“What’s with you and Liz?” I ask with no preamble whatsoever. Inwardly I wince, but outwardly I never falter.
David slowly lifts his chin to meet my gaze, his giving nothing away. “’The fuck are you talking about?” he says after a beat. His eyebrows are slightly raised, like I’m boring him or something, and it stabs at my chest.
But I don’t back down. I step into the kitchen, refusing to let either of us use the breakfast bar as a trench for cover. If I’m not hiding, he isn’t either. “Liz,” I repeat. “What’s your deal?”
He arches a brow, like he doesn’t get what this is about, and that stings even more. I’ve known David to be a lot of things, but a liar has never been one of them. At least not to his friends. Unless that’s not what I really am, either. Maybe guys like David aren’t really capable of having female friends at all, considering he seems to sleep with all of them.
But I saw his exchange with Liz today with my own eyes, even if I couldn’t hear what was said, and there was nothing casual, or even friendly, about it. David continues to look at me as if he has no idea what I’m even talking about, and resentment rises hot in my belly. But I keep my calm.
“I just don’t get you, David,” I admit. “One minute you say you and Liz are friends, then she pisses you off, and you ice her out without a second thought. Or worse than ice her out. Because you weren’t even cold to her. You were just…nothing. Like you didn’t even care one way or the other.”
David’s mask of indifference slips as confusion knits his brow in earnest. He shrugs. “I didn’t,” he deadpans, and I don’t doubt it. That’s what scares me.
I swallow hard. “And yet there you were just hours ago, whispering to her like—” I cut myself off. Like what? Like they were lovers or something? David and Liz? It would almost be laughable—if the image of them together and laughter weren’t entirely mutually exclusive, that is.
David’s hazel eyes flash first with incredulity, then with understanding before his mask slides hastily back in place. But it’s too late. I see through it—through him—just like I saw him with Liz earlier, something he obviously now realizes.
“Whispering to her like what, Beth?” David pushes, but he doesn’t give me time to answer. “Like you and Falco outside the Stu-U this afternoon? Huh? Despite how many times I’ve told you he’s bad fucking news?”
“Is that what you’ll do to me if I don’t listen?” The fear slips from my mouth before my brain can send it the signal to keep shut. “What happens when I piss you off, David? Will you just ice me out?? Avoid me like you did after you first got drunk and fucked me? Not care one way or the other?” Inwardly I choke on the words, but I keep my posture defiant and my chin high. “Is that what you’re doing now?”
David glares at me as if I’ve somehow completely stunned him.
I don’t know what kind of reaction I expected, but this isn’t it. “Not care…about you…” David breathes, trailing off in what I first think is thought, but then realize is, in fact, disbelief. His eyes flare and his cheeks flush with indignation, and even though I’ve never wanted his anger, after just imagining his cold indifference, I’ll take it. I’ll take any emotion I can get as long as it proves he gives a shit about me, and how pathetic is that?
David takes a hostile step toward me, but I don’t feel threatened. With David, the danger has only ever been to my heart and my innocence, and I can’t remember a time when I wouldn’t have willingly given him both. Even now, Liz or no Liz.
“You think you haven’t pissed me off enough already?” he growls. “What—the motherfuck—about any and every goddamned thing I’ve done since you got to fucking campus, exactly, would you say indicates my ability to not fucking care about you, huh?” He pauses to heave in a heavy but sharp breath.
“David—” I try to interrupt, but he isn’t having it.
“Huh? Was it following you around so much I got called your damned bodyguard? Or giving you my lit notes—shit I never even shared with my critique partners? Sending pledges to watch out for you? Lying to my best goddamned friend, for you? Moving you into my place? To my”—he sucks in another sharp breath, meaningfully locking our gazes—“my fucking bed.”
David’s glare strikes me silent, fixing me with things it’s never held before—or I’ve never noticed. Hunger, and possession, and, yes, a caring affection…but also a kind of helplessness. And how can I blame him for it? I know exactly how it feels.
David stalks closer, his mask vanished and all pretenses gone, and for the first time, he looks down at me with an intensity that shakes my very core, and makes me question everything I’ve always thought I knew about him—about us. “I could wash my hands of Liz, because I didn’t care about her. It sounds fucked up, because we were friends—or we are—but…I just didn’t.” He blows out a slow, calming exhale and I’m glad for it. We need more slow, more calming exhales. “You’re not her, okay? I don’t just get to wash my fucking hands of you and walk away. Even if you already do piss me off half the damned time! I don’t get to not fucking care! Trust me, if I could, I fucking would!”
I gape at him, shocked silent and not quite following, but utterly riveted. It’s more emotion than I’ve ever seen out of David, all bursting from him at once like a pressure cooker, and I can’t look away. I don’t think I even blink.
“It’s imprinted into every goddamned day of my life, every fucking thought—caring about you more than I should. Going to my best friend’s house to play ball, and constantly wondering if his sister is home, what you’re fucking doing, or pushing him to include you just for the fucking chance to be around you.”
His next pause for breath is defeated, and it scrapes inside my chest. “Every guy’s dream…” Even David’s sarcastic tone is more resigned than bitter. “Constantly thinking about another guy’s girl. Seeing you with him at school. At parties…” He’s talking about Brian. “At your fucking house. A place that used to be a second home to me.”
My eyes blur softly, and for the first time I imagine it all through David’s eyes—what it must have been like for him. I know how it felt to see him with girls, and never once did I imagine that that devastating jealousy and heartache could have been reciprocated.
“Every time I see you with him all I can think of is the state he fucking left you in when he…” He shoves his fingers through his thick, dark locks, and I want so much to do the same. “You know…and hearing him call you that that night, Bea,” David growls, but grits his teeth instead of finishing the sentence.
“I didn’t forgive him,” I blurt out.
“Forgive. Give another chance. Whatever.” David gestures dismissively.
“I forgave him a long time ago, David, I told you that,” I remind him, but I hold my fingers to his lips when he tries to interrupt. “But there’s no more chances.”
David’s brow furrows, and he looks a little lost. His gorgeous hazel eyes shine with olive and honey, and for the first time, I find the courage to do what he’s just done. Tell the truth.
“When Brian dumped me…the ‘state I was in’…” I use David’s own words, swallowing thickly. But he knows I don’t talk about this, and he listens, silent. “I will never be that girl again, okay, David?”
He stares, not quite believing, not quite understanding—which is fair, considering I’ve explained nothing.
