year.”
“Twoyears ago. I was in Paris last year. If you ever bothered to speak to me, you’d know that.”
“Right, because you give such a shit about what I’m doing in my life!”
Fights like this make me so glad I don’t have any siblings. This is getting kind of bad and I don’t really want to watch either of them poke each other’s eyes out, or whatever it is siblings do when they hate each other.
“Hey, guys, I think we might just all be a bit mad here,” I say, trying to break the tension of the situation into something a little calmer. I’m pretty sure that’s what you’re meant to do in a high-stakes environment, like in movies when they talk a bomber out of exploding a bank full of innocents.
In movies, it’s great. But here it doesn’t work.
“Yeah, big guy, I’m mad,” says Ben, turning back to me. “Who told you that you could treat my sister like the next notch on your bedpost?”
Anna’s eyebrows shoot up in shock.
“Dude…” I say. “It’s not like that at all, I swear. We’re the real deal. I didn’t even bring her here.”
“Sure thing,” says Ben poisonously. He’s not going to listen to either of us even if we’re telling him the truth. “It’s great for you guys that you have such easy lives that you can afford to spend a week for free in someone else’s house without thinking about a single other damn person on earth, but some of us have real jobs and work damn hard at them.”
I open my mouth to say whatever’s going to come out next, but Ben steamrolls right over me, not to yell any more, but to sound exhausted, disappointed.
“You know what, I don’t even care. If you want to fuck your whole life away, Joel, fine. Just get out of my house first.”
I stare at him confused, my mouth still hanging open. Behind him, I spot Anna scowling, her eyes shining with righteously angry tears. Whatever dance we’ve just been doing, I think I’ve lost.
Ben points at me like he’s about to lunge at me and grab my shirt and drag me off. “You heard me. Get. Out.”
Before he can touch me, I back away and march towards the door. As I grab my coat from the rack, I hesitate, locking eyes with Anna who seems to be saying sorry with them. If I was allowed another word, I’d tell her it wasn’t her fault because it’s not.
It’s all mine. I should have known better. Ben’s right. I’m never going to change.
She looks at me for another heartbeat, then glares wickedly at Ben and storms off to her room, slamming the door behind her like a teenager.
Ben is stone-faced as he looks at me. I feel the weight of his disappointment settle over me, heavy rocks in my stomach and chest that I’m not going to be able to shake for a long, long time.
I’m never going to see her again. He’s going to make sure of that.
Without another word, I pull on my coat and leave.
CHAPTER30
ANNA
I’m absolutely starving but I can’t leave the room. I’ve already made my way through the snack pile that me and Joel had been creating and now I’m left alone with my rumbling stomach and fury. I’m too mad to even cry.
What the fuck was Ben doing yelling at Joel like that? Aren’t they meant to be best friends?
