56. Chapter 56
Alex’s office building looks the same as it always has; clean lines, glass front, neutral colors meant to soothe and reassure. The kind of place that promises safety through structure. Control through credentials.
I shove through the front doors with my bat still in hand. The receptionist looks up, startled, mouth already opening to speak.
“I’m here to see Dr. Dormsworth,” I growl out.
Her eyes flick to my bat and then to my face. I really fucking hope she calls the cops, because I’ve got a whole slew of information I would love to spill.
“I—I’m sorry, do you have an appointment—”
“Oh, honey, I think the bat shows I don’t. But that’s okay, he’s expecting me.” I hiss and before she can argue I’m already down the hall. She’s chasing after me, as if she stands a chance in hell to stop the amount of crazy I’m about to unleash on her boss.
And I wish I could have kicked his fucking door in, but the bastard steps out to greet me before I get there. He’s as composed as ever in his dark suit and his nice slacks. His hair perfectly styled and those ridiculous blue eyes painted in innocence to anyone who doesn’t actually know him.
Our gazes lock as I storm toward him, his mouth quirking. His attention flicks to my bat before slowly crawling back up, and that innocence changes to downright amusement.
“Why don’t you come in and take a moment,” Alex purrs.
“Take a moment?” I hiss.
“Yeah. That.” He grins.
I’m going to rearrange every last brain cell in that pretty skull of his. I storm past, faintly aware of him waving off his receptionist and mentioning something about schedules.
I storm in, ready to light into his ass when I find a man awkwardly gaping at me on the couch.
“Oh, I—uh…” I mutter and the man hurries to his feet, glancing nervously between me and the bat.
“You did fantastic today, George.” Alex soothes and gestures for the door. “Why don’t you schedule another appointment two weeks from now with Angie at the front desk.”
George doesn’t so much as question it, not with a crazed bitch with a bat hanging out in the corner. He’s quick to get the hell out of dodge, even being so kind to shut the door at his back on the way out.
“You’re carrying that thing like you know how to use it, little fox.” He taunts.
I scoff and step forward. “Ha. Ha. You’re so funny.”
He grins and stalks past me to lean on the edge of his desk, folding his arms to his chest as he studies me. So instead of doing all these fun word games we like to play where we go round and round, I cut right to the chase.
“You killed Evan,” I snarl.
He doesn’t deny it and I drop the bulk of the bat into my hand with a heavy smack.
“That man,” I continue, voice tight, “did not get to decide my life and neither do you.”
“I removed a threat,” he purrs.
“He was not a threat, Alex. You fucking know that, so drop the bullshit.”
“Fine, he was an intrusion.” He shrugs.
I groan, trying not to have a play-by-play of that mirrored room right here in the middle of his office. Public witnesses be damned.
“You don’t get to rewrite reality to justify this.”
“I don’t need to rewrite it, because it’s done.” Alex huffs.
My hands are shaking now, the rage rattling right out of me.
“Oh, I just want to—fuck, I just want to beat you like a goddamn drum!” I shout, not giving a damn that anyone can hear.
“First, you come into my life through that shit show of an event. You fuck with my head like it’s all a big game to you.
” I snarl and begin to pace, trying not to take out my frustration on all the expensive furniture in this room.
Furniture that was perfectly curated to make anyone who comes in here feel comfortable.
I’m not really fucking comfortable right now.
“Second, you whisk me away to absolutely-fucking-nowhere because you’re going to ‘fix’ me, right?” I add, Alex’s brows arching as he watches me lose my mind.
“And don’t even get me started on the sex,” I hiss. “You leveraged it against me I’m pretty sure and used it to further twist me into knots. Because why would you want me smooth? No—Sadie is best manipulated when she can’t figure out her ass from her brain!”
He opens his mouth to that one, but then promptly shuts it because I am so not fucking done.
“I am so angry at you!” I bark, tears stinging my eyes.
“I’m angry that you came into my life and turned it upside down.
I’m angry because you let me walk out that door and didn’t chase me down—you promised to chase me, Alex!
And I am so fucking angry that you disposed of someone instead of just coming to me and say—gee, I don’t know—I fucking miss you, Sadie! ”
I hurl my bat down onto the couch, sliding my hands up into my hair as I gape at him.
“And I am angry that I love a fucking lunatic!” I rasp. “That I don’t care what you’ve done and who you do in, I just care that—however crazy it makes me—that I do in fact love you.”
Silence drops like an atom bomb, my chest heaving angrily as I stare at him.
“You done?” He murmurs, mouth curling.
“I— no, I am not done.” I snap.
“Fair, but while you catch your breath—which you need to do—I am going to say a few things. When I’m done, you can continue.”
I gesture, ready to hear whatever he’s got to say to what I’ve just thrown up all over his office in my anger.
“I didn’t come for you because I knew you would come back.”
He doesn’t actually think that is solid, right? Like, can he hear himself right now?
“That’s not an answer,” I hiss.
