Chapter 21 #2
My throat is tight, face hot as emotions twist like a knife in my gut.
He’s snatched something from me—he and everyone else that plays his betrayal on loop—stole something precious that I’ll never get back.
He’s led the charge in ripping any softness I had to shreds, any naivety that the world could be nice to a girl like me.
This may be my only chance to exorcize the demons he seeded in me.
“I’m a real person, Connor,” I say, voice fracturing.
“I’m not the subject of your next pop song or some muse you can reference in interviews about your oh-so-profound lyrics.
I’m flesh and blood and I have feelings and what you did to me hurt and it matters and you need to be told that so maybe you can stop treating people like disposable playthings.
I know you don’t care about my feelings, and hopefully one day I’ll stop expecting you to, but you have to stop destroying people as you search for yourself. ”
He looks at me for a moment, stare hard and unreadable. He lets out a deep breath through his nose, tilting his face to the ceiling. It looks like real emotion is playing out across his face.
“You’ve always been so dramatic, Cubby,” he says with a resigned sigh, gaze dropping back to me, boredom dulling his features.
If Americans weren’t such huge fans of the death penalty, I’d strangle him right now, I really would.
“You’re a prick,” I say, laughing in spite of myself.
Connor smiles, and that smile exterminates any dark humor I could find in this moment.
He’ll never fucking get it. “I didn’t deserve the way you treated me,” I say, voice steady, chin lifting.
Saying it unlocks something in me, a cage door opening.
The rush of it carves through my empty chest, scraping the bone, but the hurt feels good.
It feels more real than anything I could ever hope for with this man.
We stare at each other. I wish I could say unspoken things pass between us in the silence, something meaningful, something that could blunt the edges of this hard-to-swallow pill. But there’s nothing but mutual disdain.
“Let me walk you down,” he says at last, waving toward the door in dismissal.
“You don’t have to, I’m fine,” I say and, maybe, this time I actually mean it.
“It’s the least I can do.”
Well, that much is true.
The ride in the elevator is quiet, and I look at Connor in the shiny silver reflection of the doors as he thumbs through his phone, my eyes tracing the distance between our bodies. It’s baffling that I ever felt close to him.
It hits me that, if things go my way, this will be the last time I’m with him, having to share air. And part of me, the sticky, clingy, spineless blob of me that relied on this guy for all my worth for all those scary teenage years, cries out, trying to latch on to him out of sick habit.
But the real me—brittle and coarse and bruised—straightens her shoulders. Takes another step away. Sucks in a full breath. I can breathe so much clearer without the weight of him pulling me down.
“What do you think went wrong between us?” I hate that I give voice to the thought, but I want to know. Were we broken from the start? Two drastically different people never meant to mix? Or did we really try? Was he unable to let me love him? Let himself love me?
Connor shrugs, then looks at me, searching my face like he’s trying desperately to find something he lost. He sighs. “You’re just so damn sad all the time.”
The weight of the statement wraps around my throat, squeezing tight. “It must have been hard to love me.”
“It certainly wasn’t easy.” His smile is pitying. I want to claw it off his face.
We both face straight ahead. Resentment pulses in my stomach, shame twisting through my chest, both battling for which can hurt me more. I want to cry, but not for Connor—not for the bullshit he’s put me through—but for the fact that he’s right. I’m not easy.
I never will be.
I’ll always carry around gloom like a low-grade fever, it growing larger and heavier, dripping like tar from my joints and clogging my thoughts.
It’s too much to ask for anyone to take that on.
The elevator doors slide open, and we walk down the glossy hall into the lobby. Eyes fixed on the exit, I plow ahead, but Connor catches me off guard, grabbing my shoulders at the last moment, spinning me around and pulling me into him. All the air shoots from my lungs.
He holds me flush against his body, arms cinched around my biceps so I can’t worm away no matter how much I try.
I’m so tired from our conversation, I can’t say I try all that hard.
After too many seconds, he pulls back, dragging his hands up my arms, one cupping my neck, the other cradling my jaw, leaning until his forehead touches mine. I flinch but he has me locked in place.
“Goodbye, Cubby,” he whispers, thumb tracing across my cheek. “For now.”
“Forever,” I say back, managing to pull out of his grip.
His chuckle is dark and void of humor. “Something tells me this isn’t over between us.” He swoops in once and kisses my cheek. I jerk back so hard my teeth slam together and my vision spins, an electric burst of pain traveling along my jaw.
With one last flash of that lazy smile, he turns on his heel and slopes back to the elevator banks.
I dash out the door, gulping down the stale city air as I try to soothe the anger flaring through me.
I hate him so much it almost seems miraculous.
With a shake of my shoulders, I take off toward the tour bus, scrubbing my face to erase the slimy feel of his kiss.
I’m halfway down the block when I register the number of paparazzi that were in the lobby.