Chapter 22 #2
“You don’t know the first thing about her,” she said, weaving some tension into her tone. She wasn’t good at those kinds of tricks.
Blake broke into a condescending sneer. “On the contrary. I’ve been studying you both very closely. I’ve seen enough of her—of you two together—to know that you’re letting her take advantage of you. And what’s more pathetic is that you’re smiling about it.”
“That’s new, isn’t it? There was never a smile on my face when you were taking advantage of me.”
“Who are you trying to gaslight, Denny? Me or yourself? I treated you far better than she does.”
“Please…” scoffed Denny. Blake didn’t know the difference between spending money on someone and caring for them.
“Cheap off-brand chocolate bars she probably nicks… That’s how much she cares about you?”
It wasn’t so much the superficiality of the statement that baffled Denny as what it revealed. She didn’t have to fake her dumbfounded reaction this time.
“How could you possibly know about those?”
“Your shop has very large windows.”
“You spied on us.”
“Just a bit of reconnaissance.”
Denny’s heart was hammering against her ribs. It wasn’t an open admission, but it wasn’t denial, either.
Reconnaissance.
Typical Blake: never making a move without securing herself the higher ground first.
“I love those bars, for the record,” Denny remarked, heart warming at the memory of Eris sticking one into her mouth to calm her after a particularly rude customer.
Eris couldn’t even speak back then. They’d never shared a single word and Denny was already in love with her, although not yet aware of it.
“Mmh.” Blake idly swirled the whiskey around in her glass. “Beggars can’t be choosers, after all.”
“You know when I felt like a beggar? When I was crawling on my knees for a scrap of your affection.”
“Ooh, someone went to therapy. Well done, darling.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
Something shifted in Blake’s expression. It got dark and serious, losing all bravado. She stared at Denny with an intensity that made Denny’s skin crawl.
“I’ve always given you what you wanted. You’re a hypocrite if you have the nerve to pretend otherwise.”
“All I wanted was to be enough for you!”
“Says the one who forgot my birthday.”
“And I was mortified! I forget my own birthday, Blake!”
In her mental rehearsals of this confrontation, Denny had taken things in stride with quick, detached answers that would undermine Blake’s footing.
Now that she was here, the script was crumbling.
There was despair in her voice. She was still justifying herself when she’d sworn she’d never give Blake anything again.
She didn’t owe her. And yet here she was.
“I have this crazy thought sometimes,” mused Blake, tracing the rim of her glass with a fingertip, “that you got on my nerves on purpose.” A splinter of ice struck Denny in the middle of her chest. “You loved crawling at my feet.” Blake’s fingers curled around the glass, pupils suddenly blown.
“So spineless, so eager to please me…” She shut her eyes, head tilting as she took a deep inhale and released it with something eerily close to a moan.
“I miss the look in your eyes when you’d cry…
” Her eyes closed again, just for a second, before striking Denny again. “You look so beautiful when you cry.”
Someone was singing Happy Birthday in a foreign language inside the café. Whistles and bellows and clapping so loud Denny felt it in her bones—bones that felt too heavy and too brittle to move or even breathe.
She remembered this feeling all too well.
In the year with Blake, she’d spent half the time high on the crumbs of fictitious happiness that Blake would drop for her at carefully timed intervals, and the other half crying from the forced withdrawal.
“I loved you.” Her lip trembled. Something hot rolled down her face.
“Why couldn’t you just… love me back?” The cracking of her voice filled her with shame.
She was supposed to have overcome this; instead, Blake had managed to worm her way under her skin again.
Denny was surrendering what Blake had come for: tears, grief, control.
She couldn’t stop, couldn’t help the pathetic sniffle that escaped.
“What’s so awful about me that made you so horrid all the time? ”
Blake sat still, an elbow propped to the backrest of her seat, the other on the table, the glass hanging between her fingers, swaying slightly.
“Honestly? I don’t know what’s wrong with you.
You’re fucked up like that.” Flat, emotionless.
Almost conversational. “But the more I hurt you, the more you loved me.”
A sorrow too profound to withstand tied Denny’s throat like a noose.
Because all of it was true.
With hindsight, with a clarity that she’d lacked when she’d been right in the middle of it, she realised that that was exactly how things had always been between them: every punishment of silence and distance had only made Denny more desperate to win Blake back, whatever the sacrifice, whatever the cost. And she’d paid, and paid, and paid, until there had been nothing of herself left to give.
