Chapter 48
Forty-Eight
I ghost-walked through the week. Alfie sat on the edge of my mind, peering down at me like a gargoyle as I went about my daily life. His lies piled on top of each other, frantic monsters scrambling to eat me up.
Everything felt like a delusion. Every good moment from the last few weeks. Every moment with Maia over the last two years…all of it tainted.
It took less than a day for Alfie to start calling me.
I guess he knew I’d learned about Maia and wanted to offer new justifications for his behaviour but my patience was gone.
I ignored every text and refused to listen to my voicemail.
Anger, all I felt was anger. With every phone call, every text, it grew.
Keira flitted between fury and worry and when she wasn’t doing that, she was out all night doing who knew what. I didn’t want to know.
I didn’t tell Natalie. Maybe I would one day, but right now, I barely had room for my own thoughts, nevermind someone else's. Her relationship with Riley was so fragile and so much more important than any of the shit going on with Alfie and I. I didn’t want to rock that boat.
Each morning, I expected to wake up to reporters banging on my door, but they never came back. I guess they’d moved on, or Alfie had spun some other lie to draw them away.
On Friday night I crawled into bed, fearing sleep just like I did every night. I feared him being there, haunting my dreams but more than that, I feared the night he wouldn’t be.
I awoke on Saturday morning to a banging on my front door.
Groaning, I fell out of bed, taking my duvet with me to ward off the chill.
I opened the door to find Alfie standing there, cold fury on his perfect face.
Unlike the last time I’d seen him when he’d heated me to my core, now all I felt was cool anger.
“What do you want?”
“Just making sure you’re alive.” He stared at me and I stared right back. If he was waiting for an apology he’d be waiting a long time. “Can I come in? We need to talk.”
“No.” I tried to close the door but he grabbed it, pushing his way past me. “Alfie! Get out.”
“No. We have to talk and…why is it so cold in here?” He scowled, eyeing the duvet wrapped around me. “Can’t you afford the heating bill?”
“We’re just cutting back a little. We’re a person down now, remember? Keira and I have to make up the rent until we get a new non-crazy, non-spy roommate.”
He sighed, rubbing his bandaged hand over his face. I fought the urge to ask him how his hand was healing. “Lola, I can make up the difference in the rent.”
I snorted. “Not a chance, Alfie.” He opened his mouth to argue but I raised a hand. “Please just go. If Keira finds you here?—”
“I’m not afraid of Keira.”
Neither was I, I just didn’t need more drama. I contemplated dragging Alfie out by force but there was no way that was going to end in my favour. “Then talk fast and get out.”
Alfie took a steadying breath, recalculating in a way I’d seen him do a thousand times. “Lo, I understand you need time, but you can’t just shut me out like this. We have to communicate, you know that.”
“Fine. I know that,” I said through gritted teeth. “Now please leave.”
His jaw ticked in frustration. I was pushing all of his buttons but I was past caring. “I came to ask you to attend another therapy session.”
I stared at him, gobsmacked. “You are joking,” I scoffed but his deadpan stare told me he wasn’t. “Why the hell would I do that?”
“Why wouldn’t you? Do you really want to stay like this? Lo, I thought we were on a better page than this. When I saw you at Kal’s?—”
“When you saw me at Kal’s, I didn’t know about Maia.”
Guilt flashed across his face. “I’m sorry about Maia.”
“‘Sorry’ is wearing out, Alfie.” He’d said the same thing to me once, two and a half years ago when he’d been angry I hadn't told him I was getting more birth control. Birth control he’d been stealing. This was all so fucked up.
“Look, I’m not here to justify anything. I just want you to go to therapy. That’s why I’ve been calling you this week. I want you to let Priya help you.”
“Why?” I snapped. “She doesn’t seem to have helped you untwist your crazy.”
“That isn’t fair and you know it. I don’t want you falling into the same pit you did last time I hurt you. You’ve come so far and?—”
“I bet you loved watching that, didn’t you? I bet you loved having a twenty four hour live stream of me missing you.”
“Is that what you think?”
“Isn’t it true? Didn’t you spend two years stalking me, watching me like a creep, getting off while I cried countless buckets of salt over you.”
Those steel greys rested on me, not cutting, not searching, just resting, as if he was trying to anchor me with just his eyes and stop me from spinning out.
“No, baby. I loved watching you get better and thrive. But yes, I did watch you. I watched when you cut your hair off, when you cried. I watched you have nightmares?—”
I grimaced in disgust, turning away. I dropped my duvet, wishing I could shrug off his words as easily. I hated that he’d seen me like that, it made my skin crawl. Alfie grabbed my wrist, turning me to face him.
“I watched you during your most vulnerable moments and I’m still here.”
“Even when I don’t want you! You still aren’t listening. It wasn’t enough that you were filming every corner of my life, you had to give me a fake friend to spy on me behind my back. Isn’t that what you did?”
“Yes, it’s what I did, but you’re pushing too hard, Lo. The yelling, the pushing me away…I won’t let you force us back into toxic behaviours.”
