“I know you were with her. I just saw you in the window. Don’t try to tell me you weren’t.”
I sighed. “I wasn’t gonna.”
“Oh, you weren’t? Yougonnaexplain, then? Yougonnaexplain what the hell you were doing out with a seventeen-year-old untilsix in the fucking morning?”
I couldn’t stop myself. “Actually, she’s eighteen now.”
She stalked towards me in her pink fuzzy socks.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? She’slegalnow, is that it? What the fuck do you even—”
“Nadia.” I cut her off, my voice coming out sharper than I meant and loud enough to match her own. We were practically shouting. I took a breath and let it out.
She crossed her arms over her chest and started tapping her foot. “I’m waiting, Cole. Are you going to talk, or are you going to just breathe at me?”
I reached up to lift my glasses and rub my eyes. “It was herbirthday, Nad. I told you that. I told you I was going over to Taverne Toulouse after I was done at the club. Things went late. We walked home together. You know she only lives like five minutes away.”
I walked past her and took a seat on the couch. The night had caught up with me all of a sudden, and it was a struggle just to stay on my feet. Nadia wasn’t done, though.
“I don’t like it. I don’t likeher. I never liked her, not since the first time you brought her here, which I amstillpissed about, by the way. You brought some girl off the street into ourhouse, and I know you were just trying to be nice, but Jesus, Cole, she could have murdered us!”
I try not to groan. It wasa whole fucking year ago, and she was still bringing it up.
“I don’t want you to see her anymore.”
I sat up straight on the couch. “What?”
Things with Nadia and I hadn’t always been bad. I loved her. Deep down, I always loved her; I just don’t think I ever loved her in the way she wanted to be loved. She always had this idea in her head of what we should look like together, of how things should be. She wanted that idea more than she wanted to accept the reality that neither of us was built for it.
Everyone was so happy for us, though. Everyone said we were so right. I know Auntie andOnclehad been hoping for it since we were kids. They wanted me toreallybe a part of the family, and it hurt like hell to know that because I felt like I already was.
So when Nadia kissed me one night when we were seventeen, I kissed her back. We announced we were dating a few months later. I told myself I was happy. I told myself it felt right. We broke up for a while when we moved out. She started school, and I started working. I told her things were just too hard, but she was cut up about it ending, and the whole family felt the strain.
We got back together. A year later, she wanted me to move in with her. Again, I thought about leaving, but even though we both realized things weren’t working, she wanted that picture of us she had in her head so fucking much. She told me she loved me, that I loved her too, that we just had to try harder.
She told me she’d never forgive me if I left her, and that in the end, her family would always side with her.
They were the only family I had. Damien didn’t even come to visit in the summer anymore. I had no idea where the fuck my dad was, and I’d given up on my mom when I was still a kid. Everyone left. Everyone always left me, so how could I turn around and leave Nadia?
I knew all that. I carried it with me every second of every day, but her telling me to stay away from Roxanne was a step too far.
“You want me towhat?” I demanded, getting up from the couch.
She took a step back, but her arms stayed crossed.
“I want you to stop seeing her.”
Cool it, I told myself.Calm down, man.
“Not gonna happen,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Oh really?” She was shouting again. “If you want to stay with me, it better happen.”
“And if I don’t?”
She looked scared for a moment, like she’d been hanging onto a rope and lost her grip, but then her face hardened.
“You won’t leave me.” She tossed her braids over her shoulder. “You can’t leave me. If you leave me, you leave all of us. You leave everything. Youloveme, Cole. You can’t just—”
