Page 73 of No Romeo
I took a few steps back, staring at “Lola Cola,” scratched into the wood between two hearts.
He had hurt me the other day. But God, if the situation were reversed, I’d hurt me, too. He didn’t know the truth. He couldn’t know the truth. Neither of us deserved the hurt we’d endured…
I glanced down at the twenty bucks clasped in my fist that I’d fully intended to spend on a bottle of vodka. It probably wouldn’t be enough, but I couldn’t walk away without at least trying. People in Dayton didn’t have much, but the things we did have, we treasured. And that guitar meant everything to Hendrix. It once had meant everything to me. I had to at least try…
My weekend drinking plans had gone to shit.
Chad had invited Kyle and me to the lake house today, and that was probably a good thing. I needed the distraction. Plus, I loved spending any time with Gracie.
The morning sun blinded me when Kyle pulled into Hendrix’s drive.
For a moment, I stared at the front of the house, steeling myself to actually go inside and grab some clothes. I’d come early because I didn’t want him to confront me again, and maybe that was selfish. As long as we didn’t speak about it, I could almost pretend the last two years had never happened. That Hendrix and I weren’t completely broken, that wecouldbe friends, even if we could never again be more.
I glanced into the back seat at the beaten-up guitar. I’d gotten it because I couldn’t not. Me being there last night felt an awful lot like fate, and I hoped it would serve as a peace offering.
“Be right back, Kyle,” I said, leaning over and grabbing the instrument before I got out.
Nerves fluttered in my stomach as I unlocked the front door. The electronic noise of a war game drifted into the entranceway, and I froze. I hadn’t expected him to be up, and the prospect of leaving this with a note was so much more appealing than seeing him in person.
I walked into the living room and wordlessly placed the guitar against the edge of the worn couch.
Hendrix’s gaze drifted away from the screen, landing first on the guitar, then on me. Holding my gaze, he paused the game, plunging the room into tense silence. “Where did you find that?”
“The pawn shop over by the liquor store.”
He picked it up, lovingly cradling it under his arm as he plucked out the tune of “Glycerine.”
My heart stumbled at the sound of the familiar chords. He used to play that song for me all the time, saying the lyrics were how he felt about me.
Notes filled the room, reminding me of all those sweet times between us. All the “I love you’s” and promises of forever.
As if catching himself, he suddenly stopped, slamming his palm over the stings to cut off the sound. “I’m having a party tonight.”
“Okay…”
Blue eyes met mine, the softness of moments ago now gone. “You probably don’t want to be here.”
It was a punch in the gut. There was only one reason I “wouldn’t want to be here.”
“I’m not here tonight, anyway.” I took a few steps back, but it might as well have been a hundred for the distance that lingered between us like a gaping chasm.
He’d confronted me about the past. I hadn’t been able to give him the answers he wanted, and now he hated me even more than before.
Two years of resentment had built and built, and this was the climax.
The nail in our coffin.
I was just his “whore” ex-girlfriend now. “You know I can move back in with Kyle...”
“All I said was, you probably wouldn’t want to be here. I’m trying to be nice.”
No, he wasn’t. He was letting me know that he was going to fuck girls until I was as inconsequential as every other whore. “Is that what we are now? Courteous roomies?”
“Isn’t that what you wanted?”
No, but what I wanted was the impossible. I couldn’t screw him without loving him, so I wouldn’t. But I didn’t want anyone else to, either. It was irrational, but more than anything, it was unfair. On him and me. “I wanted us to be friends.”
“You want to listen to my headboard bang the wall? Whatever.” He set the guitar to the side, swiping his finger over my name carved by the neck. “But we aren’t friends.”
