Chapter Twenty-Two—Blake
From across the classroom, I watch her walk in, a friend by her side and a smile on her face, though I can tell it’s anything but genuine. She looks as though she’s lost weight. It can’t be much, it’s only been a few days since I last saw her. Or maybe there’s a part of me that wants to know she’s suffering without me just as much as I am without her.
But that’s not going to last long.
She’s turned in her notice at the restaurant, and she’s blocked my number on her phone, abandoning most of her possessions at my place in the process. I know she doesn’t have the cash to replace them, that’s how I know she’s serious. But if she thinks I’m going to let her slip through my fingers like that, she’s got another thing coming.
I don’t let what I want get away, her least of all.
I don’t know how aware she is of the watch I’ve been keeping on her, but I’m not letting her go it alone. I’ve been coming to a few of her classes, keeping watch outside her dorm, anything to make sure she’s safe. It's clear from how she carries herself now that she’s anything but comfortable, after what she saw, but I can show her that she has nothing to fear.
Not even me.
I hardly take in what the professor is saying. I get a few strange glances from other people in the class, but I ignore them pointedly. I can go where I want on this campus, an upside of running Silencio. Nobody says shit to me about where I go or what I do.
Nobody would dare deny me what I’m owed. Nobody, of course, except her.
I intercept her as class comes to an end, and she stares up at me as I lean in the doorway, just a few inches from her. Her friend hangs back, but she waves at her to go on ahead.
"Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine," she tells her, and the friend gives me a hard stare before she leaves. When I’m sure we’re alone in the empty lecture hall, she lays into me.
"You can’t just... you can’t just turn up here, Blake!" she protests. "You need to leave me alone. I have a life, I have a job—"
"Do you?" I shoot back, calm. "Because you quit your job at the restaurant."
"That’s nothing to do with you."
"Of course it is, you left me with a staff shortage."
"Oh, so that’s what this is about?" she demands, cocking her head to the side. "You’re worried about a damn staff shortage?"
"You know as well as I do that’s not what this is about," I murmur, stepping closer to her. She withdraws slightly. She’s not sure about having me this close, but she can feel the chemistry between us, burning as bright as it did before.
"Then what are you doing here?"
"You know."
"You’re not studying," she shoots back. "You should go. Focus on your own degree. Or whatever bullshit Silencio has you doing—"
I lift a hand to silence her. She can’t be talking about that in public, not so blatantly. It’s dangerous. Her eyes flash with anger, clearly not appreciating the way I shut her down.
"You need to leave me alone, Blake," she warns me as her shoulders sink down slightly. "I just... I just can’t do this. You can’t control me. You can’t pull the strings on every little detail of my life. That’s never who I’m going to be, it’s never what I’m going to want. I get that you might be used to that, with the women you’ve known before, but I..." She trails off.
"You’re not anything like the women I’ve known before, and that’s why I want you," I murmur, sliding my hand down to hers. I expect her to pull it back at once, but she doesn’t move, letting me hold her there for a moment.
"No, you don’t." She sighs. "It’s not like that, and you know it. You want— you want me to play by the rules you and your family stick by. It’s not like I can just brush aside everything else that’s going on in my life to focus on you."
"I’m not asking you to do that."
"No, you’re not asking, you’re just making it happen," she replies. I trace my thumb in a circle around her knuckle. I can feel the goosebumps appearing on her skin. She can’t deny our chemistry.
"You ruined my life, Blake," she reminds me. "You... you made me lose my job. You forced me to work at the restaurant. And then, I saw..." She shakes her head. "I don’t even want to think about it. I can’t. I’ve been having nightmares about it every night. Do you understand that? I can’t stop."
"Then talk to me about it. Let me help you with it."
She draws her hand back from me.
"You can’t help me with it, Blake, because you don’t understand where I’m coming from. I... I’m used to relying on myself. And I don’t want that to change. I’ve worked too hard to let go of all of that. And I’m not going to just leave everything behind and be some pretty girl on your arm for the rest of my life. I won’t be controlled. Not by you and not by anyone."
As she glances past me, her jaw sets tight. It’s clear she’s not interested in discussing this any further. Her words sting, snagging in my brain like thorns.
"I’m going to leave," she tells me. "And I don’t want you to follow me. I don’t want you to come back to my classes. I don’t want to see you hanging around my dorm room, which I can barely afford, by the way, since I had to leave the restaurant. I want to live my own life, Blake. Do you get that?”
Fuck, when she talks to me like that, it takes everything I have not to just grab her, plant my lips against her, and take her right here and now, against the wall of the lecture hall. I flex my hands by my sides, fighting the urge as best I can.
With that, she brushes past me. I want to follow her, but her words are burning into my brain. If I go after her now, it will be proof that I’m incapable of trusting in what she wants, what she needs. I need her back in my life, more than anything, but I can’t force her. I can’t make it happen.
"Fuck!" I exclaim as I slam my fist into the stonework beside me. My voice echoes uselessly through the empty lecture hall. I don’t know what to do. I have to prove to her that she can trust me, that she can put her faith in me to give her the space she needs. But how exactly do I prove that? How do I give her the life she wants, the life on her own terms—and a life with me?
My mind begins to race. My father always told me, growing up, that there was a solution to every problem. It was just a matter of finding it. Even when it seemed impossible, there was always some approach you could take, something you could do to make it happen.
And I’ll be damned if I can’t find one here, a way to make her mine—and a way to prove myself to her despite all the times I’ve let her down and tried to control her.