Tear You Apart (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

I won’t chase and I won’t beg. More days pass without a word, and eventually, I stop checking. So there’s this sense of relief, this lifted weight, and I face the day with confidence that everything will be okay. I go out to the yard, to the flowers and the grass, and I put my face toward the sun and close my eyes against the brightness. I smile. I spread my arms, not caring what the neighbors might think. I spin.

I spin.

Inside the house, I face the disaster of my kitchen and, determined, roll up my sleeves as I put on some music—loud as I want. There’s nobody here to judge if my choice runs to teeny bop pop I heard on the radio, or classic rock I’ve loved forever. With my iPod set on shuffle, I get to the business of straightening and wiping and scrubbing and organizing.

And then...I find myself standing at the sink staring out the window for a long, long time as the water runs over my hands, gone red from the heat. They should sting, but I don’t notice. I stand and stare as the iPod plays one song after another, plays one of the songs that make me think of him.

They all make me think of him.

And I haven’t danced at all.

Slowly, slowly, I push the faucet to turn off the water. I stare at the suds in the sink, the dishes I was washing. How long have I stood there, staring at the grass and flowers through the glass, but seeing only Will’s face? Too long, that’s the only answer. One minute, one second, one breath is too long to have spent dwelling on this, and still I stand and stare, until I sit with a cup of coffee I don’t want, and stare at my hands, laid flat on the table, and remember how it felt to touch him.

It’s the middle of the day and I don’t care that I get into the shower with the water as hot as I can stand it, or that I curl into a ball on my side and close my eyes and pretend that the rush and hiss of the pounding shower is the roar of the ocean in the way he says my name. I don’t care that I pretend my hands are his when I touch myself, or that when I come I’m thinking about the way he tastes. I should be ashamed of this hungry, aching desperation, but I’m only sad and empty and disappointed.

And then, that tiny ping, that subtle notification sound I’ve almost forgotten. Like Pavlov’s dog, I jerk and twist beneath the water, certain I’ve imagined it. But no...when I get out without even taking a towel to dry my sopping hair, when I lift up my phone from where I left it as an afterthought on the edge of the tub, there it is. The small red “1” of a notification.

The sour taste of anger coats my tongue when I thumb the screen to check the message. All it says is
Hi, how are you?
I want to throw the phone across the room, while simultaneously flipping it the bird with both hands.

I think about ignoring it; he’ll be able to see I read the message and that I’m not replying. But just as I don’t chase and I don’t beg, I do not fucking play games, either. I type in an answer as neutral and meaningless and stupid as his:
Fine. You?

And he doesn’t reply.

For hours.

By the time I get another ping, my stomach is full of acid-eaten holes and I’ve called him every name I can think of, including motherfucking prickblister, pus-encrusted douchenozzle and cock-kicking fuckpucker. I’m kind of proud of the last one. I’ve called myself worse, because I know I’m stupid and undone, and I’ve made this too important. Given him too much power. I hate it, but when I hear that tiny, sly ping I’m snatching up my phone as if I’m on fire and it’s going to put out the blaze with piss.

Hi, how are you?

Fine,
I type, and it’s a good thing there’s no way to hear tone in a text message, because mine is bitter and full of fury.
You?

Good. Just finishing up some editing on a couple pics.

To this I have no reply. I think of lots of things I could say, but all of them will come out sounding angry, and I refuse to give him that. I will keep my crazy in my basket, thank you very much. He doesn’t deserve to know I’ve spent one single fucking second thinking about him....

Lunch tomorrow?

My fingers type then, moving on the phone’s touch keyboard so fast I make a message full of autocorrected typos that would completely dilute the scathing, furious words I intend to send. I delete it all. I type some more, knowing he can see that I’m replying, and hating even that, because fuck it all, I’d like him to think I’m just blowing him off. I delete everything again. Then once more. And then his next message appears.

I M Y

“Fuck you,” I say aloud. “Fuck you sideways and upside down with a red-hot poker covered in broken glass, you fucking fuckety fuck.”

But my fingers press the spaces on the keyboard that make different words than that, because they are both smarter and more stupid than my mouth or my head or my fucked up heart. I type and do not delete. This time, I say,
What time?

