MUTILATED PIE CRUSTS #2
The pain in their voice is so visceral I can physically feel it, and it’s taking my breath away.
“I’m so sorry that you’ve been hurting so much for this long, but trust me, when everything’s said and done, he won’t get away with it,” I try to reassure them.
Qiang shakes their head, the pain and confusion washing over their eyes until a disdainful glare, full of resentment and hostility, wins out.
“He’s already gotten away with it,” they say solidly, as if the matter is closed. And it may have been closed up to now, but since Kingston’s decided to show his face here, it’s been reopened.
“That was then. This is now,” I tell them, letting them know it’s not too late for Kingston to get his. But the knowledge does nothing to the mask they’re wearing; no change in their expression; they just fix their angry, lost eyes on me.
“And what’s different now, Marcus? You? What business is it of yours?” they grate out, the tone full of sarcasm and accusation, a clear command lingering in their tone for me to back the fuck off. Too bad for Qiang, I’m a stubborn pain in the ass.
“You are my business,” I point out, because regardless of what kind of relationship we have, they are a part of me and my sphere now.
“I told you to drop this already,” they volley right back at me with cold acerbity.
I shake my head. “And I told you, you don’t get to dictate my feelings.”
Their jaw ticks at that. “Your feelings don’t give you the right to insert yourself into my life,” they bite out.
I take a deep breath and meet their angry gaze with my sincere one. “It’s not just about that. I’d do the same for Tristan, for Darryl, for Qi. I care about you, and I protect the ones I care about. I don’t have to be with you to care about you.”
I had hoped that would calm them down a bit, to know that the care was coming from a friendly, even familial place, as opposed to a romantic one, but I’m not sure if they’re paying attention.
Or maybe they are just so amped up on everything happening that their fight mode has overridden their logic completely, because instead of simmering down, they boil back up, their cheeks are flaring with angry red splotches, and the tick in their jaw looks painful.
But worst of all are their eyes, like a caged wounded animal, nothing but fear and pain.
“Then go put the effort on them and leave me the fuck out of it. Who even are you to insert yourself into my life? I don’t want your presence, Marcus.
I don’t want your pity, your fucking effort, or your fucking meddling.
I want you to stay the fuck out of it. It’s my life.
I control it. No one else gets a say. Just me,” they shout.
If it weren’t for knowing how much pain they’re in, the cruel words they just dropped would probably lay me out. Especially considering, even knowing what I know, it still hurts enough for my chest to crack through and to feel little pinpricks around my eyes.
Between the pain that’s radiating off of them in waves and the cruelty of their words, I’m on the verge of breaking all the way down in tears myself.
From the rejection from earlier, to that stupid kiss they gave to Cade that should have been fucking mine, to this trainwreck of an argument, the small sanctum of relief I’d felt earlier at getting all of this off my chest with a new friend has been completely obliterated.
I look up at them, and all I can see right now is the echoes of damage caused by someone who never deserved to cause this kind of devastation.
“I’m so fucking sorry that after all this time, you still aren’t over him, that you’re still so stuck on him that you can’t see past his faults enough to see not everyone intends you harm.”
Qiang just sniffs at that. “Everyone, meaning you, right? God, your ego is staggering. You can’t fathom that maybe, just maybe, someone doesn’t want you, so you have to resort to such bland excuses to reason it out.
I’m not stuck on him. I hate him, and while I don’t hate you, that doesn’t mean I want you either. ”
A voice in the back of my head screams at me to just walk away, but I’m too raw, and my body moves without my permission—a slow, steady step forward, and another, and then another.
I keep moving until I’ve got Qiang backed up against a wall.
I curl my fingers under their chin and tilt their face up to meet mine.
While they aren’t slapping or pushing me away, the angry glint in their eyes is flashing dangerously.
It’s a stark contrast from the teasing flirting that was happening the last time I did this, to the cruelty of the moment happening now.
Their eyes aren’t looking back at me with anything akin to giving in to this pull between us.
However, I don’t miss the deep bob of their Adam’s apple at the proximity, or the way their lips part enough for me to believe that even now, underneath all this anger and fear, they’re still feeling it more than they’re willing to admit.
“It’s a bald-faced lie, Qiang. I see the way you look at me, like it’s taking every effort in you not to reach for me.
The way your pupils dilate when I get too close.
The way your breath hitches and your skin breaks out in goosebumps every time I touch you.
And that fucking phone call when it was my name falling from your lips as you came.
No, pretty. You want me so bad you can barely stand it. It’s only him who stands in your way.
“It pisses me off to know that what keeps me from who I want most is that piece of shit. It pisses me off that even though you hate him, he still has this much control over you. It pisses me off because I know your tics against me are just some of the many excuses you use to keep yourself from feeling anything for anybody. He never deserved the moments you gave him, and he sure as fuck doesn’t deserve the years’ worth of control he’s mastered over you since then,” I breathe into their face, as they glare defiantly back up at me.
They reach up and slap my hand away from their face.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.
You don’t know shit about me. You’re just a toddler throwing a fit because you didn’t get your way.
Hate to break it to you, sunshine, but life is long, and rejections are many.
Get used to it and stop dropping all your self-reasoning logic on me because you can’t grasp someone saying no to you.
Grow up, Marcus,” they sneer out coldly.
“I don’t need to rationalize this. The proof of everything I’ve said is written so clearly in your eyes that an actual toddler could read it.
But you know what? It sucks; it’s really sad.
I want so badly to show you you’re worth more than you think you are.
That you deserve everything he made you shy away from.
But I also have pride, and a healthy sense of self-worth.
I’m not a child, and I won’t be treated like one.
When you finally see yourself in the mirror, then give me a call.
Until then, this—whatever this is—is done,” I grate out, equally pissed and so fucking done with this day and taking the lashes meant for someone as ridiculously pathetic as Kingston Adair.
“It can’t be done, Marcus. It never existed for anyone but you,” they lie stubbornly through their teeth.
“Keep fucking telling yourself that, pretty,” I force out before shoving myself away from them and leaving them with the remnants of their mutilated pie crust.
Without looking back and falling back into whatever magic spell they have over me, I’m upstairs and slamming my bedroom door shut with a rattle that shakes the house.