“You’re upset about me watching?—”
I shook my head. “I’m not. That’s why I haven’t said anything.”
“Well, you said something to Penny about it, and apparently I messed up by not responding to your photo.”
He did see it. That pissed me off more than it should have.Crossing my arms over my chest, I shot him a closed-lip smile. “How was your day?”
“Really? You want to know about my day?”
No. I didn’t. I just wanted to kick down the damn wall between us, and I wanted him to hold me because heneededme. I wanted him to need my touch as much as I needed his.
He took my hesitation as his answer. “I’ll be downstairs.”
“Cage …”
His footsteps faded in the distance.
The natural stepthat came after a fight was forgiving. The problem was, I didn’t know if we had been or were fighting. Things were off between us, but not in a pointing-finger sort of way. Cage wasn’t around long enough to have an all-out fight. He wasn’t around enough to have much of any interaction. I’d even started sleeping in the guest bedroom because… I wasn’t really sleeping at all.
Netflix.
Video chatting with Thad and Jerry.
Nightmares—because I started having them again.
That’s what consumed my nights. At least Cage was getting undisturbed sleep, but I couldn’t help the resentment that bloomed inside of me. After the first night I spent in the guest room, he asked why I slept in there and I told him because I didn’t want to keep him awake with my restlessness.
He said “OK” and left it at that.
OK! He had no idea how the simplicity of his responses grated on my very last nerve.
By the time Friday rolled around, I was ready for him to get on that plane and fly to Texas. At least if he was out oftown I didn’t feel so utterly ignored.
“You look tired.” He kissed the top of my head as he brushed by me in the closet, throwing clothes into his bag for the trip as I hung up the clean laundry.
“I am.”
“Well maybe you can get some sleep while I’m gone.”
“Maybe I can get some sex too,” I mumbled to myself, not at all intending for him to hear me.
“What did you say?” He turned.
“Nothing.” I shook my head.
“No. You said ‘maybe you can get some sex too.’ What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Who the hell are you having sex with?”
With my back to him, I rested my hands on my hips and looked up at the ceiling, an exhausted sigh mixed with a laugh escaped. “No one. Absofuckinglutely no one. That’s my point. Just forget it.” I grabbed a shirt from the laundry basket and slipped it on a hanger.
“I can’t be everything, Lake. I don’t know what you want me to?—”
I turned, anger brewing in my belly. “Don’t do this. Don’t you dare say you don’t know what I want you to do. That’s such bullshit.”
His defensive stance mirrored mine as the wall between us accumulated another layer. “So everything I say is bullshit? Like I’m lying to you?”
It wasn’t too late. All he had to do was take me in his arms.Reallytake me in his arms, not a kiss on the head, or a quick peck on the lips, or a hug that lasted less than a heartbeat. I should have just thrown myself into his arms, but my ego insisted on protecting me from my fears, and I feared hewouldn’t reciprocate. I feared feeling even more rejected. I feared the void between us.
When did I begin to fear what I wanted very most in life?