Chapter Twenty-Five

He’s standing outside the restaurant smoking, not looking my way, and do I imagine myself walking away without speaking to him, leaving him standing there for an hour, or for forever, waiting? Hell, yeah. Do I imagine myself running across the street and leaping into his arms, cling to him like a baby monkey, like a fucking barnacle?

Oh. Yes.

When I cross the street to face him, he turns to me with a smile so wide and bright and genuine that I want to kiss his face off. I want to run my hands through the mess of his hair and smooth my fingertips over those brows and trace the curves of his ears with my tongue. I want to eat him up like a peach until the juice drips down my hand and wrist and arm and I lick it all away.

Instead, I give him the barest hint of a smile. “Hey.”

“Hi.” He moves as though to hug me, but I step back so deliberately there can be no mistaking my message.

Do. Not. Touch.

“You look...great,” Will says.

I don’t answer that. I look at the restaurant menu in the window instead, though honestly, I don’t give a fart in a high wind what they serve. I won’t be able to eat. I plan on ordering the most expensive thing they have and making him pay for it, though. Maybe I do play games, after all.

He opens the door for me, and the solicitous hand at the small of my back as he lets me go in front of him should not make my knees weak. We take a booth near the back, in the shadows. It’s curved, which means I slide in first, but I put my purse on the seat between us so he can’t sit too close.

We order drinks. We order food. We make small talk that sounds like pebbles rattling in a pie pan. At first, Will is animated and effusive, but as he watches me pick at my salad and give him brief answers without smiles, he sits back in the booth.

“If you don’t want to be here,” he says, “maybe you should just fucking go.”

My fork shakes a little against the edge of the plate before I set it down very, very carefully. I wipe my fingers on my napkin. Then my mouth. I put my hands on the edge of the table, fingertips barely touching the smooth, polished wood. And I say...nothing.

He shifts in his seat with a frown. “That’s it? I get the silent treatment?”

“I’m being careful with what I say, that’s all. I want to make sure nothing comes out that I can’t take back.”

“Maybe you should just say whatever you think,” Will says with a sneer. “You think I can’t handle it?”

My fingers slip on the smooth wood. “I don’t want you to handle it. I don’t want to say anything I’ll regret, that’s all.”

“If you’re pissed at me, you should just say so.”

“Should I be?” I press my lips together and rub my tongue slowly on the inside of my teeth to keep my voice low.

“Are you?”

I think of Glenn Close in
Fatal Attraction,
telling Michael Douglas how she will not be
ignored.
But that’s exactly how it felt those long weeks when Will stopped talking to me. Ignored.

“I would never just stop talking to you,” I tell him, whispering only so I don’t scream. “I would never just disappear like that. That was a shitty thing to do to me, Will.”

“I was busy,” he begins, and I’ve had enough.

I need to get out of this booth, and now. But the other side is blocked by a tray of food waiting to be served, and the only way out is past him. “Move.”

He doesn’t, even as I’m grabbing up my purse and sliding along the smooth vinyl toward him. I bump against him. “Move!”

He won’t. I don’t want to cause a scene. And sitting this close, I can feel his thigh on mine. I can feel the heat coming off him. When he slides a hand between my legs beneath the cover of the table, all I can do is let him.

“Everyone’s busy,” I tell him.

His fingers press, press, press. “My ex went out of town. I had my kid. I was busy, Elisabeth.”

To anyone looking at us, we simply appear to be deep in conversation. There’s enough distance between us, the angle is just right to hide the fact he’s inching up my skirt to get inside my panties. At the last minute, I clamp my thighs shut, trapping his hand before he can.

“Then you should’ve told me.”

There’s more to it than that. I can see it in his face. He twists his wrist a little, but I don’t give him even a quarter of an inch.

“I told you—”

“Bullshit.” I lean a little closer when the waiter passes by, lowering my voice to keep it from attracting attention. The heat of Will’s hand against my bare skin is beginning to burn. “It’s an excuse, and a shitty one. You think I wouldn’t understand if you told me you had to take care of your kid? You think I’d be some kind of bitch about it?”

