Page 41 of Venus
“No,” he says, stepping closer, “but you knew. You saw the shift. You watched him fall, and you kept showing up anyway.”
“I didn’tlet himdo anything,” I snap. “He’s an adult. He could’ve walked away anytime.”
Jackson leaned in, voice sharp. “He’s stupidly in love with you. It’s kinda sick how you know it, and you still keep going back. You keep letting him believe that maybe this time you’ll feel the same.”
I look away. “It’s not that simple.”
“It is,” he said, softer now. “You should’ve pulled back. Should’ve been honest. Not for you—for him. Calling him these past few weeks was a mistake. You knew you still didn’t want more, but yet he came runningto you every time because he loves you and wants you to see it.”
I don’t have a comeback that doesn’t sound like a sorry excuse. Because everything he’s saying? It’s not wrong. He’s read me and Carter’sthinglike an open book, and now I’m the antagonist in my own story.
“Look, whoever you really are, ‘Venus’, you’re not a bad person,” he says, “But you’re doing a bad thing. You’re playing with my best friend’s feelings like putty and I don’t like it. You’re just going to break him.”
“I still don’t understand how this is my fault.” My voice cracks a little, more frustration than volume. “Why is it always the woman who gets blamed for feelings? Callie said the same thing to me. Apparently I signed up to be the bad guy in someone else’s fantasy. I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“Maybe you didn’t ask for it, but it happened, and you let it. That’s why you’re the bad guy. If you don’t feel that way about him, that’s fair, but at least break it off for his sake. He’s in too deep and I don’t think he has it in him to be the one to let this go. You have to do it.”
“You don’t get it,” I mutter.
“Then explain it.”
“You’re acting like I don’t care about him at all, like I want to hurt him. I like him. Is that what you want to hear? IlikeCarter, a lot. But he knows why I don’t want commitment, and I’m not changing that because things got messy. I’ve been clear with him from the start.”
“All of that would have been fine if you had let him go. But you didn’t. You’ve called him every time you’vegotten lonely and he came running like a lousy puppy to his owner. And now you’re throwing a tantrum and acting like a selfish brat becauseyouplayed withhisfeelings. You let him fall for you until he was in a hole he can’t climb out of anymore.” He takes a deep breath, and I’m stuck staring at him. He turns from me. “I said what I needed to say. Enjoy that commitment-less life. I hope the sex was worth breaking him.”
And just like that, he walks off, checks out at the cashier, and leaves. When I get back into my car, I just…sit. No music. No tears. No A/C.
Just as I’m getting ready to leave, my phone buzzes with a new text.
Carter: Come over?
I stare at his name for a long time. I type the wordnoand hover my thumb over the send button.
Then I clear the text box and retypeyes.
And just like that, I realize I really am the villain.
Chapter 22 | Vulcan
I don’t know at what point I lost all my dignity, but like always, my only way to see her was a promise of sex, even if that’s not really what I wanted from this. It’s the only way she’ll give me the time of day.
I’m still stupidly hoping that one day, I’ll open the door, and she’ll jump into my arms rom-com style and everything will be okay after that.
But it never is. It’s our same routine. She gets here, I lick her pussy, we make a mess of each other, and she leaves. She leaves like it’s so easy for her when it kills me each time she walks out of the door.
She didn’t leave last night, though. She stayed over, slept in my arms, and then woke up with that‘this was a mistake’look she gives me every time. I don’t really know when this shift happened.
Everything was going so well and then one day, it wasn’t. I don’t even think it was the forehead kiss that did it, either. I think she realized she was falling too, even just a little bit, and it scared her.
Now, she acts like I’m a stranger again, and I don’t know how much more of it I can take. How much moream I willing to put myself through for a girl who has told me time and time again that she doesn’t want me?
She gives me the grace of letting us stop for coffee together before our shifts, but mine has been cold for a long time. I haven’t touched it. It’s not like it would make me feel any more alive.
We sit in a corner booth, awkward silence filling the space between us. The hiss of the espresso machine on the other side of the cafe does its best impression of white noise, but it does nothing to ease the tension. I have my boot propped up on the opposite bench, absently but maybe purposefully locking her in the booth so she can’t run until we finally talk about this, because I can’t move on until I know for sure where we stand.
The coffee shop is mostly empty and everyone inside is half-asleep. But not me. I’m fully awake and aware of the woman sitting across from me.
She scans the room like she’s expecting to get ambushed, but it’s just me and her. The second she accidentally meets my eyes, she shrinks into herself like a puppy getting scolded by her owner.
