I remember Sting lying awake next to me while I fell asleep, the feeling of him beside me, not sleeping, his body tense while everyone else drifted off. The man’s got something going on, and I’m done waiting to see what’s up his ass.
I’m done with the version of this where I hand over my trust and get nothing in return, I’m done with being the woman they want at night and manage during the day, done being half a person in this relationship.
I get dressed, find my shoes, and go look for Sting. He’s not hard to find.
He’s sitting alone at the table with a binder open in front of him, a cup of something beside it. He looks up and does the Sting thing, the brief assessment, the read, the calculation of what I might be up to.
“We need to talk,” I say.
“About?”
“Us.”
He sets the binder down and gives me his full attention. I should appreciate that but I don’t because giving me his attention when I ask for it isn’t the same as giving it freely, and I’m tired of having to demand what should be offered.
I don’t sit. I stand. I want to be on my feet for this.
“I know my position here,” I say. “I came into your world. The Rot has rules I’m still learning. You three built this place, I didn’t. I’m not pretending I have the same standing as you guys and I’m not trying to.”
Sting watches me and doesn’t interrupt.
“But I’m not furniture. I’m not a thing you protect, then fuck, then make decisions around. I have a brain. I have instincts. I had them before I came here and I’ve had them every day since.”
My voice is steady.
“I told you my father was clean. Yet, you dismissed me. I told you Alice’s documents mattered and you picked them apart. I went and got the second set of papers because nobody was going to do it for me. I came back bleeding and you cleaned my wound and told me not to do it again, like I was a kid who’d wandered into traffic.”
Sting’s back straightens. He heard that one.
“Then you read the papers. All of them. And instead of telling me what you found, you pulled away. You avoided me. You couldn’t look at me. You couldn’t talk to me. But you could fuck me. That part was fine. You just couldn’t open your mouth and use actual words.”
That one grabs his attention, I can see it in the way his posture changes. He wants to respond but he doesn’t.
“If you want a relationship with me,” I say, “and this goes for all of you, then treat me like I’m in the room. Not just when the evidence forces you to. When I’m talking to you about something that matters, please hear me. Don’t manage me. Don’t protect me from my own judgment. Just hear me.”
“And if that’s not what you want,” I say, “if you want someone who smiles, doesn’t ask questions, lets you make every decision, and just shows up when it’s time to perform, then tell me. Because I can do that. I can stop thinking. Stop speaking. Stop pushing. I can be exactly what’s easy for you. A Stepford Wife, isn’t that what they called it? Compliant. Agreeable. I can do that if that’s what you want.”
I take a breath.
“But you should know that if I do that, the woman you actually want will be gone. You’ll have killed her.”
Sting is looking at me. His face is doing something I’ve never seen. Not his controlled blankness and not his measured distance. Something is happening behind his eyes, a war between what he wants to say and what he’s able to say, and I can see him fighting it. I can see the effort. The words are right there, pushing against whatever wall he’s built between his feelings and his mouth.
I wait. Five seconds. Ten.
He can’t say it. Whatever it is. Whatever he’s been carrying around. Whatever made him read my father’s papers and disappear. He can’t open his mouth and give me words.
I read his silence the only way I know how. He heard everything I said. He agrees with none of it. Or he agrees with all of it but can’t bring himself to change. Either way, the result is the same. I laid it out. I told him what I need. He’s sitting there like a statue.
Something closes in my face. I can feel it happening. The openness I walked in here with, the willingness to fight for this, the belief that if I just said the right thing, in the right way, he’d finally crack open.
“That’s what I thought,” I say.
I turn to walk away.
In the hallway, I keep walking and don’t look back. I don’t cry. I walk with my shoulders straight and my face set, and I make it all the way to my room before I sit on the bed and put my hands over my face and let the shaking start.
Mara’s not here. I’m alone. The bed is mine. Nothing in it smells like Sting or Armen or Rogue or anything, except the Rot’s standard-issue laundry detergent.
