29. Chapter 29
“I’ll wipe up the spilled milk,” X says out of the blue.
We’re sitting in a small booth in a shitty restaurant in Reno, keeping our heads down and getting some food in us before we faint from hunger.
“What?” I say as I struggle to keep up with her.
“I’ll wipe up the spilled milk when I first spill it. I’ll clean up after myself.” She blinks as her face grows red. “I can change, if that’s what you need.”
“You can’t change,” I tell her. “And if you did, it wouldn’t be the same.”
She throws her hands in the air, nudging her coffee which slops over the edge. She doesn’t notice. Doesn’t wipe up the spill. “Then what do you want? What happened last night was not a one-night stand. You know it and I know it. And I refuse to pretend I’m the only one in this relationship.”
I fold my napkin in two and wipe up the spill as she watches me, chagrined. “Sorry,” she mutters.
“I need time, X. You were right, what you said before. I’m all over the place and it isn’t fair to you. I gotta figure it out on my own.”
“In the meantime, I’m left hanging.”
“You gotta give me some room.” I lay the stained napkin next to my cup. “You’re the kind of girl who lives in the moment. Knows her mind. Does and says exactly what she feels. Me. I’m more complicated.” I realize I’m an idiot even before the words fall out of my mouth.
X confirms it. “You’re an asshole is what you are.”
She’s right, I am. But I’m not any more good for her than she is for me. “See that right there. You’re a good girl, X. You don’t swear, you don’t have one-night stands. You don’t slum. It’s what’s going to happen if you stay with me. “
“You don’t know me,” she hisses.
I almost laugh, but I do have some self-preservation. This girl wears her heart on her sleeve. She has no mystery, no coyness. She doesn’t know how to be anyone other than who she is. And it’s what I love about her, but also what scares the shit out of me.
“You don’t know me either,” I tell her. It’s better than acknowledging the truth.
Her reply is brittle. “Yeah, ‘cause you’re more complicated.” She pauses as she gets her anger under control. “I don’t know who you used to be before you went to prison, but now, who you are today, I know.”
When I don’t respond, she continues, “You have to stay in control, have to show the world how cool and collected you are, because you can’t be out of control or you think you’ll self-destruct. You’re not claustrophobic but you can’t stand being anywhere without a back door. You need to get out fast, to escape. It’s what you’re doing to me. Treating me like I’m an apartment when what I am is a home with lots of windows and doors. A safe place. But you’re blind to all that.” She snorts. “And that’s the part I don’t get. You see everything and yet, you don’t see me.” She crosses her arms and looks out the window, blinking her eyes.
I lean towards her. “It’s not about who you are or what I don’t see. You think what’s happening to us right now is a nightmare? Try spending nine years in prison. The first thing you learn when they slam the door on you is that you don’t show fear. Ever. If someone’s gonna kill you, they’re gonna do it, no matter how you much you beg them not to. But if you don’t show them you’re afraid, they might think long and hard about why you aren’t. And that hesitation might be all you need to get the drop on them.”
I’ve never said this to anyone. Never laid my heart on my sleeve this way and I resent X in the moment for making me justify my behavior towards her and the world in general. “That’s why I can’t lose control.”
“Yeah, but I’m not a threat.”
“It’s not that fucking simple.”
She leans across the table and says in a low voice, “It is that simple. You don’t wanna change, then don’t, I’m not gonna judge you. Besides, I make you lose your cool. It’s good for you.”
I stare at her. “You don’t know who I was before I went to prison. You don’t want to know. And what you do to me, you’re gonna find out someday and it won’t be pretty.”
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t need to know who you were before you went to prison. You’re not that same guy anymore. You’re also not the guy you show to the rest of the world. You don’t know who you are.”
Fury hits me between the eyes, not at her, but at myself. At this fucking mess. At my inability to take what I want without fear.
The waitress rescues me from losing my shit by bringing the bill. I dig in my pocket, throw some cash on the table and get up, yanking X to her feet.
“Let’s get out of here,” I mutter as we walk back to my bike. “I know a place we can stay.”
X shoves the helmet on her head. “Ow!” she exclaims as she runs her hand under the helmet and unfolds her ears.