Chapter 30 – Josie
chapter
thirty
Josie
“I think we should end this.”
I said it standing in the middle of Marcus’s room at the Kappa Nu house with my keys in my hand and no part of me touching any surface he owned.
Which, in Marcus’s room, was basically everything.
The couch, the coffee table, the shelf of trophies above his desk that he’d arranged by size.
His cologne — the sharp, clean one that cost more than my textbooks — hung thick in the air, and underneath it, the hockey gear by the closet that he never washed fast enough. ESPN was playing on mute.
I’d been rehearsing this speech since my birthday. I’d finally worked up the nerve to corner him. I’d planned for yelling, for the cold silence, for the door slamming. I had a strategy for every version of him I’d seen in three years.
He didn’t even have the decency to look up from his phone.
I could still feel the phantom pressure of Waylon’s hands from the cottage.
It was just as visceral to me as seeing Marcus and that girl.
I was done waiting for the sweet version of Marcus to show up.
The sweet version didn’t exist. I’m aware it took me three years to figure that out, and I’m not proud of it.
He set the phone face down on the coffee table, carefully. Then he looked at me and said, “No.”
Just no, like the conversation was already over and I hadn’t caught up yet.
My chest seized. I had not planned for him to say no like I’d asked if he wanted fries with that.
“Marcus.” My voice went small, and I hated myself for it.
“Josie.” His thumb tapped the couch arm twice — the little tell I’d learned to watch for because it meant he was deciding how much patience to fake. “We’re not doing this.”
“I’m telling you it’s over.” I gripped my keys tighter, the metal teeth biting into my palm. “I’m not asking.”
His jaw flexed once, and his whole face went cold. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, like he was measuring the distance between us. “You’re mine, Josie. You need me. Is there someone else?”
The room felt very small all of a sudden. “No. Of course not.”
He watched me for a beat too long, scanning, the way he did when he thought I was lying about where I’d been. I kept my face still. I’d had years of practice at that. My heart was slamming anyway, but he couldn’t see that part.
“Good.” He leaned back, spread his arms across the couch, crossed one ankle over his knee — relaxed, like a man who’d already won.
“I’m not a dick, Josie. I’m not going to force you to fuck me.
But I have needs. And if you’re not handling them, I need to fuck other people.
That’s just how it works.” He smiled like he was doing me a favor.
“I’ll give you time to get used to the idea. ”
Get used to the idea. Like him cheating on me was a policy change I just had to accept.
“You’ve already been fucking other people, Marcus.” It came out before I could stop it.
For one second, his mask slipped. It wasn’t guilt, just irritation, like he was annoyed at his own sloppiness. Then the smooth expression was back, and he waved one hand like he was clearing smoke. “That’s what I’m saying. You stop being a prude, I stop having to look elsewhere.”
You stop being a prude. I’d had three years of that, three years of being told my body was something I owed him and was selfishly withholding, instead of something that had always been mine. But sure, Marcus. I was the problem. I was always the problem.
“It’s about me,” I said, and my voice was steady, which honestly surprised both of us. “I’m not happy. I haven’t been for a long time. And I’m telling you it’s over.”
He went quiet long enough that for one stupid second, I let myself believe he was actually considering it.
“You think you can just walk out. After everything my family has done for you.” Pleasant and light, like he was reminding me of something I’d forgotten.
“My father has kept your mother employed for nine years. CPAs are replaceable, Josie. Good ones are harder to find, sure, but my father has never had trouble finding good help.” He picked his phone up and turned it in his hands without looking at it, just playing with it.
“Think about what it would mean for her if she had to start over somewhere new. Especially at her age.”
The bass from downstairs was vibrating through the floor into my shoes, and his cologne was in my throat, and I could not get enough air.
“You’re threatening my mother.”
“I’m just noting how interconnected things are. You leaving me isn’t just about you, baby. It never was.”
I swallowed hard against the word baby, and my jaw locked before I could stop it.
I was aware that standing in your boyfriend’s frat room trying not to throw up while he threatened your mother’s job was not, technically, how breakups were supposed to go.
But nothing about Marcus had ever gone the way it was supposed to.
He went to his gear bag and came back with a jersey — burnt orange and blue, number 9, KANE across the back. “Be a good girl. Wear this to tomorrow’s game. Student section, Kappa Nu row.”
I looked at the jersey in his hands. A week ago, Waylon had given me a different jersey.
Marcus was handing me a costume. Waylon had given me a gift.
And I was so tired of pretending I didn’t know the difference.
I’d kept the ribbon, by the way. In my desk drawer, under my notebooks, where nobody would think to ask why.
“I’m done, Marcus.”
His eyes went flat. “Okay.” He set the jersey on the couch arm and smoothed it once, like putting a child to bed. “Your mother loses her job.” He paused a beat. “And I end Johnson’s shot at the NHL.”
My head spun. ESPN kept playing on mute behind him — some goal on repeat, crowd going wild with no sound.
He knows. No. He couldn’t. Waylon and I were — we weren’t —
“I see the way he looks at you.” He was already scrolling his phone. “I see the way you look back. My father has friends on every draft board that matters. One phone call. That kid from Bridgeport goes back to Bridgeport.”
I looked at the jersey on the couch, with his number and his name on it, and left it where it was.
I picked up my bag and walked out without looking at him. His voice followed me down the hallway, past someone’s open door where music and laughter were spilling out like it was a normal Saturday night.
“You’ll come around. You always do.”
I white-knuckled the wheel the whole drive to Hadley Hall, because I felt like if I let one thing slip, the speed or my grip or my careful breathing, all of it was going to come apart.
My apartment was dark. Kimmy’s birthday streamers were still taped to the window ledge. The chocolate smell from the lopsided birthday cake still hung in the air. Waylon’s Gabby Thomas jersey was folded on my dresser because I couldn’t figure out where to put something that precious.
I’d left Marcus’s jersey on his couch like it would burn me.
Waylon’s was on my dresser because I kept finding excuses to pick it up.
Guilt was supposed to feel bad, but mine kept feeling like wanting him.
If that didn’t tell me everything I needed to know about my life right now, I didn’t know what would.
I sat on my bed, pulled my knees up, and pressed my forehead against them. Marcus wasn’t going to let me go. Worse, he was willing to hurt people I cared about to get what he wanted.
My mother and Waylon. And he would enjoy hurting them.
I needed to figure out how to leave a man who wouldn’t let me leave.
But all I could hear was his voice.
Be a good girl.