My bright smile dropped when I took in his hardened expression. Cold eyes met mine. Eyes that last time I saw them… made me hope. Hope that this volatile spark of connection wouldn’t fizzle away. That it would last.
That hope broke. Falling to the ground like china and shattering between us.
‘Oliver? W-what’s wrong?’ I held the door open with one hand, moving out the way to let him past. He looked awful. His hair was ruffled, eyes bloodshot. He hesitated for a second, looking at me like he was seeing someone entirely different, before storming past me.
I didn’t have time to repeat my question when he whirled around, hands moving in short jerky movements.
‘Was it worth it?’ His tone was dead. Not an ounce of emotion came through and my blood ran cold.
I closed the door behind me and folded my arms over my chest. ‘Oliver, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
He stubbed the toe of his shoe on the ground, eyes darting around my flat. ‘I mean you got some real good stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I have to applaud your commitment.’ His voice was starting to rise with every word. ‘Sleeping with me, worming your way into my life. Making me fall in fucking love with you. Seriously, well done!’ He started to clap slowly, a cold smile curling his lips.
All the air in my lungs froze. I couldn’t move. My thoughts slowed to a snail's pace.In love with me…
I could feel the rising fury radiating off of him and I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t knowwhathad made him so angry. ‘Oliver… Talk to me. What is going on?’ I started to step towards him; he straightened up to his full height and stared down at me. Not once had I ever been afraid of him. But something made me stop in my tracks.
All the forced casualness got wiped away with his next words. ‘How much did they offer you? It must have been damn good money. So I’m asking you… was it worth it?’
What the hell was happening right now? Nothing he was saying made a lick of sense. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I cried, my head spinning out of control.
‘STOP LYING!’ The words tore from his throat. A vein throbbed in his temple as his face reddened. The sudden outburst made me take a step back. If Oliver noticed my retreat he didn’t say anything. I had a horrifying feeling that he couldn’t give a damn if he was scaring me right now. Anger darkened his features and blackened his eyes.
‘The fucking article about my mum. All the stuff I told you that night. Things I never uttered to another living soul. Never told anyone… butyou.’ He sneered at the last word. His tone made me flinch.
My head swung from side to side as I kept eye contact with him. Half of me hoped that if he stayed looking at me, he’d see the truth in my eyes. He’d see my utter confusion. ‘W-what article?’
He huffed a laugh—not a trace of amusement in it. ‘Such dedication. Fucking hell, history is really repeating itself.’ He shoved a hand into his pocket, swiped the screen and thrust his phone towards me. I blinked past the tears that had started to blur my vision and stared down at the words printed on the screen. The headline made my stomach drop to the floor. My jaw went slack as I read it again and again, desperate for the words to change—for them to not be real.
‘Oliver, this isn’t-I didn’t do this.’
His arms flew out to the side, gesticulating wildly. ‘They’re your words. They’re yourFUCKINGwords, Fallon.I’ve read your work, I know how you write. So don’t even bullshit me and tell me you didn’t write that.’
The phrasing of the article were the exact words I’d written on my laptop only days ago. How were they staring back at me on the front page of the daily mail? ‘Y-yes, I wrote it but I didn’t—It was never going to go anywhere. I wrote it on my laptop, it was just for me, Oliver you have to believe me, I didn’t do this.’ He snatched his phone out of my hands and shoved it back in his pocket, lips pinched tight. I placed a hand on my chest, pleading with him. ‘Please God believe me. I wouldn’t do this to you. I wrote this formyself’—I tried desperately to explain—‘as a way to work through some of the other bits of the book. It was never meant to be published anywhere.’
‘So how was it then?’ His eyes were wild.
‘I don’t know! I’m just as confused as you are. You have to believe me.’ I lifted a hand to my head to stop it spinning.
His hands fell limp at his sides. ‘I don’t. I don’t believe you. I don’t even fucking know you. You’ve manipulated me from the get go-‘
‘No,’ I breathed, no longer able to stop the tears from splashing down my cheeks. Oliver stared at them impassively.
‘Was it all fake? Your stupid fear of the dark. Was that a lie just to get me to help you? A way to slither into my life and take all the material you can get and then sell to the highest bidder.’
‘No. No. No.Please-’
‘Maybe it was all contrived from the start? Bumping into me on the street and pretending not to know me? That part of it too?’ His head fell back on his shoulders as he gazed up at the ceiling. All the fight started to leave him.
I shook my head, swiping angrily at my tears that wouldn’t stop coming. ‘I have no clue how this got out. Youcan be angry. You can fucking hate me, but I. Didn’t. Do. This. And some part of you knows that this wasn’t me.’
Slowly, his cold blue eyes settled back on me. I hated how lifeless they were. Howempty.‘The only thing I know is that this was a mistake. Every decision I’ve made in the past two months because ofyou’—he jutted his index finger at me—‘has been a mistake.’
I took a step back, my hand rising to my chest wishing I could pull the ache from my heart.
‘SoIwas a mistake then. Everything betweenuswas a mistake?’ I gestured to the space separating us. The space that two days ago I would have closed and wrapped my arms around his neck, breathing in his scent. The space that now… felt like a wasteland that couldn’t be traversed.
He took a heavy breath. ‘Yeah, it was. A big one.’
