66. Rebecca
Chapter Sixty-Six
REBECCA
R oom 323.
S winging the door open, I stride in and quickly survey the room. There’s a new vase of flowers. He’s sleeping. How men can sleep when our worlds are collapsing is beyond me. I click over to the flowers and yank out the card, expecting to see her name.
Get Well Soon! - Location Times Three.
“Brendan!”
His eyes fly open and he turns his head. Blinking away sleep, he sees me shoving the card back into the large bouquet and correctly ascertains that I am not happy. He rises up to sitting. “You came back. Rebecca, look…”
“Uh-uh. I speak. You listen.” I toss his jacket on that stupid fucking excuse for a chair and watch his eyes following it, gathering what its existence means: his phone is in there. Well, he’ll have to wait for it.
“How do you think it felt for me to see what I saw? Here I am, sitting by you, holding your hand and treating you like – oh, I don’t know – someone who just got SHOT? But then, no! I’m Brendan and I’m going to fuck the girl who owns the bar the second Rebecca leaves. Is that what was happening the night of the shooting, Brendan? Were you fucking that girl that night and didn’t tell me? Because I have a feeling you left out that very important detail.”
He’s staring at me with eyes like cold glass, his jaw tight, hands clenched into fists holding the hospital blanket. “I told you a long time ago not to get attached.”
My spine snaps straight as my demeanor and voice go deathly calm. “ Don’t get attached, Rebecca. This is as far as this will ever go. But I’ll treat you right… ”
His eyes flicker at his speech repeated back to him. “I have treated you right.”
“I drove all the way from Arizona!”
“Except for then,” he says slowly, over me, making me stop. He holds out his hand, palm hovering above his lap. “I didn’t treat you right yesterday. I fucked up. I’m sorry. And I know it must have been awful for you. I never wanted to see that look I saw in your eyes. I don’t know why I did it.”
I shift my weight from one heel to the other, deflated in the way only I’m sorry can do.
“It was really awful. It was beyond awful.” Instantly, I’m thinking of my date with Tommy tonight. I cock my chin to the side in defiance. “How’d you feel if I did that to you?”
Silence hangs between us as I wait.
His eyes go dead and he looks at me like he hopes I understand. “I never wanted to hurt you…”
My stomach flips over as tears spring to my eyes. “Oh my God. I know that tone. You can’t be saying what I think you’re about to.” I step back, trying not to fall under the weight of the realization as I choke, “God dammit Brendan. You’re saying it’s over… You’re falling in love with that girl?!”
He looks away and makes a face like what I’m saying is impossible. “I just met her.”
I laugh, the sound awful and pained. “You think that matters? Take it from a woman who’s been around longer than you. It can happen in a second.”
He straightens his shoulders. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Ha! I could say the same to you.” I walk to the door, defeated. “Don’t call me ever again. I mean it.” He stares at me. With my hand on the door, I stop. “I have a date tonight, by the way.”
“Here in the city?” His jaw tightens.
I hold his eyes and say with the coolness of one who has the last blade with which to slice her opponent down. “Here in the city.”
“I can only guess who that might be with.”
“Oh?” I smile, my mouth tight. “Who?”
Brendan looks away to the window, but the curtains are closed so he looks back, his eyes scorching. “That’s how you want to play this? So much for trust.”
My stomach twists with shame, but I revolt against it the moment I remember. “You know, I hate it when you men do that. Twist something so we feel like we’re the ones who are crazy – like we’re the ones at fault. Trust?? How dare you say that to me after what you pulled? I’m going to have a drink with someone who makes me feel important. Deal with it.”
He sneers, shaking his head at the image he knows is reality lying in wait. “That had better be where it ends, Rebecca.”
“Or what? You’ll walk in on me with his dick inside me?”
Brendan’s eyes steel. “Nice. Very classy. I didn’t mean to hurt you. You are meaning to hurt me. There’s a difference.”
“I can’t hurt someone who doesn’t care.” I swing open the door and leave.
“I do care!” he yells, the sound muffled through the door.
Stopping, I try to catch my breath, my vision spiraling red. I should keep walking. I won’t get what I want, here. But against everything my mind is screaming, my heart can’t help but turn my feet around. I open the door and look at him, tears falling down my cheeks. “Then stop me. Tell me not to go.”
He glares at me from his bed, his legs drawn up and his wrists on his knees. Was he about to get up and come after me?
“I don’t play games!”
“I deserve better than this, Brendan. You know I do.”
“You think Tommy can give that to you? I won’t let you do it. I’m going to call him and tell him not to see you. I mean it. Whatever you’re planning, it’s off.”
Through pained laugher, I wipe the wetness from my cheeks. “Did you ever see a future with us?”
In his eyes is a torrent of resistance, but he manages to say, “I did, yes. But not the future society sees. Something different. I don’t know.” He blinks, and for the first time I see the hurt. It draws me forward. I walk closer and look into his eyes, leaning down to kiss him. His lips open and he responds, reaching up his left hand to hold my head and press me closer to him. But then he stops and pulls back, releases me. I straighten up, looking at him, openly crying as he looks at me.
“You can’t even kiss me anymore. You’ve fallen in love. And what’s sad is you can’t admit it.”
His eyes flash and I leave, my heels clicking me away from him beneath unsteady ankles and weakened knees. Outside in the corridor, I wait for him to call my name. To stop me. To ask me to forgive him. Something. Anything.
When I get to the elevator, I realize it’s never going to happen. And I push the button… going down.