Chapter 13 #2
I ducked under his arm and shoved past him, putting distance between us before he could close that final inch.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
He blinked, hand still raised where my face had been a second ago.
“Stop trying to complicate this, Ash. We have a good thing going. Don’t ruin.”
Ash dropped his hand and turned, and only then did I realize my mistake. By moving away, I’d relinquished my spot by the door. The same door that Ash now leaned again, blocking the only exit from the room.
“It’s already complicated.” He sighed, while staring me down.
“Only because you’re making it that way!” We were getting louder. At least I was, my voice raising to a shout that echoed in the tight space of the closet. I needed to get the fuck out of here.
“Only because you refuse to admit what’s going on here.” He took a step towards me, and I mirrored it backwards. “You’re acting like you’re terrified of wanting me.”
The accusation hit too close. My chest tightened, panic clawing its way up my throat.
He was right. He was absolutely right and I couldn’t let him be right because wanting him meant vulnerability, and vulnerability meant pain, and I’d already been through that too many times.
I’d already failed at this enough for one lifetime.
“I’m not terrified of anything.” I shoved at his chest, all by egging him to fight me. “You just need to quit looking for something that isn’t there. We’re fuck buddies, that’s it.”
“We’re more than fuck buddies and you’re too chickenshit to admit it.”
My vision narrowed, uncertainty and fear tangling together until I couldn’t separate them. It formed an ugly rage in me and I let it bubble over.
I’d always been good at hurting people. I’d learned from some of the best.,
“Fine. You want to know what this is?” I grabbed his shirt, yanking him close enough that our noses almost touched. “This is me using you to get off. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. So if you’re looking for some romantic connection, you’re barking up the wrong fucking tree.”
Ash answered by fisting his hand into my hair, yanking my head back and to the side.
I let him, gasping at the pain, but I didn’t back down.
I knew what he was trying to do. He knew I fucking loved it when he grabbed me by the hair and shoved me down; he was trying to use that to subdue me now.
Bring me down from anger using the chaotic thrill and pleasure I found when he took control.
Smart bastard.
“You’re terrified. That’s what this is, Jude. You’re scared that maybe this—that we—could be something good and you don’t know how to handle it.”
The accusation hit too close and I felt my defenses slam back up like steel doors. “I’m being realistic.”
“About what?”
“About us! There is no us, Ash. There’s you and there’s me and there’s what we do when we can’t help ourselves. That’s it.”
“So I’m just an impulse you can’t control.”
“Yeah.” The word came out flat and cold. “That’s exactly what you are.”
The lie tasted bitter but I forced it out anyway because if I didn’t make him stop, if I didn’t shut this down right now, he’d keep pushing. He’d keep digging until he found all the soft, rotted parts of me I kept hidden.
And I couldn’t let him see those.
“And you know what else?” I stepped closer, crowding him against the door. “You’re convenient. You’re here, you’re willing, and you can take it rough. That’s all you are to me.”
His fingers tightened in my hair, pulling harder. Pain bloomed across my scalp but I welcomed it. This was better than whatever gentleness he’d been trying to offer before. Pain I understood. Pain made sense.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I do.” I grabbed his wrist, digging my nails in. “You’re nothing special, Ash. Just another warm body and a hard dick.”
I saw the exact moment something broke in him. The hope drained from his eyes, replaced by something harder. Colder. His jaw clenched and the muscles in his neck went taut.
Good. Better to end this now.
Better to make him hate me than let this become something that could destroy us both later. One day he’d look back on his moment and thank me for showing him reason and avoiding the mess that was me.
It was better to be the villain than the victim.
I’d learned that lesson the hard way.
Ash shoved me backward by my hair, releasing his grip so suddenly I stumbled. The force sent me sprawling against the shelves we’d just fucked against. A bottle of something clattered to the floor.
“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” His voice had gone quiet, dangerous. The kind of quiet that came before explosions. “You act like you’re so much better than everyone else. So above it all. But really? You’re just a coward.”
The word hit like a slap. My hands curled into fists at my sides. “Watch it.”
“Why? Afraid I’ll hit too close to home?” He crossed his arms over his chest, and I hated how steady he looked. How composed while I felt like I was coming apart at the seams. “You hide behind this whole ‘I don’t do feelings’ bullshit because you’re too scared to actually try.”
“I’m not scared of anything.”
“You’re terrified.” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “You’re so fucking terrified of getting hurt that you’d rather push everyone away first. Make them leave before they can figure out how damaged you really are.”
My breath caught. The words landed too close.
“Shut up.”
“Hit a nerve, did I?” He took a step forward and I fought the urge to back up. “That’s what this is really about. You want me to hate you so you can prove to yourself that nobody actually gives a shit. So you can keep telling yourself that being alone is safer.”
“I said shut the fuck up.” My voice cracked on the last word.
He stared at me, mouth slightly agape and eyebrows furrowed. The hurt on his face was so clear it made something twist in my gut. It wasn’t meant to hurt now. Not already. “Right. Because god forbid anything actually matter to you.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Like I give a shit?” He moved to the door. “But it’s fine, Jude. I give up. Go back to never getting attached. Never giving a shit. Let your past fuck up your future. I’m done trying.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yeah.” He yanked the door open. “That’s about all we’re good for, isn’t it?”
He walked out, the door swinging shut behind him.
***
I drove home in silence.
The city slid past my windows in streaks of neon and shadow. Traffic lights bled red into the rain on my windshield. I gripped the steering wheel hard enough to make my knuckles ache, jaw clenched so tight I could feel the tension radiating up into my temples.
The words Ash had thrown at me kept playing on repeat.
Coward. Terrified. Damaged.
My apartment building loomed ahead, concrete and brick stained dark with moisture. I parked in my usual spot and killed the engine. Sat there in the quiet for a moment, listening to the tick of cooling metal and the drum of rain on the roof.
