“Seriously, I mean it,” I say and sit up a bit, causing her to get off my chest.
“Listen,” she says. “I don’t care who you fuck with, love or pretend to not love, I. Don’t. Care.”
She says it, but her body language tells me something very different.
“You say you don’t,” I say, “But you do. You do care. So much you have to convince yourself you don’t. because the simple thought of feeling the pain is intolerable to you.”
She stares at me, and I feel horrible for even saying it.
“I’m going to celebrate my birthday next week. Invite her,” says El.
“I am not going to invite her,” I say.
“You will, or I will,” she threatens me.
“Why would you do that to yourself?” I ask her incredulously.
A part of me wants it, the other part is horrified. I don’t want both of them to be in the same room with me. I have created two different versions of Amelie, and I can’t be two versions of me at the same time.
“Because you’re wrong. And I will prove it to you.”
I roll my eyes at her.
She stands up and stretches out her arm for me to take her hand.
“Let’s take a bath,” she says.
“A bath?”
“Yeah, are you stupid today?
“Sorry for not being able to follow your wild train of thoughts today,” I say.
“I need you to wash away some awful memories,” she says. “I also need you to tell me everything that happened in Florida.”
“Why would you want to hear it?” I ask.
“Because it’s hot and takes my mind off things.”
It takes her mind off things. So she does mind. She uses it as a distraction from the pain she is in.
A pain I can do nothing about.
Except for doing what she wants me to do.
So, I grasp her hand.
We get into the bubbly bath together, and she leans into me.
“El,” I say as I squeeze the sponge with hot water over her chest. “If you want to be free of him, I will be with you every step of the way. And I mean every step. What is mine is yours, you understand? Take whatever you need, and if he cuts you off, you just take my cards. If you want him gone, you tell me, and he will be gone.”
“I know,” she says, turns around, and kisses me. “But I won’t let you jeopardize your life for mine.”
19
JANE
PLAYLIST: NEW HOUSE –JOSIE EDWARDS
