Chapter 30
Emmett
I
t’s been over a week since I’ve talked to Drew, and it’s my fault. I want to see her, want to explain to her what happened, but I doubt she’ll give me the time of day.
The past twelve days, I’ve been in and out of the apartment, working at Lenny’s, keeping things running as we enter the new year, trying to stay busy.
Today is Tuesday, which I’ve established as the day I do paperwork, make phone calls, and do all the behind-the-scenes stuff while Eddie, Annie, and my new bartender, Luke, handle things at the bar.
Tuesday has become my favorite day of the week because it is the only days I get to stay home, uninterrupted, except for the occasional reminder of who exactly I live below.
Hearing Drew move around her place, her muffled voice as she talks to someone on the phone or something, is about all I get of her these days. And again, I know that’s on me.
I find myself a little appalled at the stalker-ish side of me this girl brings out, but I can’t help but want to know what she’s doing, how she’s doing, and I don’t have the balls to go apologize to her, too scared she’ll tell me to fuck off.
I keep thinking, if I don’t reach out, I’m prolonging the time where she tells me she never wants to see me again or our few moments together meant nothing, and I don’t think I’m ready for that.
It’s about 6 o’clock in the evening, and I’m finishing up with my phone call with my distributor.
“Hey, Dan. One more thing. Is it possible to switch from my hard seltzer cases of Truly to cases of Whiteclaws? Yes… Yes… Same amount but want to try out a new brand. Awesome. Thanks, talk soon.” I hang up and make a note to call Eddie to add a special for the Truly seltzers starting tomorrow so we can get rid of them.
And that concludes work for today.
I walk into the kitchen, looking for something to make for dinner, when I hear voices above me. Two voices. More than usual for my upstairs neighbor.
I tell myself to ignore it because it is none of my business who Drew spends her time with even if I do feel a sting of jealousy at the fact that it isn’t me. I feel my protectiveness, my possessiveness, over her and her safety surface, but I push it down and quickly remind myself that it is all my doing.
It’s my fault she’s up there, and I’m down here.
I decide to throw together a pasta with the stuff I have. Tomatoes and spinach that are about to go bad, penne, and some parmesan, setting them all out on the counter and getting to work.
A few minutes pass, and I hear the muffled voices above me become clearer as their volumes increase. I’m about to turn on the stove to put some water to boil when I hear someone yell.
The voice is muffled, but I can make out some of it. “Always… Do this… all about YOU… Wrong with you!” Is that person talking to Drew? The yelling continues, “Why did… Text… Not how… Goes!”
Then I hear Drew’s voice, loud and clear, “Don’t touch me!”
I don’t even hesitate.
A cloud of anger engulfs me, and my instinct takes over. Before I know it, I’m at Drew’s door. Pounding.
No answer, but I hear low voices behind the door as if someone doesn’t want to be heard.
The smuggest face I’ve ever seen in my fucking life answers the door. Reed looks me up and down, reeking with disdain as if I’ve interrupted him and whatever he’s come here to do.
“We’re busy,” is all he says to me before going to close the door.
“You’re such a fucking idiot,” I hear just before I put my foot in between the door and the frame, ready to take control of the situation.
I would know that voice anywhere.
“What the hell, man? Get out of here,” Reed declares, but I have no intention of listening.
“Emmett? Is that you?” Drew. I can’t decipher the tone of her voice. It’s not surprise like I thought it might be.
She sounds pissed.
I push past the prick, ignoring him as he tells me to back off.
I find Drew pacing in her living room, her entire face red. She looks like she’s been crying, but there’s no sadness in her eyes.
“See, Reed. I told you he was going to come up here.” I hear a groan as if this is the biggest inconvenience to him. “I told you my neighbors could probably hear everything.”
Neighbors?
Then I remember that is all we are.
“God, what are you so mad for? Quit screaming at me like I did anything you didn’t want me to,” he throws back at her.
My head looks from left to right, feeling a mix of confusion, angry, and jealousy being in the middle of these two right now. I’m also feeling incredibly out of place as they keep screaming at each other as if I’m not even here.
“You’re joking, right? You’re fucking impossible!” She yells at him, a tear rolling down her cheek. I’ve never seen her this mad before. Our encounters never got to the point where she was so visibly pissed off. But she’s also crying. This is more than just a disagreement. Something happened here.
“I’m impossible? You’re the one who can’t make up her damn mind!”
“I didn’t invite you over for sex, Reed!”
There it is.
“What?!” I can’t help but intervene now. I turn to Drew. “Are you okay?” I try to grab her face in my hands, but she nods her head and takes a step back so she’s out of my reach.
I bring my hands back to my sides and take a second to make sense of the situation I just walked into. Before I can get my thoughts straight, I am walking back over to the entryway where Reed is still standing and grab him by his stupid flannel pulling him up to his toes, so he is eye level with me.
“Did you touch her?” I spit.
The guy scoffs in my face. “Listen, dude, mind your fucking business.” He tries to step out of my grip, but I grab him tighter, holding him in place. I want to tell him that Drew is my business, but I know I fucked that up.
“Answer the question.”
“Look, you don’t know her like I do. I know what she wants. I know what she needs.” The fact that this guy knows Drew in ways I can only dream of makes me want to tear him in half.
“Are you fucking insane? No means no, asshole!” Drew screams from the living room.
Looking at Reed, hearing how upset Drew is, the smug face in front of me is about to send me into a frenzy.
“She likes playing hard to get.” And that’s all it takes for anger to blur my vision. His audacity to talk to me as if expecting me to accept this is a misunderstanding or a girl just overreacting.
The nerve of this fucking guy to think that’ll make me apologize for interrupting and give him a high five on my way out.
