“Babe, look at me.”
“You left me!”
Fuck me, that lump of sorrow was back in my throat, because watching her fall apart reminded me that both of us were involved in this whole fuck up, and I’d been so focused on me, that I’d failed to consider how she felt. Of course, I’d thought she’d replaced me, so… yeah… I think I’m still an asshole.
“I’m sorry. Babe, I’m sorry.”
She dissolved into more sobbing, and I dragged her into my room, away from all the prying eyes that seemed to have fucking come out of the woodwork, so I could let her keep a little of her dignity. I held her against my chest, stroking her hair as she cried, one of her fists gripping my jacket in a death grip.
As I cast my eyes around the room, I could see it was almost empty of everything. My furniture was gone, and my big TV, everything except for the bed, which wasn’t mine anyway. The bed had been stripped except for one pillow, which was still in the same blue case it’d been in when I left. My pillow?
I cleared my throat, more emotion clogging it as I absorbed what that meant. They’d said she’d nested in here, refusing to leave, and here was the evidence. Even as the room was being taken apart for the demolition, she was here, wearing my clothes, preserving everything else for me, and my pillow still lay in my place.
“I’m sorry. I should have waited. I should have listened.”
She gasped a ragged breath, and nodded. “Prick,” she whispered, and I grinned. There she was. The woman I’d been trying to hide away from, apparently for all the wrong reasons.
“I was a prick, yeah. A twat. A tosser.”
She nodded again. “Asshole.”
This time I laughed, and it felt like weight lifted from my soul with it, like I shook away a little of the pain I’d been carrying, and the fear. I carried a lot of that. Always had. So much to fear in this life, but the main ones for me had been not fitting in, not being accepted, not being wanted or loved. Doesn’t take a geniusto work out why, but it caused me to run away from her instead of discussing things.
“Forgive me?” I tried, and she shoved my chest, backing away from me with a glare. Her face was still pink and teary, but her eyes were fierce.
“Forgive you? For… For walking out? For not giving… me a chance to… explain?” Her voice kept hitching with the after effects of all that crying, but when I reached for her she shook her head.
“I thought… you knew me… knew my r-reasons for being… afraid.”
I nodded, willing the emotion back so I wouldn’t fucking cry all over her too.
“I fucked up, V. I felt rejected, and I overheard what sounded like more rejection. It tipped me over the edge. It topped up that gage of ‘not good enough’ and I lost it. I’m sorry.”
She waved a finger imperiously in the air. She was trying to pull on that usual anger and fierceness, but she was oddly vulnerable, her breathing still ragged and shaky.
“Two fucking weeks, Rocket. Two weeks! Do you have any idea what that’s been like?”
I dragged a hand through my hair.
“I mean, yeah, it sucked for me too. I was completely alone. All I had was my fucking dog, V. Nobody else. At least you have people to turn to. Family. I don’t have that.”
She swallowed hard. “I have been HERE. I have been fucking here this whole time. I went to work for a bit, but then I started getting cover instead, because I didn’t want to… to be away, and this room,” she glanced around her, “I was making it nice… for us, but you stayed away. This was… was all I had of you. I was alone too.”
Jesus. I stepped closer and she backed up a step. It was like one of those dances, only she wasn’t letting me touch her at all.
V
Now he was backI was torn between relief and anger. I wanted to rage at him, and also wrap myself around him and never let him leave a room again. I wanted to scream and cry, and kick him in the balls, but I also wanted him to hold me again.
“Are you really here? Like, back for good, I mean? I don’t want to get my hopes up, because some fucker recently trashed them for me.”
Rocket’s jaw clenched, and he folded his arms in response.
“The way I remember it, I put my fucking heart on the line, and you stepped over it in your rush to escape me. I fucking love you, you insane fucking psycho.”
Psycho? What the fuck? How rude of him, but then there might have been a teeny bit of accuracy in his statement. And that wasn’t the most important word he’d just said anyway, was it?
“I was freaking out, dickhead. I needed time. I was afraid things were moving too fast. So, what? You gave me a few hours and decided enough was enough? You turned up at my place of work to do what?”
