Chapter 18 #2
“I refuse to maintain a relationship out of obligation. I never needed your crumbs or anyone else’s. I’m not going to start needing them now. So yes. I’m releasing you from the obligation your lunatic mind made you think you had.”
“What exactly are you talking about?” I probed slowly, pushing the words through my teeth. “You think I’m with you out of obligation?”
“I don’t think it… I’m sure of it, Heithor. Should I consider myself cheated on too?”
“What? No! Fucking hell. Of course not. How the hell did you get there?”
“The right question here is: How can you be so cynical and two-faced? Where did all that damn sincerity and honesty you filled your mouth with when we got back go? Straight to hell? Or did you leave them at the penthouse?”
“I never lied to you, Antonella…”
“But you didn’t tell me the truth either.
Which is the same thing, you bastard.” Her finger accused me.
“You’ve been lying to me since we left the penthouse, Heithor.
You’ve been omitting things because in that shitty head of yours, you think I can’t handle the truth because I’m pregnant.
You regretted it and weren’t man enough to tell me you didn’t want this anymore.
Instead, you were a cowardly bastard showing me with your shitty actions that you weren’t interested in keeping our commitment. ”
“Antonella, don’t call me that again,” I hissed, controlling my own anger. “If you want to hit me for being ten fucking minutes late, do it. But don’t call me a bastard or a coward again.”
“Why? It’s what you are. A shitty cowardly bastard who thinks I’m stupid enough not to know when you aren’t telling me the truth or you’re hiding something from me. And let me say this: no one hides what’s good and right.”
In the space of a breath, I was in front of her, face-to-face.
“I told you not to call me that, damn it!”
She planted her hands on her hips.
“And I already told you not to try to make a fool of me, but you keep trying.”
“You’re being unfair and saying things you’ll regret later.”
“I already regret it,” she revealed. Dismantling me. “We should never have gotten back together. Insisting on something that didn’t work once was a tremendous stupidity.”
“Is your love for me so volatile, so small that it can be measured? Ignored? Because mine for you can never be measured. It’s beyond my own understanding, and I’m already going gray from showing it every way I can. And even so, you insist on devaluing it and devaluing me in the process.”
“I don’t need to do that when you do it yourself.”
“You wouldn’t be accusing me as recklessly as you are now if you didn’t make so little of me and my feelings for you… You devalue me and my love every time an opportunity appears. It gets tiring, Antonella.”
“The door is right there.”
“Are you listening to me, damn it?”
Ella gave me a hard look. “You aren’t telling me anything new. You’re doing what you’ve been doing for the past few days. Actually, you’re doing worse, because now, besides dodging, you’re also trying to cast me as the wicked witch in the story.”
She disentangled herself from my hands at the same time I took a step back, needing that distance. I forced myself to relax and manage the situation.
“I’m not to blame for your own insecurity when it comes to us.
I can’t forgive for you, Antonella. I wish I could.
But these burdens can’t be transferred. Each person has to carry their own.
That’s why I’ve always told you to be careful with what you do, because the one who pays the highest price is you.
And if you keep insisting on this shit, you’re going to end up making me believe the one who regrets this here is you…
I haven’t lied. I haven’t cheated on you.
And by God, I’m not with you out of obligation…
I agree with you when you say it would be a tremendous idiocy if we got back together without love between us.
We didn’t work out in the past because it’s hard for a relationship to thrive when there’s only love and willingness on one side.
” I pointed it out. “Of the two of us, the last person here who has the right to doubt anything certainly isn’t you. ”
She let out a low laugh of scorn and wiped her face.
“You think because I made mistakes in the past I don’t have the right to say anything anymore?
That I don’t have the right to dislike an attitude, or in your case several attitudes, that don’t please me only because I made mistakes?
Now I’m obligated to accept everything in silence?
Have you been using drugs or sniffing shit?
Hell will freeze over before I willingly accept anyone trying to make a fool of me. ”
“It hurts me to know you judge me and my feelings so badly when you know the only thing I want is to love you and make you happy. You know that’s true. I’ve given you countless proofs of my love for you. But it never seems to be enough.”
