“Of course not! I’d never say something like that!” I all but yelled.
Leonard lifted his hands, palms out in a placating gesture.
“I’m not accusing, Ellie. I just want to get to the root of why Flynn thinks that,” Leonard assured me. I was on high alert, not liking where this discussion was going…at all.
Flynn had reached out to grip my hand again and I held back just as tightly. I felt sick inside. He thought I wanted him to be different.
Did I want him to be different?
Of course I didn’t.
Did I?
Flynn wouldn’t look at me and his grip on my fingers was beginning to cut off circulation. I wondered if he even realized he was holding my hand.
“She gets angry a lot. She doesn’t smile or laugh like she used to. I painted the living room yellow and I built a shelf by the window for her favorite sculptures. I make sure there’s always peanut butter and jelly in the cabinets and I sleep on the right side of the bed because she likes to face the doorway.”
I tried to swallow around the thick lump in my throat. My mouth was dry and my eyes dangerously wet. He sounded hurt.
Betrayed.
Somehow, in the last month, a chasm had opened up between us that I hadn’t realized was there until that very moment.
“Flynn,” I said quietly, softly under my breath.
He either didn’t hear me or chose to ignore me. “Ellie wants to go places. She wants to go to New York because her friend lives there. I have to go because that’s what she wants. I want to be a good boyfriend.”
“Youarea good boyfriend,” I stated emphatically. I hated that this conversation was happening without him looking at me and with a third party present. I had no idea that he felt this way. Had he been trying to tell me and I just didn’t hear him?
I had been so fixated on my own situation. Not being able to find a job. Living in Wellston again. I had been oblivious to how my negativity was affecting him.
This proved that the selfish Ellie was never very far from the surface.
“Ellie, I can tell hearing this upsets you. Why is that?”
I wanted to roll my eyes. His clichéd observations made me want to hit something. I narrowed my eyes at Leonard and focused my ire directly at him. “I don’t feel this discussion requires an audience. I’d like to talk to Flynn alone,” I said through clenched teeth.
Flynn shook his head. “I want to say this with Leonard here.”
“Flynn, I really think—“ I began but Leonard interrupted me just as he had done to Flynn earlier.
“I know this is uncomfortable. It has to be strange talking about serious, intimate things with a complete stranger sitting here listening in. I know you think I’m sitting here analyzing you, Ellie. I’m not. I’m just trying to get a sense of what things are like between you and Flynn. Now he obviously thinks you want something from him that he can’t deliver. That’s going to create a lot of strain in your relationship. And I’m picking up on some, maybe resentment, with you. Some anger perhaps.”
“I’m not angry!” I fumed, stupidly confirming his remark.
“Okay, let’s take a minute here before things become even more tense.” Leonard folded sat back in his chair and wrote something on a pad of paper. Was he writing notes about me? What the hell?
“There are issues here. Big ones. Wouldn’t you agree?” Leonard asked, looking first at Flynn then at me.
I shrugged, refusing to answer him. Flynn shrugged too.
“Ellie, Flynn has told me about your history and I understand that you have a lot of things in your past that maybe you haven’t had a chance to really work through,” Leonard ventured carefully.
Ugh! Here we go! The millionth go around about my freaking past!
“And I don’t plan on doing that here, okay,” I warned. My fingers had gone numb and I tried to wiggle them free of Flynn’s constricting grasp. But I couldn’t budge him. I was trapped.
In more ways then one.