“It is, little fox. Just not one that makes you comfortable.” He murmurs gently.
I bark out a laugh and then fight the urge to scream into a pillow again. Lot of that going around lately.
“You don’t get points for honesty right now.”
“I’m not asking for points,” he muses.
“Kind of seems like you need them.” I grumble and shift on my feet. “If not points then, what are you asking for?”
“I’m asking you to hear me.” He says softly. Far too softly for someone who was just screamed at by a bat-waving lunatic.
“Fine. Then talk.” I snap.
“I love you,” he says.
Just like that.
No buildup or flourish. No fancy declaration or hesitation. Just three words, spoken unevenly like a diagnosis.
“That’s—” I start, then stop myself because what do you say to a man who doesn’t think in normal terms? Who doesn’t look at the world and see it the way most of us already do? “That’s not something you just get to say.”
“Why? You said it,” he counters.
“Yeah, well you don’t love me. You’re only obsessed.” I shoot.
“Yes,” he agrees.
I stare at him, stunned. “You’re not even going to deny it?”
“No, because obsession doesn’t preclude love. It only sharpens it.”
“That is the most unhinged thing I’ve ever heard,” I breathe.
He tilts his head, studying me. “Is it inaccurate?”
“Yes!” I explode. “You kidnapped me. You killed someone. You control everything—”
“I gave you space,” he interrupts.
I scream through my clinched teeth, unsure what else to do. “You literally drugged me and took me to a cabin in the woods!”
“And let you leave when you panicked. When it would have been easier to just keep you.” He supplies as if that’s somehow a miraculous favor he bestowed upon me.
“I don’t own you, but I won’t share.” He adds. Just tossing fuel on the fire.
“That’s ownership with better branding,” I deadpan.
“I like to call it a boundary.”
I scoff. “You want to talk boundaries? Let’s talk about all the ones you obliterated. You don’t get to talk about boundaries.”
“Then neither do you, because you keep stepping into mine.”
My brows arch at that, because well… he’s not wrong but I want to be right, right now so I’m just going to ignore that.
“You love the part of me that’s broken because that’s what fits into your world.” I snipe at absolute anything.
“I love the part of you that survived. The part of you that didn’t bother to soften itself to be palatable.” He corrects.
“You love that I can bleed,” I hiss.
“I love that you don’t pretend it doesn’t hurt,” he shrugs.
My throat burns with emotion that I’m trying to shove right back down it.
“You scare me.”
“I know.”
“You’re ridiculously dangerous and so very bad for me.”
“I am.”
“You could ruin me.”
“I could,” he agrees. “But I won’t.”
I shake my head, running out of things to throw at the wall and make stick. “You don’t know that.”
“I do,” he says quietly. “Because I already know what it would take.”
“You’re psychotic,” I whisper. “You’re controlling and just—fucking morally black. You don’t bend.”
“I don’t,” he confirms.
“And I love you,” I groan.
He smiles warmly, and I hate that he can do so and it immediately wipe out all rationality. That I just melt little inside and maybe not forgive his sins, but certainly turn an eye away from them on occasion.
“You shouldn’t,” he says softly.
“I know and that’s the worst part.”
Silence crashes down around us.
“I won’t cage you, Sadie. I won’t soften you. I won’t ask you to become less so I can feel safer.” He breathes out.
“And in return?” I ask bitterly.
“You don’t pretend you don’t want me by lying to yourself,” he murmurs.
“And the space? You said you’d give me space.” I ask, heart pounding.
“I will. Space to choose and breathe, space to leave if you need to. But, if you leave to be with someone else, I will intervene.”
I groan. “There it is.”
“That’s not jealousy,” Alex shrugs. “It’s just a hard fact. One I’m not pretending is otherwise.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I like to think I’m complicated. Much like you,” he smirks.
I sigh and run my hands back into my hair. Just staring at him.
“We’re always going to fight, aren’t we?” I whisper.
“Yeah, but the makeup sex kind of does its job, doesn’t it?” He teases.
I snort despite myself. “The sex is nice.”
“Yeah, but loving me is better, isn’t it?”
I purse my lips, eyes narrowing on him as I try one last time to come up for some reason as to why this could never work. The short list is easy; I want to kill him, he infuriates me, some days I think he needs to be locked up in a straight jacket.
It’s just… I love him.
And that’s the thing about love. It’s messy and imperfect, and it never comes the way you want it to.
It isn’t like they show it to be in the movies or the books.
It can’t be wrapped up in a bow inside of a neat little box.
It’s never really sated by a happy ending, because I simply believe there’s no such thing.
I think we live for the happy moments in between all the crazy instead. We live for the people who see us and the ones who don’t shy from the gray areas that make up most of what we are.
“Can I kiss you?” He murmurs.
“Fuck, I guess.” I mutter.
He chuckles, reaching out to grab my shirt before tugging me to his chest. “That’s my little monster.”
I scoff, but his mouth falls over my own, silencing any of my protest and doubt.