“Fine,” she breathes and stomps into our bedroom.
I’m a fucking idiot.
“Lana, please, wait,” I rasp and let the keys drop from my hand. I run into our bedroom and she’s pulling my clothes off their hangers. “Lana.”
“No. Don’t speak to me,” she snaps. “You’re leaving.”
“Lana—”
She continues to toss my clothes onto a pile on the floor. When she goesback in for more, I wrap my arms around her and pull her away from the closet.
She kicks the air.“Put me down!”
I set her down on the opposite side of the room and stand in her way when she tries to go back to the closet. “No, Lana, please?—”
“Go to the store, Christian.” She points her finger in my face. “Go to the fucking store!”
“No,” I breathe. “No, I—I’m good right here.”
She pokes my chest hard. “I wish that were true.”
“Please, Lana,” I croak.
“You either get yourself together or you’re out,” Lana says. “You want to ruin our relationship and everything we have? Fine! But that was a choiceyoumade. Not me. This is it for you.”
I swallow and I can barely see her through my clouded vision. “I don’t want that,” I rasp.
“Then get your shit together!”
CHAPTER 24
Lana
The most annoying, insistent pounding on my front door wakes me up from my slumber,New Girlstill playing—which I’m rewatching for the umpteenth time. I pause it on one of my favorite episodes and the knocking begins again, sounding like thunder in the storm outside.
I swear it better not be him because if he evensmellslike anything remotely alcoholic, he can sleep on the porch. No,on the sidewalk.
I felt terrible after kicking him out without allowing him any time to explain. I was just…triggered. Maybe he was going to tell me it was a bad choice of words, or maybe he was going to pick up something for our talk after we closed the shop. Maybe he was going to pick up take out and other things before our talk. Or just things for our romantic night.
I didn’t give him a chance—I didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt, which he deserves, and I regret my defensiveness. But it’s two hours later and he’s here now…
The pounding on my front door comes back, louder the torrential downpour this time. With a sigh, I slip myfeet into my white furry slippers and drag myself to the front door. I take a deep breath before turning the lock, and then I pull it open.
“What?”
Christian is there with red eyes and cheeks, an obvious tell that he might have been crying. He isn’t drunk and he didn’t drink—he has a different tell for that. “I love you,” is the first thing he says. “I have…somuch to tell you and I don’t know how, but, Lana, I love you.”
I blink up at him. My lips part. And I love him too.
“Christian, what are you?—”
His pair of tempestuous, coffee colored eyes stare back at me and line with silver.
“I overdosed,” he croaks quietly. “In New York—I overdosed and I didn't know how to tell you. I’ve been working up to it, I swear. Lana?—”
I lose my breath.
He overdosed.Heoverdosed.
