My muscles strain and I have to clench my teeth as I feel something crawling over my skin. Something like a bug. A hundred bugs. A whole fucking army of them.
They crawl and slither even, getting me hot around the neck, getting my legs jittery and I lose the battle with my fingers and curl them into fists, digging the knuckles into my thighs.
Somehow, I manage to say, “How do you think breakups happen? We had a fight. We broke up.”
Finally, she’s lost her smile and there’s a frown on her forehead. And I’m not sure if I like that better than her constant stretch of lips.
“Well, there must have been a reason, right? Breakups don’t just happen.”
That’s the thing.
It happened. It fucking happened. And I didn’t see it coming.
I didn’t see the knife in her hand.
Not until she stabbed me with it.
I’m sorry, A. I didn’t mean for it to happen…
That’s what she said. After.
After she took eight years of our love and threw it away.
That she didn’t mean for it to happen.
I dig the knuckles deeper into my jittery thighs and say, “Ours did. It happened.”
“Yes. But what happened?”
The bugs have started to sting me now. They’ve started to bite at me. And I’m seriously considering smashing something.
“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”
“I think it’s extremely relevant,” she insists. “You broke up and that’s what has caused everything, so again, what happened to break you guys up?”
You know what, it’s not going to be my fault.
If I do break her table, I mean.
It’s not going to be my fault that Dr. Lola Bernstein is going to lose her glass coffee table and that little cactus she has sitting on it. Because she’s the one asking stupid questions.
Questions that have no bearing on why I’m here.
“How much is that coffee table?” I ask, tipping my chin at it.
She frowns again but this one is lighter. “Why?”
I shrug, cracking my neck slightly. “It’s extremely…”Breakable. “Attractive.”
“You like it?”
I open and close my fists. “Yeah. As attractive as the rest of your office.”
She looks around the office. “I thought you hated it. You didn’t look too happy when you sat down on my couch.”
“I don’t hate your couch. I love your couch. And I love pink. Pink is my favorite.”
She takes her smile one step further. She turns it into a low laugh. “Now I definitely know you’re kidding. Pink cannot be your favorite. Because your mouth is saying one thing and your face is saying something else altogether.”
