“I said, stop packing.” He grabbed me by my upper arm forcefully.
The underwear spilled onto the floor instead of in my bag as I turned toward him, clutching him at the forearms. “Make me stay, Reeve. You can do it. You have the resources. You have the capability of doing whatever you want.”
He could make me stay very easily. Really, all it would take was for him to ask.
“I’m not going to do this. You stay if you want. I’m not making you.” He let go of me – pushed me away, actually – and every secret hope I had for Reeve and I together fell away, as if I had hid them high on a shelf where I could pretend they didn’t exist. Until now when they came crashing down around me.
“That’s what I thought.” I turned my back and stooped to gather the panties off the floor, away from him so he couldn’t see that my eyes had filled.
“It has to be your decision to stay, Emily.” He hadn’t moved. He was still standing behind me. “I kept someone before. I’m not doing it again.”
I twisted to look up at him. “What do you mean you kept someone?”
He opened his mouth, but then he shook his head. “I’m not doing this. I said what I’m going to say. You do what you want.” He spun and left the room.
Oh, hell no. He’d slipped and there was a chance that he was talking about Amber. But that wasn’t why I was eager to hear more. It was because it had been the first real thing he’d ever shared with me, and it was like heroin, and I, a junkie, craving more. That, I would fight for.
I flew into the hall. “You’re a goddamn chicken.”
He stopped in front of his door, turned back to me slowly. “What was that?”
“You heard me.” I took one step toward him. Just one. I was brave but not that brave. “You leave it as my decision because you don’t want to take any responsibility for what happens between us. That’s not the sign of someone with power. That’s the sign of a coward.”
I realized that this was what this whole argument was actually about. Not his guilt or his innocence but this – about us. About what we were. About what was happening between us. And as difficult as it was to bring this to a head, it was somewhat inspiring that he was battling just as hard as I was. As if it was just as important to him as it was to me.
He narrowed his eyes and took half a step in my direction. “Are you taunting me?”
Or, maybe he just didn’t like to be goaded.
No. I didn’t believe that was the whole truth. I balled my fists at my sides, hoping any courage I had would flow through my fingertips and fill back inside me, a closed circuit. “I’m calling it as it is. But you are responsible, Reeve. Whether you want to be or not. You’re the reason I’m confused about who you really are. You’re responsible for the things you’ve made me believe about you. About us.”
His eyes widened with incense. “About us? I’ve never —”
My finger flew out to point at him, shaking with rage. “Don’t you dare finish that sentence. Because you have. You say one thing but then you show me something else. You make sure I know that I’m not special and then you do everything to make me feel like I am. Well, I’m not settling for that anymore. I can take either reality as long as I know what it is. So you want me to choose if I stay or go? How about this instead – decide what I am to you or I leave.”
We stood there at a stalemate, staring hard at each other, as my words settled and the ultimatum sank in for both of us. It hadn’t been anything I’d ever intended to say, but now that the words were out, I would stand behind them. I was his – we both knew that. But either I was his plaything or I was his prize. All I was asking for was a definition.
He didn’t give one.
He held his stance and I held mine, neither of us willing to back down. And the longer I let him go without an answer, the weaker I became. I had to follow through.
So I turned away and went back to my room to finish packing.
Tears pressed at the corners of my eyes as I gathered a handful of clothes from the closet and brought them back to the bed. One by one, I pulled the items off their hangers and tossed them in my suitcase. I didn’t really want to leave. But I couldn’t stay. Not like this. Leaving was better, anyway. I’d set out in the beginning to save Amber, and having failed that, at least I could save myself.
But then, in between my sniffles, I heard him. Heard him behind me. He was so quiet in his approach, so stealthy, that my pulse shot up, my heart thundering in my chest.
He came closer. Came right behind me and I wondered, is it the tie? Or the belt? I was paralyzed, waiting for it. I wouldn’t fight it, I decided. It wouldn’t matter. He’d win anyway, and so I’d let him. After, he’d toss my body in a landfill. No one would come looking for me. I would be forgotten.
His body was hot at my back. I could hear him exhale. Then he said quietly, “I wasn’t there.”
I didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
“I had nothing to do with it. There was a party. I was fucking some other woman on the beach. Some other women. We recorded it on my phone, for kicks. I didn’t know Missy was looking for me. I didn’t know she had gone out to the cliffs. I’d texted the recording to one of the girls. It was time stamped. I was completely cleared. I can show you if you want to see it.”
I shook my head, barely perceptibly. If I needed a time stamp to come to a conclusion about his innocence, then we were already over. I hadn’t asked for proof. I’d asked for his story and he’d given it. Either I believed him now or I didn’t.