I should’ve felt better. I’d pushed him away. Protected myself. Done what I always did when someone risked getting too close.
So why did my chest feel like it was caving in?
I climbed the stairs to my third-floor unit, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. The apartment was dark except for the ambient glow from the streetlamps filtering through the blinds. I didn’t bother turning on the lights, just closed the door behind me and leaned back against the wood.
I stood there in the entryway, jacket dripping rain onto the floor, and something hot and jagged rose in my throat.
You’re so fucking terrified of getting hurt that you’d rather push everyone away first.
My hands curled into fists.
He didn’t know what he was talking about. He didn’t know me. Didn’t know what it was like to need someone so badly it felt like drowning, only to watch them walk away the second you became too much work.
I yanked off my jacket and threw it at the couch. It missed, crumpling onto the floor in a wet heap.
Just another warm body and a hard dick.
The lie burned through me now, corrosive and vicious. I’d seen his face when I said it. Watched the light drain from his eyes like I’d gutted him.
Good. That was what I wanted.
Wasn’t it?
I paced to the kitchen, back to the living room, and then back again, unable to stand still. Energy crawled under my skin, restless and angry and wrong.
It wasn’t supposed to hurt like this.
I’d pushed people away before. Plenty of times. That was how I survived. How I kept myself intact when everyone else kept trying to crack me open and see what was inside.
But those other times hadn’t felt like this.
Those other times, I’d felt relief after. The satisfaction of cutting someone loose before they could cut me first.
This just felt like bleeding out slowly.
I grabbed a glass from the cabinet, filled it with water I didn’t want, and then dumped it in the sink. My hands shook.
You want me to hate you so you can prove to yourself that nobody actually gives a shit.
“Fuck you, Ash,” I said to the empty apartment. My voice came out rough, barely above a whisper. “Fuck you for making this complicated.”
But it had been complicated from the start, hadn’t it?
From that first night when he’d pinned me in the corridor and I’d felt something shift inside me. Something dangerous and inevitable.
And the sex. God, the fucking sex.
I dropped onto the couch, head falling back against the cushions.
It had been incredible. Explosive in ways I’d never experienced before. Every time with Ash felt like falling into something raw and uncontrolled, all rough hands and bruising, bites and the kind of desperate intensity that left marks for days after.
He’d matched me. Met every aggressive impulse, every darker craving I’d kept locked down with previous partners who wanted soft and sweet and safe.
With Ash, I could be myself. The version that liked it rough, liked the fight, liked taking and being taken in return. In unequal measure, even, because it felt so good to let Ash win and have him bend me over.
I’d never come so hard in my life.
I’d tried to keep it simple. Keep it physical. But Ash kept looking at me like he saw something worth keeping, and that terrified me more than anything else.
Because people didn’t keep me.
They tried, at first. They were drawn to the darkness, the brooding silence, the walls I’d built so carefully around myself. They thought they could fix me. Thought their love would be enough to make me whole.
Dylan had thought that.
Dylan, with his easy smile and his linebacker shoulders and his endless fucking optimism.
He’d loved my intensity until he didn’t.
Loved the mystery until he wanted answers I couldn’t give.
And then he’d realized that dark, broken boys were like that for a reason; emotionally constipated and damaged goods with issues locked behind years of learned silence.
As a kid, I’d learned that speaking up only made things worse. So I stayed quiet. Swallowed everything down until it fermented into something toxic.
Dylan had left six months in, frustrated and hurt and tired of trying to love someone who wouldn’t love him back.
Before Dylan, there’d been Jimmy. Jimmy, who’d seemed so steady at first, so grounded. Until he wasn’t. Until his hands became fists and his words became weapons, and I learned that needing someone meant giving them the power to tear you and leave you shattered and bleeding.
I’d left that relationship with bruises that faded faster than the lesson.
Don’t need. Don’t trust. Don’t let them close enough to hurt you.
There’d been others. Guys whose names I barely remembered now. Hookups that turned into something more until I panicked and ghosted. Relationships that lasted weeks before I found a reason to bail.
A pattern. A cycle I couldn’t seem to break.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
I pulled it out, half expecting it to be Ash. But it was just a notification from Instagram. Someone had tagged me in a photo from tonight’s performance.
I opened it because I was a fucking idiot.
The image showed me and Ash mid-fight, frozen in a moment. My hand was fisted in his shirt, his fingers wrapped around my wrist. We were so close that our faces nearly touched, eyes locked, mouths parted.
The caption read: These two are EVERYTHING.
Three hundred likes already. Comments flooding in about chemistry and tension and how we should just fuck already.
If they only knew.
I locked my phone and threw it onto the couch.
The apartment suddenly felt too small . Too quiet. The walls pressed in.
I wanted to hit something. Break something. Scream until my voice gave out.
But that wouldn’t fix this.
Nothing would fix this except time and distance and letting Ash hate me enough to move on.
I slumped onto the couch, head in my hands.
You’re too chickenshit to admit it.
Maybe he was right.
Maybe I was exactly the coward he’d accused me of being.
Because the truth was, I did feel something for Ash. Something big and terrifying that I didn’t have a name for. Something that made me want to smooth his hair and ask about his day and wake up next to him in the morning.
And that was the problem.
Because wanting those things meant risking everything.
It meant giving him the power to leave. To decide one day that I was too much work, too damaged, too fundamentally broken to be worth the effort.
And I couldn’t survive that.
Not again.
Not with him.
I’d barely survived Dylan walking away and Jimmy had left scars that still ached sometimes, and those relationships had been surface level compared to what Ash was offering.
Ash wanted all of me.
So yeah. Maybe I was a coward.
But cowardice had kept me alive this long.