Page 165 of Only for Him
Just as I’m about to give up and tell Ida I want to drink at her place instead, she strides into the bar in a pencil skirt and hair bouncing around her shoulders, shakes her umbrella dry before she locks eyes with me and breaking into one of her forgiving smiles.
“Oh, my God, Giselle,” she says, her tone light even as her gaze sharpens with worry. “I was starting to think your stalker had killed you and was texting me from your phone.”
Christ. She couldn’t have picked a worse way to start the conversation.
Oh, don’t worry about that, Ida. He’d never kill me! Only everyone else in the entire world.
“I’ve been busy,” I say, forcing a smile. It’s embarrassing, thinking I might be able to fool my best friend.
She narrows her eyes, slipping into the seat beside me. “Busy doing what? Cataloging cockroaches? Heard the whole precinct is going insane. First, bodies piling up. Now, Russo’s MIA.”
She picks up the gin and tonic I ordered her, taking a sip before her eyes widen. “Oh, shit, youdoknow all that, right? You’re on leave, not professional airplane mode. There’s no way you don’t know how fucked things are.”
“No, I know about all that.” In fact, I knowmoreabout all that than anyone in the NYPD. She apparently hasn’t even heard that Russo’s DOA, not MIA. I got the text earlier, from Teddy. Hewas vague about it, just said he wanted to tell me something in person.
But I knew what it meant.
Just like I know the body won’t have my name carved into it. I won’t receive a matchbook or a locket or some other memento. None of his new bodies have been stuffed with roses.
The game is over. The men he left behind used to be symbols of my anger, my grief, all wrapped up in his twisted affection.
I never asked for any of that fucking shit.
Fuck him for doing it anyway.
I want to scream at him. I want to hurt him.
No, no I don’t. I just want him back.
I don’t want to be a failed experiment. I don’t want to be the girl who couldn’t handle it.
But I could handle it! I could! Give me another chance and you’ll see!
He did give me another chance.
And I repaid him by fucking shooting him.
God, I want to tell her. I want to tellsomeone.“I’m sorry, Ida. I?—"
“Forget it, Giselle,” she cuts in, firm but kind. “Don’t even start with your excuses. You’ve been gone. I don’t mean from work, I meangone. And I can’t lose you. Not to whatever this is. So you can tell me whatever you want to tell me, but don’t lie to me about everything else.”
The crack in my heart widens, a physical pull to give Ida everything. She doesn’t even know who she’s sitting across from right now. No idea what I’ve done, who I’ve become.
If she knew, she’d run screaming. And by not telling her, I’m lying in the worst way.
Worse than lying. You’re taking away her ability to say no.
I want to tell her about Roman and the schoolteacher and Russo, how it’s all tangled in blood and violence. How I thought I was clawing my way toward vindication, only to find myself sinking into chaos. How I’m afraid that I don’t hate Roman at all. Because if it’s not hate, it’s…
No, I can’t say that word.
Instead, I take another sip of my drink. It’s too sweet. It sticks to my teeth, clashes hard against the bitter taste of everything I won’t say.
“I don’t know how to explain it,” I finally manage.
This whole time, I fucking begged him to pull me out of the wreckage. To show me that I’m worth owning. But now, all I see is a warped reflection. A funhouse mirror version of who I used to be.
“What if you didn’t have to explain it?” Ida studies me. “What if you just had to tell me what happened, and we figured out what it means together?”
