Chapter 49
Tristan
I’m just getting into my painting, finally starting to get my stupid thoughts to calm down, when my phone goes off. Scares the hell out of me for half a second before I realize it’s Jesse’s ringtone.
“Tris?” Fuck, but just hearing his voice makes me feel safer than I’ve felt all day. “Where are you?”
Even though the connection’s a bit choppy, there’s no missing the panicky edge to his half-whispered words. And now I feel like shit ‘cause he’s clearly freaking out over my stupid-ass paranoia, and I’m just here. In my apartment. Painting like normal.
“Home.” I practically choke over the word. “My place. Look, sunshine, about earlier, I was just being stupid—”
“You’re never stupid, Tris,” he cuts me off.
He sounds a bit clearer, like he’s got better service, and I totally feel like I can see the way he’d look right now.
All serious, with that little crease between his eyebrows.
“And if you’re worried about something, then you have every reason to be.
I’m still in the library, but as soon as your texts came through, I found a spot with enough service to call to make sure you’re alright. You are alright, right?”
“Yeah.” Except that he’s gone and made my throat go all tight and achy and my heart all fluttery-melty-warm, and suddenly, I want to see him so bad I’m not sure I’ll be able to really breathe until he gets here.
I can hear the relief in the rush of his exhale. “I have to go back to grab my things, but I’m packing up the second we get off the phone. Stay in your apartment, okay?”
I nod like an idiot, forgetting he can’t actually see me.
“I—” he hesitates, lets out another heavy breath. Shaky this time. “I’ll be there soon, Tris.”
I try to go back to my painting. I really do. It’s just now, knowing that Jesse’s on his way here and that he’s worried about me has my hands shaking again as I pick back up my paintbrush.
The scene I’m working on is based off of one of the shots I snapped the day we went downtown, with the mountains out across the bay.
Except, instead of afternoon light, I’ve made the scene sunset, with the sky that blazing pink that’s the exact shade of Jesse’s blushes, fading up to grey-blue above.
Same as his eyes. Up close, the water’s that gorgeous green he loves, and in the distance, it’s reflecting back the sunset, the golden color of sunshine.
Even when I’m not painting him, he’s everywhere.
My hands stop shaking. My breath comes easy.
He’ll be here soon.
Not sure how long I stare at the half-finished painting, remembering how my sunshine’s arms felt wrapped around me when I’d taken the picture I’m working from, except it’s gotta be way longer than I think, ‘cause next thing I know, there’s a knock at my door.
Jesse.
Suddenly, that crazy-ass smile from this morning’s back on my face in full force, and my heart’s all light and fluttery as I toss down my mostly dried out paintbrush and bounce over to open the door.
My sunshine’s here to make sure I’m safe. Even if there never was anything except my own paranoid freakout to worry about in the first place.
Maybe I can’t hope for him to ever love me like I love him, but he’s here. He cared enough to drop everything and come.
I’m still grinning like an idiot when I flick back the lock and swing the door open; all the fucking way open for the man waiting on the other side.
Because an idiot’s exactly what I am. A total fucking idiot.
As fucking stupid as he’s always told me I am.
“Josh.”
“Hey babe.” He tilts his head to the side, smiling that fake-ass plastic smile that doesn’t touch his eyes. The one he’d use when he was hella pissed off but saving face in public. Saving it all up for me when we got somewhere private.
Clammy panic crawls down my spine, and the little flecks of paint that’ve dried on my hand suddenly feel like they’re gonna peel my skin right off, they’re itching so bad.
I can’t even try and scrape them off though because I’m paralyzed.
All frozen and shaky and trapped in my own damn head because I don’t have a goddamn clue what to do.
And he knows it.
He fucking loves it.
“How?”
“How did I find you?” His smile’s not fake now.
No, now he’s grinning like a fucking shark.
“Tracker app on your phone, babe.” A scoff.
“You seriously telling me you’re so stupid you didn’t know I put it on there ages ago?
I knew you’d pull some kind of shit like this, and I always keep tabs on what’s mine. ”
He knew. The whole fucking time. Every time I’ve moved this last year, feeling like I was getting farther and farther away from him, he’s known exactly where I was.
