Chapter 47 #2
I nod, and balance one cup on top of the other, holding the bag of traybakes in my mouth while I unlock the door.
When I’m in, I slam the door loudly enough to be heard, and before he can say a word, I give him notice that I’m in the building.
“It’s me. And I’m not leaving until we talk, so you can tell me to go fuck myself all you want, but I’m not going anywhere. ”
Silence.
I’m taking it as a win that I haven’t been told to leave yet.
I don’t have to go far to find him. He’s lying on the sofa with a blanket over his head. “You shouldn’t be here, Rhiannon.” His voice is a muffled grumble from under the blanket.
“And why’s that?”
“Didn’t you break up with me?”
I laugh, which makes him pull the cover from his face to look at me.
The contrast between Robert from a month ago and Robert now is startling.
Back then, he was confident, all crooked smirks and flirtatious gazes.
And now? Well, now he’s a smelly pile of man on the couch.
He looks like he’s aged a decade, his eyes are dark, blood-shot, and the bags underlining them tell me he’s not sleeping well.
“I understand you haven’t been in many, or any grown-up relationships, Robert, but no, I don’t tend to break up with people without having a conversation first. And I certainly don’t do it over text or phone.
Which you’d know, if you’d picked up any of my calls.
” I toe his phone on the coffee table next to him.
He has the decency to look bashful. “I thought you were going to read me the riot act and end our relationship.”
His voice cracks, and his sentence is labored, like he’s struggling to get the words out. I lean forward to touch his face, but he flinches.
“So, you thought hiding from me and not answering my calls was the better solution?” I offer him the cup, which he takes as he sits up on the sofa.
“When you put it like that, it sounds incredibly stupid.” He offers a shaky smile, but I think that’s more because he’s trembling than anything else.
“Every word I wrote feels like a trap I fell into. Every click makes me a villain in your eyes, in everyone’s eyes. I can’t breathe in this story anymore.”
It is kind of stupid. I don’t want to beat him to death with it, but I also need him to understand how this relationship should work.
“I understand what it’s like to have gremlins in your brain telling you that everything’s awful.
For longer than I’m comfortable admitting, I thought your silence might have been you breaking up with me.
But I need you to know that you’re right, it was a silly thing to do, and in future, if something like this should happen—which so help me God, Robert, I’ll kill you if you make this a hat trick of articles about my family—we need to talk it out. Together.”
He takes a precarious sip of his drink, eyeing me like he’s afraid I’m a mirage. “You’re not breaking up with me?”
“Do you want me to break up with you?” Please say no.
He shakes his head, loosening all the tangled knots in my chest at the same time. He drags his hand through his greasy hair, still staring at me, so I move to sit facing him, plonking my arse on the edge of the coffee table in front of his sofa.
“Why are you here?” He sounds truly confused as to why I’m sitting in his living room.
“Because that’s what you do for the people you love, Robert.
You show up when they need you.” I squeeze his hand.
“And more so when they don’t know they need you.
Plus, you kind of need a shower. You stink.
” I waft my hand in front of my face, but his usual chuckle doesn’t meet my ears. My poor boy is low.
“I’m trying to get them to print a retraction.
” He sips his hot chocolate. “Pete stole notes from my hard drive, wrote his version of the article, then put my name on it. I don’t know what his endgame was.
Maybe he simply wanted to sabotage me, it’s hard to tell.
But I didn’t write that article, Rhiannon. You have to believe me.”
I take his hand in mine and squeeze it again. “I know. I believe you.”
He looks so tired, so sad, so beat down. “I’m so sick of all the trash pieces in the media. I wanted to write something better, something real. And now all everyone’s ever going to think when they hear my name is I wrote a trash piece about my girl after writing about her father.”
“He’s… less than happy.” I’m still avoiding talking to him, but on my way to Robert’s house, I got a text from Dad saying to break up with Robert, or else.
I’m not really sure what the “or else” means, but considering I’m not walking away from Robert, I guess we’ll find out.