“Believe me, it was more than enough. Your behavior lately has done an excellent job of showing me how much you care about me.”
“Have you tried, even for one minute, to set aside those twisted thoughts against me and consider that maybe I’ve been acting strangely not because I’m doing something wrong, but because I want to protect you?”
“How the hell is your neglect of me supposed to protect me? Actually, protect me from what? From the friend you’re helping?
The one you spend hours and hours with? Is he the one you talk to when you move away from me to answer your phone, when you never did that before?
Is he the same one you were with two days ago while I, like a fool, was waiting for you with a damn dinner and you didn’t have the decency to let me know you weren’t going to show up anymore?
Or did the friend change? Maybe he turned into a woman overnight, huh?
” I watched her sarcasm transform into an incandescent ball of female fury as she approached me, looking into my eyes like she wanted to kill me.
“I remember very well hearing a woman’s voice when you called me that night to tell me you’d be late, and then you disappeared.
You know what else I remember, you son of a bitch?
I remember the hugs you subtly rejected when you were ready to leave and when you arrived from God knows where.
I remember the pain and humiliation I felt every time you did that.
I remember the empty answers you gave me when I questioned you, because that was what we agreed on at the penthouse, wasn’t it? ”
“Antonella…” I called, but she seemed beside herself as she kept talking and her delicate finger poked my chest. It seemed safer to let her speak.
“‘Talk to me, let me know what’s bothering you and what you think I did wrong before you turn your face away from me. That’s how we’ll solve our problems. By talking.
I’m not psychic enough to guess things, and neither are you.
Lack of dialogue creates misunderstandings that wear down any relationship.
’” She used my words, in a crude imitation of my voice, which at another time would have made me roar with laughter.
“Isn’t that what you told me, Mr. Let’s-Always-Be-Honest?
Apparently, the agreement only applied to one side…
No! Now I’m the one who’s going to talk.
You had your chance and didn’t want to take it, so now you’re going to listen, you miserable son of a bitch. ”
God, this drove me insane in the most unhinged way. Seeing her face me so fiercely made me pissed because of the baby and hard as hell because she was so wild. My cock was so hard I could have driven nails into railroad ties.
“We had an agreement, one you weren’t man enough to keep.
I gave you countless chances to open up to me and tell me the truth.
Still, you chose silence, just like you kept up your shitty behavior.
Remember the showers you took in your old room before coming here and the clothes you wore to sleep, when I know you don’t like sleeping in anything, or at most in underwear?
I remember. I also remember that you always change in your old room and keep your things there, when they should be here since this is officially our room, right?
Or are you going to tell me none of that is suspicious?
That it’s all very normal and I’m the one seeing things that aren’t there? ”
“Things aren’t what they seem, Antonella. When I said I was helping a friend, I didn’t lie to you. Believe me, please.”
“A friend? Should I feel proud that you’re so helpful? Oh, give me a break! I have friends, Heithor, friends who are like sisters to me, and I don’t act strangely with you because of that or do things that hurt you. What kind of damn friend makes you reject me and come home late at night?”
She exhaled hard as she moved away from me.
I lifted my hand, intending to stop her, but forced it to lower while I weighed the risks of laying everything out for her.
I was pissed at myself for having this job, at Ella for reaching such wrong conclusions when my only intention was to keep her safe, and pissed at that operation for splattering its filth over our life.
I didn’t want Antonella involved in my shit.
I knew how to deal with it. I had been trained for it.
It was my job. What I had chosen. The world out there was much worse than people painted it, and there was no room left for innocence or hope. I didn’t want that for her.
Ella turned back to me, her red eyes fixed on me, breaking my heart as the words came low from her mouth and she gestured with her hands.
“You know what? It doesn’t matter. I’m not going to fight with you for a lost cause. That would be foolish of me. You won’t tell me the truth anyway, so get out of here and go to the devil, and take your friend with you.”
Fear made my body tremble.