“Aren’t you going to ask me in?” He takes a step forward and reaches out, like he’s gonna touch my cheek, and I can smell his cologne. The same expensive shit he’s always worn. The shit I’d thought I’d liked, until one day, it made me wanna puke.
Smelling it now’s got my throat tightening up. Like before he even gets his hands on me, just the smell of him’s going to choke me.
And then my brain snaps back to life.
I don’t have to fucking do this. Not anymore. Not ever again.
Before I get a chance to do much more than just think about slamming the door shut in his face though, Josh’s hand smacks against the wood, holding it open.
“What the fuck, Tristan?” He’s not smiling now. Just glaring at me with that look that screams as loud and clear as his words how bad I’ve just fucked up. “Are you seriously going to act like you didn’t miss me after you made me fly all the way up here to find you?”
He reaches forward again, and I duck back to try and keep him from actually touching me, but I can’t go far, ‘cause I won’t let go of the door or move to let him into my apartment.
And still, there’s this part of me that’s totally melting down, screaming at me to just give in. Give him whatever the fuck he wants.
Just be good.
Don’t piss him off.
Except I don’t want to give in.
I don’t want to give him fucking anything.
Sweat breaks out across the back of my neck, clammy and sick and disgusting.
“Don’t you act like you don’t want me. We both know what a slut you are,” Josh’s lip curls back as his eyes drop to my neck where his fingers land, scraping over the hickey Jesse left last night. “And obviously some things never change.”
Suddenly, all that shit bouncing round in my brain shuts right off, and there’s nothing there except how bad I want his hand off of me. Off the spot where I swear I can still feel the delicious tingling ache of Jesse’s mouth on my skin.
Before I even know what I’m doing, I’m slapping Josh’s hand away from my neck. “Don’t fucking touch me.”
Holy shit, that felt…fucking amazing.
My hand on the doorknob is shaking and so clammy that it’s hard to keep my grip as he takes a step closer. Close enough that I can see the tic going in his jaw as I tip my head back to keep my eyes on his face.
The pounding of my heart and the smell of his cologne are making it hard to breathe, and every inch of my skin’s crawling so bad that I feel like I’m gonna scream, only none of it’s enough to drown out the thrill of seeing that moment of surprise flash through his eyes when I hadn’t taken his shit just now.
“You don’t get to play hard to get with me, babe.”
There’s no mistaking the warning in his voice, and yeah, it makes my knees go all shaky, but there’s that thrill again. I’m not giving in and falling at his feet like he wants me to. Like he thought I would.
“What are you even doing here?” I should keep my damn mouth shut.
All I’m doing is digging myself deeper into the hole I’m already buried in, and still, I can’t stop.
Fuck, I don’t even want to stop. “Why would you come all this way just to fuck up my life? How could that possibly be worth it to you?”
I fucking hate how my voice shakes. Fucking hate how my heart feels like it’s about to beat right out of my chest. Under that though, there’s that totally crazy-ass part of me that’s full-on gleeful, ‘cause this is the first time I haven’t just rolled right over and let him win, and it feels so damn good that it might just be worth whatever happens next.
“Are you really so stupid that I have to spell it out for you?” He scoffs and shakes his head. Doesn’t even try to turn his sneer into a smile. “I love you, babe.”
His words slam into me, knocking the breath out of my chest and bursting the adrenaline-fueled high of fighting back.
Out of all the shit he’s ever said to me, out of all the names he’s thrown at me and for all the thousand times he’s told me what a stupid whore I am and rubbed my face in all the endless ways I’m not halfway good enough for anyone, let alone him, this is the fucking worst thing he’s ever said.
It hurts worse than any slap or bruise. Worse than being pinned beneath him with his weight crushing down on my throat until I thought he’d never let me breathe again.
It's been a lifetime since anyone said those words to me. All the way back to when I was a kid, before my mom ended up so fucked up that she hardly even remembered that I existed.
“Fuck you, Josh.”
