29. Hayworth
TWENTY-NINE
HAYWORTH
I’m a fool.
I’m such a fucking fool.
I knew what people are like. I knew what happens when you get attached and I went and did it anyway.
Yeah, maybe it wasn’t supposed to be a real attachment but I guess I forgot to tell my stupid little head.
“ Stupid , stupid, stupid Hayworth,” I shout and throw the TV across the bus.
The glass display cracks into a million pieces and the impact makes the whole Smash Bus creak. I pause for a moment, glancing at the entrance, looking for him and waiting. Waiting for everything around me to collapse but it doesn’t. And he doesn’t show up. Of course he doesn’t. Why would he? I mean nothing to him.
I take a deep breath and hold on, waiting for everything around me to crumble but once again, nothing does. The bus is built to last. I, on the other hand, am not so sure if I can take this hurt. But the bus is okay. I’ve made sure of it, otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten the license to use it as a rage room. Which works to my advantage right now because I don’t know if I can stop. Or if I even want to stop.
It’s my fault. It’s all my fault and no one else’s. It’s not Wells’s fault for messaging me your boy is at the Valentine Tag or Felix’s for being human. It’s mine and mine alone. I fell for a guy. Simple as that. And now I’m paying the price.
Silly me thought if I distance myself from him, if I stopped getting us tangled in each other’s limbs and beds I’d avoid the heartache, but nope. Heartache came to twist my insides anyway.
I grab the bat and beat the plushies with their cute little noses and their button eyes and their stupid heart-shaped bellies. I’m sick of it. Sick of them all. Sick of this world that refuses to recognize this is what happens when you allow yourself to fall in love. This is the kind of monster it creates. The one that stares at me every time I look into the mirror.
It doesn’t matter how many times and ways I bring the bat down on the plushies. They remain unscathed so I turn around ready to break some other crap when I see him there, like an illusion. A wonderful illusion threatening to bring me to my knees.
“What are you doing here?” I have to be strong. I have to be logical. I can’t…
I can’t let my heart guide me even if it skips a beat when I see him standing there. Even if all I want is to take him in my arms and savor this moment. Because…he came after me. He did.
But it doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean he’s not here to break my heart some more. And I can’t let it happen again. Not again. Never again.
“Hayworth!”
“How did you find me?”
“Huh?” He looks around, and as if he remembers himself, he continues. “I saw you heading east so I assumed. I got a cab out here and saw your car.”
“You should get out.”
“No, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Fine,” I say and throw the bat to the floor and walk out of the bus.
Or try to.
Felix grabs me by the arm and squeezes it and renders me immobile whether I like it or not.
“Can you tell me why you’re upset?” he asks in a calm, cool and collected tone that makes me sick to the stomach. If he doesn’t even know what he’s done wrong he’s no better than Jack.
“You know why!” I huff and take the goggles off so he can see my eyes crystal clear.
He shakes his head. “I don’t think I do,” he says. “We…we’re fake dating, aren’t we?”
His words take my breath away.
Is that all I’ve been for him? A fake date? A fake everything.
“We are.” I somehow find the strength to say.
“Okay. So why are you upset?”
I let out a long angry exhale and he chuckles.
“You think this is funny?”
“No,” he says but his chuckle turns into laughter. “No. It’s not. I’m sorry.” He takes a deep breath and composes himself. “It’s not funny. But…just admit it.”
“Admit what?”
“That you’re falling in love with me,” he says, rolling his eyes.
I pull away from his touch and step back, trying to find the words. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh please, Hayworth. If you weren’t falling in love you wouldn’t be so mad right now.”
“I’m mad because…because…”
Shit. Whatever I say I’m only going to prove him right.
“So what if I am? It doesn’t matter anyway. You clearly don’t feel anything for me or you wouldn’t have gone to the Valentine Tag or kissed someone. So why do you care if I’m mad?”
Felix laughs again and shakes his head as if in disbelief.
“This isn’t funny!” I grumble.
“No, you know what? I think it actually is hilarious. How the hell did two people who promised they don’t want or have time for love manage to fall in love anyway?”
“It’s not f—fall in love? What do you mean?”
“What do you think it means, Hayworth? Why do you think I’m laughing? I’ve been beating myself up that I have feelings for a guy who has sworn off love and can never return my feelings and here you are angry as all hell because you don’t think I love you back. We’re pathetic.”
I open my mouth but whatever I was about to say just flies out of my mind and I shut up again.
“Let me get things straight. I went to the Tag event because I was fed up feeling like this for you and you’ve been ignoring me so I thought I should go out and get over you.”
Get over me?
He wants to get over me?
“The guy you saw me with was a stranger who tagged me and tried to kiss me—by force—I might add, and who’s now suffering from groin pain. I followed you because I know what you’ve been through and I couldn’t let you think I was like them. Like the guys who broke your heart.”
He takes slow, barely noticeable steps toward me but I can’t move. I can’t look away. I can’t breathe.
“The truth is, I’ve been lying to you.” My stomach clenches and I wait for the kind of words that can make me or undo me entirely. “I told you I hate love when the truth is…I love love. I design romance covers for a living and I read romance books before bed every night. Hell, I’m even writing romance because I love…love. And I fucked up because I fell in love with you.”
Forget breathing, even my heart has stopped beating as he gets so close I can smell his perfume, I can almost taste his lips.
“Can you…” I croak. “Can you repeat that please?”
He puts a hand to my chest and my throat tightens.
“I love you, Hayworth,” he enunciates and with his free hand pulls a pink heart off his blouse and sticks it onto the hazmat suit. “Tag, you’re it,” he whispers.
Suddenly, I get control over my own body again and grab him by the back of the neck and pull his mouth into mine. He’s never tasted sweeter. Our kiss gives me goose bumps. Goose bumps that make my hairs stand on end and a wave of heat travel down my body.
He presses himself to me and cups my face with both hands in the most tender but intoxicating kiss we’ve ever exchanged.
“So?” he asks when he pulls back.
“I’m falling in love with you too, Felix. Please…please don’t hurt me like the others.”
He smiles and shakes his head. “And you promise not to turn into a transphobic dick.”
“Never!” I say quickly and loudly.
“Good,” he says.
“Good.”
“Great,” he adds.
“Great.”
He slides his hand down my neck to my chest, looks into my eyes and smirks.
“So…you…love me and I…love you,” he says.
“Seems like it.” I nod.
How…how did this happen when only moments ago it felt like my whole world was ending?
This…
This has got to be a dream.
But if it is, I don’t want to wake up.
“This is going to do wonders for your little club.” He chuckles and it becomes infectious because I chuckle too.
“Screw the club.”
“Or…you can screw me,” he mutters and I massage his neck and bite my lip.
“Done and done!” I answer him and bring our lips back together.