8. Cali #2
The nerve of him. I scoff. It comes out of me like a laugh that got sick and died halfway.
"'Here we are.' You know what, Ronan? The sheer, unbelievable nerve of you.
You bug my car. You bug my kids. And then you sit at my island in your little glasses reading the sports section, and when I catch you, you just go, 'Here we are. '"
"Would you like me to be more defiant about it?"
"I would like you to have asked."
"And what would you have said if I did that?"
"I'd have said no!"
"Precisely," he says. "That's why I didn't ask."
I don't remember lunging at him, but somehow, I'm closer now, close enough to jab a finger at him. "You don't get to decide that! You don't get to decide that my no is inconvenient so you'll just skip past it! That is exactly, exactly the thing—"
"I know what it is." His voice stays level.
"It's the thing I did with the mirrors, and the invoice, and the company.
It's the whole reason you're standing in this kitchen ready to put my head through the window instead of upstairs planning our honeymoon.
" A corner of his mouth twitches, like he can't help teasing me, even now.
"I'm aware of the pattern, kotyonok. You're not telling me anything I haven't already told myself. "
"Then why do you keep doing it?"
"Because the alternatives are bloody, and I decided a long time ago I would rather you be furious with me than have to find out where they took you or them."
I shake my head like that'll keep his stupid logic away from me. It might be contagious, after all. "That's—no. No. You don't get to be noble about this. You don't get to do a creepy, controlling, felony thing and then dress it up as love."
"I never said love. I wouldn't presume that far."
"You know what I mean!"
"I do." He nods, slow. "I know exactly what you mean."
The problem is this kitchen. It's not big enough to handle all these feelings taking place in it.
It was never built for an enraged woman to properly storm around in and flail her arms while yelling at a man who deserves a frying pan to the noggin.
Every time I swing at him with another accusation, I end up a step closer, because there's nowhere else to go.
He doesn't move away, not an inch. He just sits there on that stool with his forearms on his knees now, looking up at me, and the expression on his face is neither fear nor shame.
It's amusement.
He's amused. At me. While I have my finger an inch from his throat.
"Are you laughing?"
"No."
"You are, too. You're absolutely laughing."
"Again, I would never dare to do such a thing." He looks down at my finger, then back up at me. "You're very close, by the way."
I take a step back. "Don't change the subject. The subject is that you're a stalker."
"I think that's a harsh interpretation. I made you safer without your consent, which we've already agreed is wrong. But even though I'm agreeing with you about it, it only appears to be enraging you further."
"It IS enraging me further!"
"Like I said, I can see that."
I run out of new material somewhere. I've used up all the fresh outrage and now, I'm just recycling, I'm circling back to the nerve and you had no right and my children, hitting the same three notes over and over.
I'm exhausting myself, honestly. All this running in mental/emotional circles might be good cardio, but it isn't solving a dang thing.
What does seem to be somewhat of a solution is what Ronan does next.
He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his phone, unlocks it with his thumb, taps a few times, and holds it out to me.
"Here," he says.
I don't take it. "What is that?"
"The tracker app. Everything's on it. The car, both backpacks, a few others I've tucked around here and there.
If you want to turn them off, be my guest. I'll show you how, if you'd like.
You want to glue them all to me and watch where I go for a change?
You're welcome to do that, too. I've got nothing to hide from you anymore, Calista.
" He keeps holding it out. "It's your show. It always was."
The wind goes clean out of me.
Even while knowing it's a bad idea, I look down at the screen.
There's a photo of me on the home screen behind the app. I have no memory of it being taken. I'm on the dock at the lake, laughing at something, my hair's a windswept mess, my feet are in the water, and I look…
I look happy. I look like a woman who doesn't own a mirror and doesn't need one.
The app is open on top of it. A few scattered little dots on a map. My car out front. Two backpacks upstairs in the hall closet where the kids dumped them. My whole world, all accounted for. All exactly where they're supposed to be.
I stand there with his whole phone in my hand, his whole surveillance state and his whole secret and a photo of me laughing, and I genuinely cannot decide whether to throw it at his head or not.
"I hate you," I tell him.
It's the least convincing it's ever sounded.
Ronan raises one insufferable eyebrow.
"Does it make you feel better when you say that?"
"Yes!" I explode. "No! Maybe! I don't know!"
He shrugs. "Alright. Well, if you do figure it out, let me know. I'm curious."
Then he takes the newspaper back off the counter, unfolds it, puts the glasses back on, and goes back to reading the sports section.
I look at the back of his stupid neck.
As I do, I think how easy it would be to strangle him with my bare hands. Well, it wouldn't really be that easy. My fingers wouldn't even reach all the way around, probably, but I could give it an honest effort.
Or I could just climb up on the island and sit on his face until he suffocated, which has the advantage of him not being able to talk anymore while it happened.
Honestly, both are tempting.
I set his phone down on the counter next to his elbow. Gently. Because I'm a bigger person than he is.
Then I go make myself a cup of coffee, and I make it wrong, way too much sugar, out of pure spite, and chug the whole thing standing up while he reads the box scores like a man who's already won.
He hasn't won.
He never will.
I just haven't decided how he loses yet.