I almost choked, I was so furious. “ I’m forcing us into toxic behaviours?”
Alfie lifted his chin, his face full of that haughty arrogance that I hated so much. “The way you’re dealing with it, yes, it’s toxic.”
“If I’m toxic then who’s fault is that?” I yelled. I hated that he was calm when I couldn’t stop spinning. “Tell me something, Alfie. Why do I have to deal with things in a healthy way but you get to deal with them however you want? Why do you get boundaries and I don’t?”
He raised his hands, a failing attempt to placate me. “I know it hasn’t been fair.”
“That’s a fucking understatement.”
“Lola—”
“No! I want you to go, Alfie!” My voice cracked with the strain and for the first time, Alfie stopped talking.
“I’m tired of listening and trying to be reasonable!
You dare to lecture me about toxic behaviour just because you turned over a new leaf four fucking days ago?
My behaviour isn’t toxic. It’s normal not to want to talk to the man that stole my birth control and stalked me for two and a half years. ”
It sounded insane when I said it out loud. He’d really done those things to me and I was really still here.
“Lo, if we don’t talk, we can’t fix this and I know we can fix this.”
“If I decide to talk to you, it will be on my terms, not yours and I’m definitely not going to couples therapy with you.” That wasn’t happening. I couldn’t sit there and pretend like I was sold on our future. I wasn’t.
“Not with me. Just you. Priya let me go as her client when I told her what I’d done.”
That made me pause, my anger stuttering for a moment. “She fired you?”
“She said she won’t work with us as a couple again until she’s assessed you.
When she let me go she offered free therapy to you for as long as you want it.
Take her up on that offer, Lo. Go and talk to her.
Or stand here and scream at me if you want but I’m not letting you shut down again.
” He took a tentative step closer. “Besides, we’ve still got nearly two months left of our deal. ”
I stared at him, gobsmacked for the second time. “Are you serious? You still expect me to hold up our deal after you?—”
“Broke all your trust? Yeah, I do. I’ve done it before and you survived.
Nothing has changed. Toxic bullshit aside, I’m still the man you wanted back.
This shit that I’ve done is the last remnant of a man I want to bury.
” He cupped my face, forcing me to look at him.
“I will bury him. I know you hate me, but you know that I didn’t have to tell you.
I could have kept it a secret, removed the cameras and you would never have been any the wiser but I didn’t. ”
“Do you think that saves you?” I didn’t miss him flinch at the ice in my tone. Good. I wanted him to feel every drop of my rage.
“I think it gives us a better jumping off point.” His expression softened, I could see how hard he was trying.
Trying not to fuck me into agreement, trying to find the right words, trying to find the healthier path where I hadn’t.
“I was terrified to tell you what I’d done, but in the end I had to jump and hope that you would still be there when I crashed. I need you to do this with me.”
I stared at him, at the man that was almost my everything. There was no logical reason for why I was still in this, I just was. It made no rational sense but irrationally? Yeah, it made every kind of irrational sense that I was still here.
“The deal still stands, Lo. If we get to the end of the three months and you don’t want this, I’ll let you go. Completely this time. But I need to see this through, and so do you.”
I wanted to argue. To shout and yell and tell him I didn’t need anything from him ever again but I couldn’t. He was right. As usual.
“Fine, I’ll talk to Priya.”
He breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, I?—”
I pulled away and headed for the door. I didn’t want to hear anything else. I opened it, giving him no doubt that I was done with this conversation.
Instead of moving, he just raked his gaze over me, from the bottom of my paisley pyjamas to the top of my bed-head hair.
“Before I go, I want you to agree to my covering Maia’s share of the rent until you find a new roommate. It’s the least I can do.”
“No.” I shook my head. “End of discussion.”
“Stop being so stubborn. A few more months until you find a new roommate isn’t going to make a difference to either of us.”
“A few more months?” I stared at him, a new wave of anger settling in as I realised something I should have figured out sooner.
Alfie let out a small sigh of frustration. “Why is this an issue, Lola?”
“Because it’s my life, I don’t want you paying for it!”
“What about when your life becomes our life?” He snapped, taking a step closer. “This isn’t about money, it’s about power. I know that my money gives me power, Lo. You need to learn to trust me with it.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. “You need to earn that trust.”
He nodded, stepping closer still until he was right up against me. “Agreed. I know I’m asking a lot, asking for more when I’ve already taken so much from you but this is the homestretch.”
I swallowed, fighting every urge I had to run away, to run to him. “I don’t know what more I can give you. I feel empty. You’ve gutted me, Alfie.”
“Just leave the door open. Have faith in me one more time.”
I closed my eyes, wishing I could find a path in front of me that didn’t involve hurt, but I couldn’t. All of them were littered with thorns that would cut my feet, but only one of them had sunlight at the end of it.
“I’ll try.”
His shoulders sagged and his hand clasped mine. “Thank you.” I stiffened at his touch and he let me go immediately. “I’ll see you soon.” He put a hand on the door, pausing before he closed it behind him. “Put the heating on, Lola.”