29. Adair
29
ADAIR
I ’ve been wrong this whole time.
I thought I had a good handle on the spectrum of Jack’s pissy moods, from slightly grumpy to snappishly sarcastic to seriously surly. I’ve felt my mouth go dry and dread knot itself up in my guts at the sight of his eyes blazing, or his mouth twisted up into a sinister simulacrum of a smile. I thought I’d been learning to read all those cues to get a sense of how angry he was, or what type of angry he was.
It’s not until this moment in his living room, staring at him and suddenly feeling as if I’m in a vacuum with nothing in it but my fuck-up and his eyes burning through me, that I realize: I’ve actually never seen Jack really furious.
“You. Did. What? ” His posture suggests violence. With fists clenched, shoulders squared and rolled forward, he looms over me with a stare that feels hot enough to vaporize me.
Too bad I’m not going to get that lucky. Even that first day when he caught me on that picnic table wasn’t like this. That was indignant, affronted, pissed-off. That was a breeze.
This is a fucking tornado.
Fuck me. I’ve never seen rage that doesn’t come over his face so much as transform it into something —someone — I don’t recognize.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I take a couple of steps away from him. I raise my hands as if they — as if anything — could deflect or hold back the wave of Jack’s rage about to crash over me. “I just thought —I thought…”
“You thought what? What could have possibly gone through your dipshit empty head to make you think for a single fucking second that anything good would come out of this stupid stunt?”
“I’m sorry.” I hate the way my voice sounds, shrill and close to breaking.
“You fucking pathetic brat,” he snarls. I’m mortified to feel my eyes filling with tears. It’s nothing he hasn’t said to me before, but it hits different right now. Why, why the hell didn’t I think to hold off on this stupid stunt until I was sure I had enough money and a place to go if I had to move out in a hurry?
I am a fucking pathetic brat. I swallow down the lump in my throat as I fight to get my words out. I’m hoping it’ll sting a tiny bit less if I see myself out before Jack throws me out.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I overstepped. That was a mistake.” My words are shaky. “I’ll leave. I’ll get out of your hair — figure something out.”
“The hell you will,” he snaps. “I wouldn’t trust you to be responsible for a fucking houseplant.”
“I can take care of myself,” I mumble. “I’ll pack up my shit and be out of here in an hour.” His expression darkens further. “Half an hour,” I say quickly.
“No.” He spits the word at me. “You will not. I’m mostly done installing the insulation out in my workshop. I can stay out there.” He starts to storm away towards the stairs.
I stare at his back for a second before the lightbulb goes on. Ah — of course Jack is toying with me now. He’s probably pissed-off that I denied him the satisfaction of tossing me out on my ass by beating him to the punch. He’s just telling me I can stay here now so he can kick me out himself later.
My thoughts are derailed when he abruptly spins around. Eyes blazing, he stalks back towards me. “And this should be fucking obvious, but since you’re a dipshit dumb bunny, I’ll spell it out for you. You are not to come in there. I don’t want to see so much as your fucking footprints around it. And I sure as shit don’t want to see your face.” He jabs a finger at me, coming very close. I resist the urge to flinch or back away.
“Or what?” I retort. I’d apologize a hundred more times if I thought it would make a speck of difference, but something in his belligerence is stirring up indignation of my own.
Jack sucks in a deep breath. His face is furious, but when he speaks, his voice is perfectly, spookily even. “Or I’ll treat you the same as any other intruder stupid enough to come onto my property.”
There’s probably a handful of smart, reasonable responses to a threat like that. Laughing is definitely not on that list. But since I’m a dipshit dumb bunny, that’s what I do anyway.
“The fucking stones to act like —” I bark out an incredulous laugh and give my head a shake, “ I’m the one intruding on your space? Do you have amnesia on top of being a bossy asshole? I’m only in your house in the first place because you brought me here!”
“Oh, right,” he snaps. “What was I supposed to do instead? Huh?” He folds his arms. “You didn’t have anywhere to go.”
“But I never asked you for help! It’s not like I wanted to come here —that was all your decision. You didn’t even let me have a say. And I’ve tried —I have been asking how I can contribute, but you won’t let me. You got pissy when I asked if I could pay for some expenses, you don’t trust me in the kitchen —” I break off and run a hand through my hair as I huff out a sigh of exasperation.
“I let you call the shots on everything . I mean, even my fucking hair! You want to be a bossy asshole, fine — but pick your battles. OK, so I shouldn’t have messaged Sarah. I’m sorry . You can kick me to the curb over that if you want. But it’s not fair — you can’t be pissed-off at me for stuff that’s what you wanted.”
