“Don’t make noises like that,” he snarls. “You want the neighbors calling the cops?”
My scalp burns. Tears spring to my eyes uninvited, humiliating and useless.
“I didn’t…” My voice breaks. I swallow hard and try again. “I didn’t mean to.”
“That’s your problem,” he says. “You nevermean to. You just do.”
He shoves me again, harder this time, sending me back against the counter. My lower back hits the edge, pain shooting up my spine. I cry out before I can stop it.
Marco freezes. For half a second, the room goes very still. Then his face twists.
“Oh, so now I’m the bad guy.” He steps back, throwing his hands up like I’ve offended him. “I work my ass off. I get disrespected all day. I come home, and this is what I get?”
I clutch the counter behind me, knuckles white, legs shaking. Every part of me feels wrong. Too bright, too loud, too close to the edge.
“I didn’t say that,” I whisper.
“You don’t have to,” he snaps. “You wear it all over your face.”
He advances again, and this time there’s nowhere to go. My back hits the counter fully, cold stone pressing into my spine.He crowds into my space, one hand braced beside me, the other sliding to my stomach again, possessive and accusing.
“Tell me the truth,” he says. “Right now.”
My breath stutters. “I am,” I say, because it’s the closest thing I can manage without breaking.
His hand presses harder, fingers digging in just enough to hurt, not enough to leave marks where someone else might see.
“You lie,” he says. “You always lie.”
My chest feels like it’s tearing a slow, exhausted rip. He steps back again, pacing now, agitation splintering in every direction. He rakes a hand through his hair, then slams his fist into the cabinet door. Wood cracks. I flinch again, helplessly.
“Jesus,” he mutters, like this is happening to him. Like I’m the problem in the room. “I can’t even breathe in my own fucking house without you acting like…”
He cuts himself off, eyes flicking to the mess in the sink, the shattered mug, the cabinet hanging crooked on its hinge.
“You make me do this,” he says, turning back to me, anger reassembling itself into something cold and righteous. “You know that, right?”
I don’t answer. I can’t. My throat is tight, my body trembling now in ways I can’t control anymore. I slide down the counter slowly, my legs giving out beneath me, until I’m crouched on the floor with my arms wrapped around myself like that might hold me together.
Marco watches me for a moment, chest heaving. Disgust crosses his face.
“Get up,” he snaps.
I don’t move.
Something about that, about me not scrambling fast enough, not fixing myself quickly enough, seems to tip him over whatever edge he was teetering on. He swears, grabs his jacket from theback of the chair, and shoves his arms into it with jerky, irritated movements.
“I can’t even look at you right now,” he says. “You’re exhausting.”
He kicks one of the lemons across the floor on his way to the door. It rolls, slow and ridiculous, until it bumps against the wall.
The door slams again, harder than before.
Then there’s silence.
I stay where I am for a long moment, curled on the floor, my face pressed into my arms. When the sobs come, they tear out of me without warning. Ugly, breathless, shaking my whole body. I cry until my chest hurts, until my head pounds, until the apartment feels too big and too empty and too familiar all at once.
When it finally slows, when I can breathe again, something is different.
