Chapter 13 #2
“Why the hell did you stop painting?” he finally asked. His voice was steadier now. Calmer. All that anger, all that barking and biting out words had faded, and now there was something much more serious in the way he spoke.
My eyes looked away from his. “I had to.”
“Why’d you have to?”
“Because.”
“Because?”
“It’s none of your business.”
“You’ll always be my business,” he said, voice all firm. “Whether you wanna admit it or not.”
My head shook, eyes still avoiding his. “I haven’t been your business for a long, long time.”
“If you didn’t want to be my business, you would have called the cops that night I broke in.”
“Thought I’d do you a favor and give you a chance to redeem yourself. Clearly, you don’t have that in you.”
“Why’d you stop?” he asked, still pushing.
“Why do you care?”
“I need to know.”
“No, you don’t. You just like getting under my skin.”
“Tell me why you stopped.”
“Bridger,” I mumbled, pressing my face into my hands for a moment. My skin felt hot. It always felt like that when Bridger was around. Warm, balmy. Even on the coldest of nights. “Stop.”
“Tell me, Juliette.”
“Bridger…”
“Tell me. Tell me why.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“Why did I just tell you?”
“My life—what I do, what I did, what I’m going to do—has nothing to do with you anymore.”
“I’m just curious.”
“Well, stop being curious. You don’t get to know anything about me anymore.”
“Tell me why,” he said, voice rising. God, he wasn’t letting this go. “Tell me.”
“No.”
“Tell me.”
“It has nothing to do with you.”
“I wanna know why.”
“Why do you even care?”
“Because it doesn’t make any fucking sense.”
“You don’t get to barge in here and ask questions you don’t deserve the answer to.”
“Tell me why you gave your fucking dream up, the thing you worked so hard for, the thing that I know you loved and still love. There’s no way you don’t love it anymore.
I know you better than you think I do, Juliette, and just because I haven’t seen you in five years doesn’t mean I forgot.
That was all you ever wanted, and then suddenly you let it go?
What, you get bored of it? Tired of it? You’d rather sit in your mansion all day and play the perfect little trophy wife instead or—”
“Gordon doesn’t like it when I paint!” I finally spat out. “There. Happy?”
Silence took over the room at that, and I could have sworn the feeling around me switched to something else almost immediately.
Cold, heavy, strong. I laughed bitterly, eyes getting wet before I could fight back the tears Bridger didn’t deserve to see.
Of course he got me to confess, to reveal parts of me barely anyone else knew.
Confusion sat there on his face, his brows knitted together like he was trying to solve the most complicated puzzle before his jaw clenched tight.
He nodded. Curt, sharp, just once, before finally putting an end to the silence. “Why?” was his simple question, but it wasn’t all that simple. Not really.
All I gave him was a weak shrug in response.
“Why doesn’t he like it?” he asked.
My eyes shut tightly, trying to squeeze away the tears.
All my dreams had to be disregarded the second me and Gordon got married.
It was in the contract—a literal contract—that I wouldn’t get to paint or go to art galleries or study art or even look at a damn art book.
A good wife didn’t have hobbies. No, her husband was her only hobby.
“It’s none of your concern,” I said again.
“He sounds like a fucking loser. Did you marry a loser, Juliette?”
I laughed, trying to hold back the sound, but it fell from my lips before I could control myself, and it sounded all low and soft and sad.
Two fingers rubbed at my forehead, my head aching as I tried to process everything that was happening.
Bridger being back. Gordon being hurt. My whole life being a goddamn upside down mess that I felt like I’d never be able to fix.
“I married a man who…” My voice trailed off, voice faltering as I tried to pull something together.
A sentence. A word. A sign that I had been better off without Bridger before he broke my heart.
“I married a man who provides for me. Who isn’t a criminal and a professional thief, okay?
I married a man who… Who… Who gives me…”
“You married a man who turned you into something you were never meant to be,” Bridger spat. “You used to be a different person, Juliette. Smart. Strong. Determined. I liked that about you.”
“People change and grow up,” I said. “I see that you haven’t.”
“Maybe, but what kinda person has he turned you into?”
He didn’t want an answer to that question since he turned right around and made his way towards the bedroom door.
Gordon was downstairs, but that didn’t seem to deter Bridger from strolling around my house like he owned the place.
He had left the balcony doors wide open, letting that cold wind pour on through, but all I could feel was heat and dizziness as I took a seat at the edge of the bed.
I had never wanted to be that. The boring, beige Stepford wife, but Bridger had managed to look right through me and see that the first time he looked at me in five years.
That girl he used to know was long gone. I wondered, if I tried really hard, if I could ever become her again.