Page 43 of Riot Reunion
“You’re not the type of guy who likes having emotional conversations! The walls you build around yourself are ridiculous, Pax. You closed yourself off years ago. You won’t let anybody in. How was I supposed to talk to you—”
“I LETYOUIN!” He roars. “I closed myself off because I don’t like getting fuckinghurt, Chase! I protected myself for as long as I could. I threw up a shield, and I shut people out, and I held everybody at arm’s length. Yes, I fucking did that, and it worked. It protected me. And then you came along and made me want to let someone in at last. I made myself fucking vulnerable by lettingyouin. I gave you the means and the opportunity to hurt me, and I trusted that you wouldn’t. Do you haveanyidea what that cost me? And the first thing you do is fuckingdestroyme.”
“Pax…” I’m withering inside. Dying. What am I supposed to say? I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel. I’m so afraid that I can’t think straight around the panic and the pain.
“How far along are you?” he demands.
“Fourteen weeks."
“So what? You were just going to ignore me until you gave fucking birth? Is that it? You were gonna ghost me and have my fucking kid in secret, and expect me not to come up here to find out what the fuck was going on?”
“No. I was—” I screw my eyes shut, shaking my head. “I wasn’t going to do that. I don’t know how I was gonna handle it. I needed more time. I just couldn’t face how badly you were going to react, and—”
“YOU DIDN’T EVEN GIVE ME A CHANCE!” he explodes again, the same words ripping out of him.
“Well, I don’t need to now, do I?” I fire back. The anger clawing at me isn’t real. I’m so confused, but this—shouting at him, screaming—feels like wrestling back control of the madness somehow.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because I’ve already made up my mind. You don’t need to be the bigger man, stepping in to martyr your youth for some girl you met at high school and a kid you never wanted. I won’t do that to you. You don’t have to worry about any of it, okay? I’ve made up my mind. I’m not keeping it. By this time next week, this won’t even be an issue anymore. I can get on with my classes. You can go back to Virginia and continue with your internship with Cross, and you won’t even have to spare a thought for me again, all right? That’ll be the end of it.”
I’ve been so good at not looking at him up until now, but I can’t help myself. I risk a glance in the rearview mirror, and what I see there knocks the wind out of me. Pax’s steel-grey eyes meet mine, our gazes locking. He’s pale as a ghost, whiter than the fresh sheet of snow that covers the park. He’s so still, stiff, rigid as a board, a cold fury rolling off him in potent waves. “Just like that then?” he says.
“Yes.”
“No conversation? No fucking discussion?”
“I’m saving you the hassle.” God, I want to die. I want the ground to open up and eat me up.
“That’s what you want?” Pax says numbly.
“What doyouthink? I can’t imagine a fate worse than forcing you into caring for a child you never fucking wanted. I won’t be the girl who trapped the notorious Pax Davis—”
The car door wrenches open, cutting me off. “Fuck you, Presley.” It slams closed after him, the sound so very final. Like a gunshot. Like a period. Like an end.
15
WREN
Elodie’s a loud creature.Headstrong and sure-footed. She wasn’t like that when I first met her. Oh, no. I saw the rough sketch of the woman she would be, beneath the uncertainty and the wide-eyed cautiousness of a new student, thrust into a strange and unfamiliar world. Beneath the troubled aura that shrouded her like a veil, courtesy of her father’s vile mistreatment, there was a spark that promised to transform into an inferno of confidence and self-assuredness under the right circumstances. She was just a suggestion of herself then. A whisper of potential. The second I saw the truth of her, waiting timidly to step forward into the light, I determined thatIwould be the one to carry her out of the darkness. And she hadn’t fucking needed me.
Strong women with piss and vinegar for blood never need aguyto make things right for them. I’d stroked my ego, believing that she was flourishing under my protection last year at Wolf Hall, but let’s face it. All Elodie needed was time. To adjust. To heal. To process. Recover. Maybe I gave her some breathing room to accomplish those things, but she would have gotten there all by herself, no doubt about it.
She became fire.
I became a shadow, made dim by the light she cast off. And Ilikedit. I’ve relished bathing in the brilliant glow of her for months. I’ve becomesoaccustomed to that glow that I’m hyperaware of its absence right now, sitting here at the only nice restaurant in town, because Elodie Stillwater is sad and, try as I might, there’s nothing I can do to make it better.
I sit opposite her, acid eating at the back of my throat. Do I care that this whole Pax/Presley situation is a mess? Yeah, I care. Of course I do. Pax is my friend. I’ve got his back, no matter what. I cannot—willnot—overlook the fact that the fallout from the Davis/Chase debacle is hurting my girlfriend’s heart, though. Spearing a piece of steak with my fork, I flare my nostrils, working hard to overlook the fact that the girl I love looks like she’s about to burst into tears during dinner.
“I could castrate him. Would that help?”
Elodie jerks, eyes snapping to me, pulling in a sharp intake of breath. She was a million miles away a second ago; my offer has brought her screaming back to the here and now, and I honestly can’t tell if she’s happy about it. A small crease mars her brow. She laughs quietly, shaking her head. “I don’t think that’ll solve the problem,” she muses. “Maybe if you’d done it back at the start of summer…” She trails off, moving the food around her plate, distracted. She insisted we come here for dinner. That, even though we’re in a different state and far away from our new apartment, we should still have time together. A date, to decompress and enjoy a meal in each other’s company. We should have stayed at the hotel, though. Her concern for Presley is a cinder block shackled to her ankles, and no amount of coaxing can free her of it.
“She’s gonna be okay,” I say.
Elodie looks up, exhaustion sketched into her features. It occurs to me, not for the first time, that I am one fucked up individual. How is it that I find her more beautiful than ever when she’s haunted like this? I’d rather die than let her suffer. But fuck me if she isn’tseriouslyfucking beautiful right now. I’ll hit up a therapist at some point. But for now, I’ll revel in my sickness. I want to fuck her so bad. It doesn’t help that, without my knowledge, she took the razorblade I left on the nightstand the other night and turned it into a choker necklace with the help of a little waxed black cord. The clear guard safely protects her skin from the edge of the blade. The sight of it there, resting against her pale, smooth skin, isdoingsomething to me.
My hands around her throat.