Jack’s lip curls. “You fucking ungrateful brat. No, I take that back —” he shakes a finger in my face, “you fucking ungrateful bitch .”
Something snaps in me. Even as my brain is screaming at me to stop, slow down and think this through, my wounded pride overrides the guilt and shame that overwhelmed me earlier. There’s just one single, undeniably stupid, dangerous thought left in my mind as I stare up at Jack’s molten stare: This obnoxious dick wants to call me a bitch, he better not be surprised when I start acting like one.
My body ignores my horrified brain as I do the unthinkable: I haul off and slap Jack across the face. Propelled by my rage, the force of the blow surprises me, lighting up my palm with a fiery sting.
Retribution comes fast and hard. The burn in my hand is still radiating into a duller, deeper pain up my arm as Jack grabs it. He twists my arm behind me as he spins me around and shoves me into the wall.
I grit my teeth, withstanding the pain as long as I can before I let out a cry. “Fuck — alright , you’ve made your point. Ow , goddammit!”
Even as I’m saying the words, though, my mind flashes back to that first night. I remember the feeling of being trapped between Jack’s body and a big oak tree after he chased me through the woods. As upset as I am right now, my body responds the way it always does when Jack puts his hands on me.
My dick stirs in my pants.
Jack throws his other arm around my neck, releasing my wrist to grab ahold of the waistband of my pants. “You fucking little shit ,” he hisses in my ear. “What I wouldn’t like to do to you right now.”
Swinging my newly-freed hand behind me, I wiggle it between our bodies. I slide my palm up and down over the zipper of his pants. “So take it out on my ass, then.” My breathing is already getting quicker. “Get it out of your system.”
Jack lets go of me so fast I almost fall. I throw a hand against the wall to recover my balance and look at him with a frown.
“What?” I say.
He blinks and stares into space for a moment, looking lost, before dropping his gaze to me, anger flooding back into his expression. “That’s not the way it works, dipshit,” he snarls.
“Why’d you just… stop?”
There’s a storm in his dark eyes. I can tell he’s still furious, but there are other emotions —ones I’ve never seen before —tumbling around in there now, too: sorrow, sadness, shame.
“Because I want to wring your skinny bitch neck right now,” he says bluntly. “And I’m not going to put my hands on you when I’m angry.” He shakes his head, but the fight has gone out of him. “I’m not like that.”
“Oh.” I sound so dumb, but I don’t know what to say. Jack snatches his phone off the table and stomps away. The door slams hard moments later.
“Fuck,” I whisper to myself. My back still to the wall, I slump to the floor as the tears come. I cry out all the guilt and self-pity inside of me until I’m wrung out.
Once my sobs have subsided into stupid little hiccups, I think about what to do now. Was Jack serious about leaving me here and just basically camping out in his workshop? It sounds wildly impractical. Which, I realize, means it’s probably something he’s stubborn enough to do.
I stare up at the ceiling and take a long, shuddering breath. The reality of this situation is sitting heavily in the pit of my stomach.
This whole time we’ve been together-or-whatever, I’ve been thrilled whenever Jack has opened up and trusted me enough to give me even a tiny bit more access into his life and him. And I just fucking torpedoed that trust. I went behind his back and contacted Sarah after she cut him out of her life because she chose to believe a lie. And I ignored that, blithely inviting her back in.
I can’t blame him for hating me. Hell, I kind of hate me right now.
It’s also dawning on me that I can’t tell Jack I actually talked to Sarah. He thinks I just sent her a message she may or may not have even gotten. Going by how furious that made him, I can’t even imagine how much worse it would be to confess the whole truth: I sat across a little table from her, paid for her large cappuccino with an extra shot of espresso, listened to her fears and reservations —even hugged her goodbye, for fuck’s sake.
I’m just going to keep my head down and not say a word.
I wipe my face dry with my sleeve and try to think. A minute later, I get up, collect my phone and keys and shrug on my jacket. Sitting in my car in the driveway, I tell Jack I’m heading out for a while, figuring if he wants to grab any shit from the house, he can do so without running into me. I send a second message, telling him what time I’ll be leaving tomorrow morning. It’s half an hour earlier than usual, but it makes me feel a tiny bit less like an interloper.
I drive until I get to the first parking lot I reach. It’s in a half-shuttered strip mall with a laundromat and a pizza place. I pull in and leave my car running. Telling Jack I had somewhere to go was a lie. I just wanted to get out of his house.
Picking up my phone from the cupholder, I see that the messages I sent him were read. For a couple of minutes, it looks like he’s typing a reply. I wait, but a message never comes through. I stare at the screen numbly as tears blur my vision.