From the look Elena gave Alex, she was far more adept at reading the room. “We’ll just go upstairs and leave you two to…finish cooking,” she said, and Alex grabbed their bags.
There were enough rooms for everyone to stay when we were here, which was usually one of my favorite things, but for once I wasn’t excited he was there.
As soon as they closed the door upstairs, I filled my lungs, trying not to say anything. I’d sworn I’d let her make her own choice, but she was being a fucking coward.
“So you’re gonna fly back with Alex?”
“It seems like an easy solution.” She shrugged.
Fucking shrugged like it was nothing to walk away from this, like I was only asking about a flight and not about the fact she was running away.
Her jaw jutted stubbornly. “Don’t look at me like that, Zane. Your job is as much a part of your identity as mine is and I’ve sacrificed too much to protect both of our jobs.”
Sacrificed to protectourjobs?
I let it sink in.
Did I have it wrong this whole time?
“Is that why you did it? You having sex with Johnny…it’s never made sense to me. You didn’t blow what we had over money. I know you didn’t love him. I know you’re a greedy slut, but if you’d just been looking for orgasms, you knew where to find them.”
It clicked together in my mind, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it before now.
“You did it to push me away. But not because you didn’t want this.”
She’d gone from fuming to silent, which told me everything I needed to know.
“I could’ve forgiven you for that. Ihadforgiven you for that. I was young and clingy and I always thought it had just been too much for you and you hadn’t felt the same. But now…to know that you did feel the same, but what? Thought you knew better?”
Her lip trembled.
I was reeling. “It wasn’t your choice to make, Maia. You broke my goddamn heart.”
She raised her chin. “Tell me I was wrong. Tell me you wouldn’t have wanted this if you’d given it all up for a girl you fucked a few times when you were twenty-one.”
She might as well have slapped me. “Is that all it was to you?”
She closed her eyes and shook her head, her whole body shaking, but she didn’t speak.
I needed to leave before I said something I’d regret. The wound I thought was healed had been ripped open again and I was still trying to process how she could’ve done it.
“I’m going for a drive,” I said, grabbing the keys.
49
MAIA
Now
* * *
“Yoohoo! Anyone home? The Goddess of Chaos hasarrived!”
Ophelia’s voice from the front hallway almost reduced me to tears of relief. I dropped the spoon I was holding in the kitchen and sprinted out to meet her.
She folded me into her arms like she always did, and I hugged her back just as tight.
“Where’s Rock Daddy?” she asked, peering at me over her sunglasses.
