Page 99 of Play of Love
No, I should have known her better than that. She slipped her top down her arms, revealing her bare naked breasts.
“No.” She shook her head. “I’ll show you what you’ve been missing.”
That was it, I’d had enough of niceties and being pleasant. I grabbed her arm, ready to show her the door, but in that moment Amy walked in and stood in the corridor.
“I bought too much again, so don’t tell me off,” Amy said, but she stopped dead in her tracks as she saw me holding Allegra’s arm and looked from me to Allegra.
Her eyes landed on me, a question in her gaze and sadness surrounding them.
I dropped Allegra’s arm. “It’s not what you think,” I said once I could find my voice.
“Or maybe it is,” Allegra stated with menace.
“No,” I cried. I moved towards Amy but she shook her head at me and stepped back.
“Leave her, let’s just go already.” I couldn’t believe Allegra could sink so low.
Amy dropped her bags and rushed away through the door. Tears ran down her cheeks.
I ran after her and caught up with her on the beach.
“Amy, stop. Please.” I grabbed her arm.
“Don’t touch me,” she cried, trying to wrench her arm free.
“Please listen to me. I didn’t do anything wrong. Amy, I would never cheat on you.”
She shook her head as she cried. She looked so hurt and distressed I didn’t know what to do. What could I say to fix this?
“Just let me go, Josh. Just let me go.”
“No.”
“You have to. This is my fault. I should have known it would be a mistake being with you. It wasn’t like I didn’t know what you were like. My mother loved a man who could never be hers. I can’t let the same thing happen to me.”
“Amy, that will not happen to you. Iamyours. Allegra came to the house and was probably there for five minutes. She took off her clothes and I told her to leave.” It was like talking to a wall, because Amy looked at me without understanding.
“Damn it, Amy, can’t you just look at me and see that I’m telling the truth?”
I’d seen people do it. I had seen it happen where people could distinguish between a lie and the truth. They would be able to defend each other to the death if need be because they knew the other person so well that they knew truth when they saw it.
I guessed, though, that that wouldn’t happen here. It took trust, deep trust, for that to work, and she didn’t trust me.
I could see that I’d lost her but I had one last card up my sleeve. “Amy, I love you. I love you, and I would never hurt you.”
That had to work. I’d never told anybody besides my family that I loved them before. It shouldn’t have taken this disaster for me to tell her. It should have been something that I told her every day. Me, who was so open with my feelings.
But I was saving it for a better time, that special moment. Now I’d wasted it on my only chance.
And it did nothing and meant even less than that. All it did was make her cry even more.
“Please, just let go of me, Josh.” That was all she said.
I stared in disbelief, chills running down my spine. I couldn’t believe that she didn’t believe me, but worse than that, she wanted me to let her go.
As I released her I felt like my world had just been ripped away from me. I’d only experienced this feeling once before, and that was when I’d gotten the news that Mom and Clarissa had been killed. That news destroyed me and tore me apart.
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