I huffed a little. “Because I care about you,” I snapped back—and then realized what I’d just said.
Oh, shit.
Not only had I long since violated Rule Two, but I’d just told him.
I hadn’t meant to. Not even I am stupid enough to think that blurting out my feelings on a day when he was already in a terrible mood, quite possibly because of something else asinine that I’d inadvertently done.
Elliot just stared at me, the expression on his face completely unreadable. Then it flickered through several emotions, none of them at all encouraging or flattering.
And then he walked out of the kitchen without a word.
I stood staringat the gaping patio door, not sure what to do.
Damn Hart. He’d literally told me this would happen, although I felt like he’d maybe understated things a little bit.
The look on Elliot’s face had hit me like a punch to the gut—hot, painful, nauseating. I’d thought for a good minute or so that I might actually throw up. I didn’t, but the back of my throat was still burning from the acid that had burbled up.
Betrayal, rage, disgust. In that order.
I’d broken Rule Two. Taken a goddamn hatchet or mallet or sledgehammer to it, in fact. And doing so had clearly violated the promise I’d made five months ago to keep feelings out of it.
“Elliot, I know we agreed that this was going to be casual, but—I have feelings for you. I know we agreed not to do that, but I can’t help it.”I’d rehearsed it a thousand times in my head, in a thousand ways. None of them sounded any better than that, and I knew it was awkward and uncomfortable. But it was true. And I was tired of pretending it wasn’t.
It hadn’t been even remotely the right time or the right context. I knew that. I’d had no intention of telling him, not then. But it had come out of me anyway.
I hadn’t even said anything like what I’d carefully rehearsed. I’d just blurted out that I cared about him. On a day when he was already short-tempered and in a bad mood.
He’d juststaredat me, the twist to his mouth anything but pleasant or mirthful.
It was a knife to the chest. Right under the solar plexus.
I would have felt better about it if he’d said something. Anything. Yelled at me. Told me I was wrong. Thrown me out of the house.
But he’d just given me thatlook, then walked out of the room, leaving me standing there in the kitchen, staring down at the small pile of takeout brochures sitting on the counter top. I’d walked out to the living room when I heard the sound of the sliding patio door to find a fluffy tail disappearing into the long grass and evening shadows. He’d left the door gaping open, and I numbly crossed to it, pulling it shut, but not locking it. He’d be able to pull it open again with the rope.
I—
I couldn’t be here whenever that happened.
I managedto make it out to my Cruiser before I completely lost it. It somehow felt wrong to let my emotions overwhelm me in a house where I was clearly no longer welcome.
I’d walked into the room where I’d been sleeping, grabbed all my clothes and toiletries and everything else I had moved to Wisconsin and shoved it haphazardly into the bags I’d brought it in, and then carried it out to the Cruiser, throwing it into the back seat, the trunk, the passenger seat without caring about being careful. Except for the aloe plant, because it didn’t deserve to be broken or abused when it hadn’t done anything wrong.
Then I’d sat behind the wheel and put my forehead on my arms and sobbed.
But I had to get myself under control. Ihadto.
I wiped the tears off my face, then picked up my phone.
I need a parachute, I sent to Hart.
You sure?came back quickly.Can’t talk—sitting in a stupid regional meeting I don’t want or really need to be at, but am required to attend anyway. But I can text Mom.
I thought about it. I might be able to figure out some way to sleep at work, but starting the habit of crashing under tables or on makeshift benches made out of chairs from the break room was not a good way to start impressing your brand new coworkers who already thought you were weird for leaving the big city—not that Richmond was that big—for Shawano ass-end-of-nowhere Wisconsin.
They’d have thought I was weirder if I told them I did it to live with a guy who didn’t want anything resembling a relationship to whom I’d just confessed that I had feelings and who had then literally run out of the house.
In badger form, but still. It wasn’t what I’d wanted.