Steadily, he works his hand a little higher. His knuckles brush my panties before he twists again to press my clit. I do not move except for the rise and fall of my shoulders when I take a breath. My muscles ache from the effort of keeping him away. When I relax the tiniest bit, he takes advantage, pressing harder. Twisting so infinitesimally that nobody would be able to tell.

He can’t see the golden stars beginning to creep into the edges of my vision, but I’m sure he must see something in my eyes, because his hand moves just a little faster. His pupils are so wide-open his eyes have gone dark. His tongue slips out to touch the center of his bottom lip.

“I don’t owe you anything,” Will says, but low and under his breath.

I do not want to let him see how good he’s making me feel, because I don’t want to be feeling it. But when I put my hand over his, it’s not to push it away. I grip his wrist tight, holding him closer.

“Yes,” I tell him. “You do.”

I am close, so close, but not going over. The waiter shows up then with a dessert tray, and I pull away. I shake my head at the pies and cakes, and decline a box for my leftovers as I slide toward the other end of the booth, now cleared by the busboy. I assure the waiter everything was fine, though I can see by the way he eyes my plate that he takes my uneaten food as a personal affront. I get out of the booth and push past him and out of the restaurant to the New York City street outside, and I breathe in exhaust and heat and the scents of puke and piss, and I blink away the last flutters of gold Will’s touch gave me.

I’m halfway back to the gallery when he catches up to me. He falls into step beside me without saying anything. He follows me through the door I don’t bother to hold open for him, and down the hall past Naveen’s blessedly empty office and into my own. Then, when I whirl on him to tell him to get the fuck out, he shuts my door. The lock clicks.

We sweep my desk clean. Paper clips scatter. Then he’s inside me, and nothing else matters but this.

After, with his forehead pressed to mine and the taste of his sweat on my lips, Will says, “I was ignoring you on purpose.”

I cup his face in my hands and kiss him. “I know you were.”

We disentangle, comb and straighten. He fills a paper cup from my water cooler and drains it, then crumples the cup. I pull my hair back with a spare elastic from my drawer and swipe my face with powder. Fix my lipstick. Will is glancing at the door, ready to make his escape, when I finish. I recognize the look.

“You don’t have to talk to me every day,” I tell him carefully. “If it’s too much. But you can’t just abandon me, Will. That’s not fair. I deserve better than for you to just disappear. Frankly, you deserve better than to be that sort of guy.”

“I came back,” he begins, and stops when I don’t smile.

“You can have a life. I expect you to have a life. I have one, too, you know.”

His brow furrows. “Yeah. Believe me, I know.”

And that’s the problem, isn’t it? I don’t have an answer for it. So much to say and nothing seems right, so we stare at each other, too far apart to touch.

“Did you...really miss me?” I almost don’t ask, in case the answer isn’t what I want to hear.

He nods.

I shouldn’t feel so relieved. I shouldn’t feel anything for him, but there’s no holding it back. No stopping it. I sag against the desk a little. “Good. I want you to miss me. A lot.”

“I worry this is going to make trouble for you.”

“It might.” My chin lifts. Shoulders and spine straighten. “But that’s my problem.”

“It would be mine, too.” Will rubs at his mouth with his first and middle fingers. “Sometimes, I think we should stop. Before it’s too late. Before we do something that we can’t take back.”

“It’s already too late,” I tell him. “We’ve already done it. It’s done, Will. We can’t take it back. That’s the way stuff like this works.”

He won’t move, so I do. I pull him closer, step by step, until he takes me in his arms. We fit just right, Will and I, and I don’t want to let him go.

“You’re my kryptonite. I don’t know why.” My words are muffled against his neck. I can’t stop myself from nibbling, just a little, and I can’t stop myself from telling him the truth. “But if you don’t want to talk to me anymore...if you don’t want to see me...”

His arms tighten, just a little, around me. “Are you breaking up with me?”

I look at him. “Are you breaking up with
me?
”

We both smile at the same time.

“Just don’t ever disappear on me again. If you have to stop talking to me—”

“I don’t
want
to stop talking to you.”

“Then...don’t. We’ll find a balance.” I say this more confidently than I feel, but it seems the only thing to say.

Then I kiss him, kiss him, kiss him until neither of us can breathe.