Josh’s sneer turns into a full-on snarl, but I don’t give a shit. My throat and chest are burning, and my teeth feel like they’re about to fucking crumble, I’m gritting my jaw so damn hard.
“You don’t love anyone.” I’m so angry that I don’t even stop to think.
Just step right up into his space because how fucking dare he make the first time someone says those words to me be nothing but goddamn toxic bullshit?
“Why the fuck do you think I’d believe you for a single fucking moment?
Yeah, maybe I am as stupid as you’ve always said I am, except even I’m not too stupid to know what love is, and not a damn thing you’ve ever shown me comes close.
“Love’s when someone looks at you, and you just know, all the fucking way down to your fucking toes, that they see you.
Like actually see the real you, and they want you exactly how you are.
It’s showing someone that they’re safe with you.
That they don’t have to always hold all their shit together, because to you, they’re beautiful even when they fall to pieces.
And that it’s okay if they do, because you’ll be there to help put them back together, not rip them apart even worse than before.
“Love is— It’s—”
My throat’s all tight and chokey and my eyes are so full of tears, it’s hard to see how Josh’s face’s gone rigid and so fucking furious I know he’s gonna snap and lose his shit on me any moment. I don’t give a fuck though, because suddenly I know, and I don’t see how I didn’t realize it before.
“It’s bringing someone lunch every day at their work, not only so they aren’t hungry, ‘cause you both know that they could have just taken it with them in the first place, but because you don’t want to go through the day without seeing their face.
It’s caring about what they love and making them a part of what you love. Of who you love. It’s—”
My head snaps back and I realize before I even feel the pain of Josh’s palm connecting with my cheek that the doorknob’s not in my hand anymore.
“Shut the fuck up.” Josh’s breath is hot in my face as he shoves me back into my apartment, and it’s so fucking stupid, but for a moment the only goddamn thing I can think is how bad it’s making my skin crawl that he’s in his shoes, tracking fuck knows what across the floor.
Then his hand closes so tight round my wrist that I know from experience that it’s gonna leave a mark. I don’t give a fuck about that though because with the other hand, he slams the door shut behind us. Locks it.
Fuck—
Trying to wrench away from him only makes him squeeze tighter, and the twist of my skin under his grip burns like hell.
“Let go of me.”
Of course he doesn’t listen. Just yanks me in close enough to grab a fistful of my hair with his free hand.
“Do you know what a fucking inconvenience it was to have to fly up here after you?” A sharp tug on my hair that makes my eyes sting.
“Do you know how much of my time you’ve wasted just because of whatever little game you’ve been playing not texting me back? I don’t give up what’s mine, Tristan.”
Just when I think he’s gonna rip my hair right out by the roots, he lets up. “I was going to buy you a ticket back to me, babe.” He strokes his thumb over my wrist where he’s still gripping hard enough that my fingers are starting to tingle.
Fuck, I want to crawl right out of my fucking skin.
“I should be mad at you,” he whispers as he leans in, twisting his grip on my hair so I can’t move an inch when his lips brush over my ear.
Can’t fucking breathe—
“Running out on me like the worthless slut you are. Fucking around behind my back. Good thing for you I know how good you are at apologizing. So how about you get down on your fucking knees and start making it all up to me now, hmm?”
Fuck, I can’t breathe—
He drops his hand from my hair, down to grab my hip. Squeezes. Hard. Fuck, there are going to be bruises there too—
Takes a step forward, crowding me back. Moves his hand lower, down over my ass.
Fuck—No—
Have to get away—
Except he’s still got his grip on me and there’s fucking nowhere to go, and before I can even try, he pulls me forward against him so I can feel his hard cock through his jeans pressing back into my hip.
Itchy sick crawls over my skin. My blood’s pounding so loud in my ears it almost hurts, and it’s gotta be playing tricks on my mind ‘cause I swear I can hear Jesse’s voice somewhere underneath everything else. Calling my name.
“I said let fucking go!” My breath rushes in, all sharp and dizzy and too fucking much.
For a split second, Josh loosens his grip on me. Turns his head like he’s heard something.
It’s all I need.
As hard as I can, I slam my free hand against his chest, drive my knee up between his legs.