Dad has always been the follow-through parent. He rarely makes empty threats.
“I’m sorry. I should have been more careful with my material.”
The laugh I let out is louder than I expect it to be. “You mean you didn’t anticipate someone taking something off your hard drive?” I nudge him. “How could you?”
His haunted eyes meet mine. “I thought you’d think it was by me.”
“Had your name on it and everything. It didn’t read like your other pieces though; something was definitely off about it.
Not to mention, I gave you the benefit of the doubt at the castle.
Why would you think I wouldn’t do the same this time?
” A pang of guilt makes me shudder because I didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt at all, did I?
I overheard something with no context, made assumptions, and literally ran away.
He’s given me nothing but reasons to trust him since the day we met, and yet, here we are, with me thinking he’s trying to ruin me again.
He cups my face with his warm palm, stroking my cheek with his thumb. “There’s no smoke without fire. And you already threatened castration if I broke that rule. I don’t know. It made sense at the time.” He puts his hot chocolate down and drags his palms over his own face.
“It all came crashing down on my head in one go. My phone blew up with all manner of hate messages, the comments on the article all say I’m a prick who only dated you for the story… The walls closed in on me, Rhi.” He shrugs. “Mental health isn’t logical or conveniently timed, unfortunately.”
The urge to launch myself at him and squeeze him till he feels better is overwhelming, but he’s fragile, and I don’t want to make things worse. “I should have come over sooner.”
He shrugs. “I’d probably not have let you in.”
I search his face. “Are you okay?”
“I’m working with my therapist, trying to get the train back on the tracks. I’ll be okay. It feels silly to be honest. But I don’t get to decide what derails me, or when.”
I move to sit next to him on the sofa, pulling his head to my shoulder.
“I think I need to quit my job. I feel like I’m a ghost in my own career. What’s the point if all I do is break trust, even by accident?” His voice is a whisper, fragile, like it might shatter the walls around him.
I freeze. “You can’t.”
“I can’t be me anymore. Every word I wrote, every sentence, it’s like I poisoned the world I care about.
I’m failing at everything I love.” The blanket slips off his shoulders as he curls tighter.
His eyes, dark and haunted, look past me.
“I feel invisible and dangerous at the same time. If I stay, I ruin someone else. If I leave, maybe I can breathe again.”
I grip his hand, nails digging in, desperate. “You’re not leaving. You’re not allowed to hide from the people who love you. You are not a ghost. And I am not going to watch you disappear.”
He shudders. “I don’t know who I am without this. Without writing. Without being needed. Maybe… maybe I’m nothing.”
I lift his chin, eyes boring in. “You are everything. And if you quit, you quit us. And I will not survive that.”
After a long and charged silence, I clear my throat. “I’ve been thinking I need to quit mine too actually.” It’s the first time I’ve voiced the thought from the recesses of my mind, but we both look at each other like it’s the worst idea we’ve ever heard.
“I have no fucking clue who I am without my job.” His wobbly voice drops further. “If the world didn’t need me for this, I’d vanish tomorrow. No friends, no deadlines, no columns, no hope. Just… nothing. And that’s terrifying.”
“You can’t quit your job.” My admonishment is harsher than I intended.
“You can’t either.”
We both laugh softly. “My team deserves better than constant scandal.”
“That’s your internalized misogyny talking. Think about how often your male counterparts are in the papers. Does anyone bat an eyelid?”
I groan. “I hate when you make rational points.”
He boops my nose with his index finger. “No, you don’t.”
“You don’t need to quit your job either.”
He heaves out a massive sigh. “Maybe I want to. Maybe it’s time to find something that’s more fulfilling than writing clickbait.
Maybe I need my own Hot Girl Healing list, or a map of who I am when I strip away the mess everyone else calls my life.
Maybe then I can stop hiding in stories that aren’t mine.
” He squeezes my thigh. “But first, I need a shower. My girlfriend says I’m smelly.
And then, if you’re open to it, I’d like to tell you about an old friend. ”