Chapter 46
forty-six
JO
I’m drowning. I know they can sense it, even though I’ve been doing a much better job keeping my feelings off my face.
Spending more time in my room is helping, or maybe it’s making it worse.
If I’m alone with either of them, everything feels normal.
It’s when the three of us are together or the two of them don’t know I’m there that makes things painful.
Maverick has only been here for a week, and even in that short amount of time, I can see them getting closer. Smiling at each other in a way only longtime lovers do. I wish I was less observant, less intelligent. Or maybe I wish I was more so I could be what someone wants.
“Are you okay?” I jump at the sound of Ezra’s voice, having been too lost in my thoughts to hear him coming.
“I’m fine. I’m making a salad for lunch. Do you want one?” I turn away from the angry ocean I had been watching. A storm is coming in, and the waves are getting bigger against the cliffs.
“Jo—”
“Is Maverick hungry? I haven’t seen him in a while,” I interrupt, pulling what I need from the fridge to make a very basic salad.
We need to go shopping soon, but Ezra doesn’t want anyone in town to see Maverick while also not wanting to leave us alone in the house without him.
We’re going to starve before he figures it out.
“You don’t have to pretend to be okay with me, Bambi. I know you’re not, and I’m sorry for whatever part I played in your pain,” Ezra says quietly. My whole body stiffens before I turn around to look at him.
“Fuck you, Ezra. Fuck you and what you did to Maverick. You don’t deserve the happy ending you’re about to get,” I say through clenched teeth.
I’m so angry, but I don’t want to start screaming and get Maverick involved.
“But isn’t that the case? The undeserving somehow always wins and us chumps get the scraps if we get anything at all. ”
The truth is, Ezra probably does deserve the happy ending.
He went through a lot and never once stopped loving Maverick.
I’m just bitter and angry about always being pushed aside or overlooked.
No matter how hard I work or how much I tend to relationships, I’m never enough.
Now I get to watch how my not being enough plays out right in front of my face, and I can’t take it anymore.
Ezra is just the unfortunate casualty of my feelings he seems to care so much about.
I turn on my heel and grab whatever coat is hanging by the door before stomping outside and sitting in my usual spot.
I wrap the oversized coat around my shoulders, burrowing in against the wind.
It’s Maverick’s. I can tell from the way it smells.
Tears threaten to fall, but I hold them in.
I don’t want to cry. I just want solitude.
They leave me alone out here, and that’s what I need right now.
I need to watch the ocean’s anger while it mirrors my own and hope that I keep whatever sanity I have left for the rest of our time here.