She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to prevent a sob from slipping out. She refused to accept that Blake still had the power to break her heart.
“My god, look at you…” A dark gaze roamed over her like a lustful caress, the greedy look of a shark smelling blood. “How could I ever give you up?”
A wave of nausea twisted Denny’s stomach. How could she have loved so much someone who got off on seeing her in pain?
She reached into her bag, praying she had tissues. Soft fabric skimmed her fingers. She knew what it was before she saw it: one of Eris’ chocolate bars. Denny hadn’t put it there.
A spurt of warmth spread inside her, injecting strength into every crevice of her aching soul. Blake’s venom might still affect her, but it didn’t control her any more. Perhaps this was what healing was supposed to be.
“Where’s your better half, by the way?”
The mockery in how Blake pronounced ‘better’ only fuelled Denny’s determination to regain her composure. She wiped her nose, dried her tears, sat up straighter in her seat.
“Home. I didn’t want you to be intimidated by her.”
The moment she saw it, a flare of anger so deep and red it almost tinged Blake’s eyes with red, she knew she’d snatched an unprecedented victory: she had made Blake fumble. It was like watching a fortress collapse under a light breeze and find out it had been a house of cards all along.
“You’ll never be mine again, will you?”
Denny shook her head, returning all the condescension that had been dumped on her in the past few minutes.
“No.”
As the sound lingered between them, hatred trickled into Blake’s gaze. What she was looking at wasn’t prey any longer, but a worthless pebble to kick out of the way.
“Very well. Duly noted.” Her face was a cold mask that couldn’t conceal the storm boiling beneath it. She downed all her whisky in a go, setting it down with a heavy thud. “When your little bubble pops, remember it’s a consequence of your own actions.”
Panic mounted in Denny as she watched a fuming Blake grab her purse and stalk away.
“Blake!” She rushed after her, spinning her back by a wrist. “This has nothing to do with Eris!”
“This has everything to do with Eris!”
A vicious shove sent Denny reeling backwards. Her heel caught into a fracture in the pavement. She staggered, regaining her balance by miracle, but another shove caught her off guard. The impact with the wall behind her cut her breath.
“Oi! Easy there, mate!”
Denny didn’t know whose voice it was. When she glanced up, a large man held Blake back, away from Denny. Taking in the ponytail of dreadlocks, she realised it was the laptop guy.
“Enjoy your girlfriend, as long as you have her!” spat Blake from behind his broad frame. With that she was gone. A small crowd of passersby remained to gawk at the scene she left behind.
Denny was paralysed with her back to the wall. She hadn’t anticipated such an incensed reaction. Riling Blake was exactly what she should have avoided.
What did I do?
“You alright, doll?”
“I— Are you—”
The man offered her a reassuring smile. “I’m your guy.”
“Oh.” Denny let him lead her back to the table. “I’d imagined someone more… edgy.”
“Nah. I’m as boring as it gets. I texted Eris the all-clear, she’ll be here any moment.”
Gratitude spilled into Denny’s thrumming heart. “Thank you.”
“Will, by the way.”
“Oh. Denny.”
Will’s handshake was strong but gentle. Denny’s hand felt unusually small in his.
“Photos don’t do you justice, Denny.”
She accepted the compliment as graciously as she could, despite her social skills being momentarily out of order.
“Sorry, I’m a little…”
“Shaken?”
“Blake has this effect on me.”
“Would a drink help?”
“I don’t drink. Thanks, though.”
With a knowing hum, Will shucked off his jacket and draped it over Denny’s shivering shoulders. It was huge but pleasantly warm and the fragrance of Will’ cologne reminded her vaguely of her dad’s. She found herself smiling: this was the kind of person she wanted around Eris.
Her phone was still recording. She tapped stop and checked the audio quality: perfect. She couldn’t wait to update Alex and his husband tomorrow.
Will was watching her with a mixture of curiosity and fascination, which happened to be quite mutual.
“What was a sweet thing like you doing with that nutcase?”
Denny tossed her phone into her bag. She ran a hand through her hair with a sigh. “How much did Eris tell you?”
“Enough to understand the situation.”
“You seem to be much more well-informed about me than I am about you.”
It was a good-natured jab that Will took with a self-conscious half grin.
“I’m not relevant enough to Eris to be worth mentioning.”
“And yet she trusts you enough to ask you to look out for me.”