Page 61 of Nothing to Lose: Lost Trilogy: Part 1
Steve: Please call me, I need to hear your voice
Steve: I am so sorry for how we left things. I need you
Steve: If you don’t call me back, I will show up at your house
That last message makes me laugh. In the two years we were together, Steve showed up at my house for a total of four times. So his threat is empty to say the least, but I still decide to call him back and see what’s so important all of a sudden.
“Emily,” the relief in his voice when he answers is obvious. It confuses me to no end.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
“Where have you been? I’ve been texting and calling you for days, Emily.”
The way he’s voice sounds when he tells me that, it’s as if he is my keeper and I forgot to check in.
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business, Steve,” I snap at him. I smile when I hear his surprised intake of air. I was always meek and happy when I was with him.
“Emily, I’m not sure who you think you’re talking to.” He takes on a tone of authority, raising my hackles.
“Well, Steve, I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation, so there’s that,” I almost laugh.
“We are having this conversation because you just disappeared from my life, never to be seen again,” he explains it to me like I am a small child. I can’t believe I actually dated this man. I had sex with him. I thought I’d have children with him. That last thought makes me shudder in horror.
“Steve, what else was there to say? I saw you screwing your assistant on your desk. I had nothing to say to that other than goodbye. Which I did text to you, did I not?” I remind him in a haughty tone.
“You didn’t give me a chance to explain anything, Emily,” Steve replies in kind. “I tried calling you and telling you that Lonnie means nothing to me. And she is the one who came on to me, not like I was sitting here thinking to myself,I think I’m going to cheat on my girlfriend.”
“Steve,” I sigh into the speaker. “None of this matters anymore. I don’t care, I really don’t. You are free to sleep with whoever you want. You and I are not together anymore.”
He completely ignores everything I just said. “You need to meet with me. And trust me when I tell you that it’s for your own good.”
“No, Steve,” I disagree. “Me staying away from you is for my own good.”
“Oh,” he chuckles, and the way he does it puts me on a high alert. “You think that if you’re fucking around with a criminal now, you are all high and mighty? Does your father know?”
I don’t know what shocks me more, the fact that he used the F word, something he normally completely avoids because, according to him, it is classless, or the fact that he knows I’m seeing Puck. What the hell?
“You think I don’t know what you’re up to, Emily?” he continues. He knows he has the element of surprise on his side. “You either meet with me, or I will make sure to make life quite unpleasant for you.”
“I don’t understand,” I shake my head in confusion even though he can’t see me. “What business of yours is it what I do or don’t do?”
“Oh, don’t get this wrong, Emily. I don’t give a shit who you do. Or should I sayfuck? Is that how you like to be talked to? Is that howhetalks to you?”
My hands are shaking at this point. I bring my phone down from my ear and stare at the screen in shock. I can hear Steve talking away, saying God knows what, but I don’t care. I press theEndbutton on the call, then drop the phone on the kitchen table. In a moment of lucidity, I pick it back up and look him up in my contacts. Once I am on the right screen, I block his number.
“What the hell was that?” I press a hand to my chest in shock. Steve never talked to me like that before, and I don’t understand what the point of it was now. Just, why?
When the phone starts ringing, I am about to jump ten feet in the air. The sigh of relief I let out when I see it’s Puck calling almost has me in tears.
“Puck,” I manage to choke out.
“Babe, you okay?” he growls into the phone, always on high alert.
“I am now that I can hear your voice,” I tell him, and it’s no lie.
“Come to the door,” is all he says, then hangs up.
With hurried steps, I get to my front door and fight with the multiple locks I have on it. I rip it open and come face to face with Puck’s tired but happy face.