I shove him towards the door. “Get out.” I say, trying to act calm but knowing I’m about to explode any second. “Don’t you dare bother her again.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Reed states as if staking a claim.
I step towards him. “I’m not going to say it again.”
He takes a step towards me, not warranting my threat. He looks past me to Drew. “I know you want to, D. You always come crawling back begging for more.”
She stares at him, and if looks could kill…
What the hell was happening up here?
Drew is past the point of anger, and she marches through the living room and kitchen, stopping just before the entry way.
In a voice scarier than the screaming, she says, “Get. The. Fuck. Out.”
Reed’s eyes widen just a fraction, a look of slight surprise or maybe fear on his face, but he quickly contorts back to his self-righteous expression. “Make. Me.” He repeats in her cadence.
I look back at him, and, before I can stop myself, I feel a sharp pain on the outside of my hand as my knuckles meet his face. It’s not my place to get involved, but there’s no more holding back the rage boiling just under my skin.
Reed falls back a few steps, catching his fall with the door frame. He clutches his cheek with his other hand, and his eyes are black. He’s pissed but nowhere near as pissed as I am.
I should’ve hit him harder.
I reach out and grab him again by his collar. “If you ever touch her again, I will beat your ass into the ground until you forget your fucking name.” I use my grip on his shirt to shove him into the hallway. “And you heard her, get the fuck out.”
He finds his footing and rights himself, but he’s still not leaving.
I take a step towards him, my fists are clenched ready to swing on him again, but this time, I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop after just one. The smug look on his face is egging me on, daring me to rearrange it. He’s staring right into my eyes, his face tight with irritation. Then, he looks past me as he steps back into the door frame and his face twists into a grin, “Text me later, D.” His face finds mine again and winks as he takes one last step back, far enough for me to slam the door in his fucking face.
My knuckles are pure white, my whole body feels like it is going to explode from anger. This guy has no idea what he’s done. He better hope I never run into him again.
It takes me a few moments to shake the feelings I’m having right now away, ignoring the overwhelming feeling I have to run to meet him outside and make sure his facial muscles will never be able to contort into that conceited guise again. But I need to focus on what’s important.
I need to focus on Drew.
I turn from the door back towards the kitchen to face her. “Are you okay? What do you need?” And with that, tears begin to fall and her face falls into her hands. I hear her trying to speak in between sobs, but I want to grab her by the shoulders and pull her in. Instead I lightly place a hand on her lower back and head her to the couch. “It’s okay,” I tell her, “just let it out.” We sit down on the couch, “He’s gone.”
Her head still in her hands, her red hair falling over her face. “I’m going to kill him. I’m going to kill him,” she repeats over and over again, the anger and betrayal overwhelming her.
After a few minutes, she sits up and rubs her eyes, red-ringed and swollen, and she is still the most beautiful person I have ever seen.
She lets out a sigh before saying, “I texted Reed because I needed someone to talk to.” I feel my stomach fill with guilt at the reminder that I was so close to being that person she could talk to. “I thought, after everything he and I have been through, he would be there for me. But…” She flinches at the memory. “He got mad that I didn’t want to have sex.” I try to hide the fury in my eyes by shaking my head.
I’m not just going to kick this guy’s ass. I’m gonna kill him.
“It’s what our relationship has been in the past, but I thought it might be good to try doing more than just having sex, but he didn’t want to hear it. That’s when he—” Her tears begin to fall again. “God, he started kissing me. I pulled away and told him I didn’t want to do anything, but then he grabbed me and held me so tight to him, I couldn’t get away.” Her voice is breaking and her breathing is getting shallower the more she talks. I can feel the anger radiating off her.
She continues, “I was trying to get out of his grip, and I yelled at him to not touch me. That pissed him off which pissed me off.” She wipes a loose tear away and sniffles. “He just threw himself on top of me, and for a second I couldn’t scream, couldn’t move, and he was touching me, touching me everywhere… I wanted to crawl out of my skin.” She shudders. “I can still feel him touching me.”
The last sentence is barely audible.
“But,” she begins again, and this time she is sitting up a little straighter. “I refused to just sit there and let it happen. Not after everything else I’ve been through. I wasn’t just going to freeze, so I pushed him off of me and just started screaming at him.” A few moments pass as she replays the conversation in her head. “It’s like everything I’ve been holding in for so long came out, like last time I saw him but much worse.” She shakes her head as if trying to shake away the thoughts in her head, remembering when she and I ran into Reed, and he forced her to confront feelings about the shooting. “He never takes me seriously and still sees me as the young 17 year old girl who hung on his every word. But I’m not the young, impressionable girl I was back then, so I told him what an asshole he was for forcing himself on me and how I regretted everything we ever had. I just let it all out.”
She takes in a shaky inhale and lets it out.
“He told me that I was stupid to be saying the things I was because of everything he’s done for me. All the times he’s been there for me.” She has a visceral reaction as she tells me this, looking like the words made her nauseous. “He was yelling at me, and I told him to shut up because these wall are so thin, but he didn’t care. ‘Let them hear what a bitch you’re being’ is what he said.”
I’m lucky these walls are so thin because I could tell something was going on, but Reed is lucky they’re thick enough that I didn’t hear the specifics of what was being said.
I have to push down the pure fury I am feeling for this asshole. Not only for what he did but for all those horrible things he said to her.
I fucking hate him.
I feel like this wrath within me is going to make me explode, but I need to make sure I am here for Drew.
Whatever she needs,
“What can I do?” I ask through my teeth, trying my hardest to stay calm.
“I need to shower. Need to get his… I need to shower.”
“Okay. I’ll give you some privacy.” I go to get up and head home, thinking she probably wants to be alone.
“No,” she grabs my arm. “Will you stay? I just… I don’t want to be alone right now.”
And with that, I never want to leave.