“I… I think I’m falling out of hate with you.”
The second those words hit my ears, I’m suddenly wide awake.
I came here with the intention of teaching her a lesson for lying to me, for pretending to be something she’s not, and it was all fine until I got one look at those fucking tears. They fucking broke me. The thought of pushing her too far damn near ruined me, let alone her. Suddenly everything seemed a little pointless, my revenge mission felt pathetic. No one had been hurt, and I’m sure she had her reasons for doing what she did, and at the end of the day I can’t forget that she kept my secret. She protected me. I’d been asking myself why all day and I think I might have just got my answer.
There have only ever been a couple of women I’ve been with more than once over the years, and all of them are ones who share my need to stay unattached. We work because we use each other for the pleasure we need before going about our lives. That is, until her. Until Tabitha. Everything changed the day I walked into the studio and found her there looking like a member of the royal fucking family. I told myself she didn’t fit, but is the reality of the situation that she fits there, in my life, more than I ever could have expected? My studio has been my sanctuary for as long as I can remember, even before I owned it, but suddenly with her there, it’s different. And when she’s now not there, fuck, I don’t want to be either, and that’s something I never thought I’d say.
Her breathing evens out, telling me that she’s succumbed to her exhaustion after the epic session I put her through. It was nothing like I was planning when I forced my way into this room but fuck, it was probably better than that.
Her tear-stained face pops into my head again. It mixes with her admission and I panic.
If she doesn’t hate me anymore then that means… no, I can’t even go there.
As gently and as silently as I can, I get myself out of her bed and scramble around the room to gather up my clothes. I feel like the walls are closing in on me, and I need to get the fuck out of here.
I still when I pull the door open and it creaks, but there’s no noise or movement from the bed so I run.
My room is on the floor above. Dressed in just my boxers, I run up the stairs and pray I don’t bump into anyone who gets up at the arsecrack of dawn.
Thankfully the hallways are empty and no sooner am I inside my room than I’m dressed in my normal clothes and shoving everything else into my bag. I can’t be here. I can’t walk down to breakfast in a few hours and look at her when I know she’s going to wake up and find me gone. I just can’t do any of it.
With my bag in hand, I take off. I check out with the half-asleep member of staff behind the desk and get the fuck out of that hotel and away from this side of town. I need my space. I need my home. I need the security of my normal life. Of my secret life.
I run all the way back. My legs ache and my lungs burn as I pull my keys from my pocket and let myself inside the studio.
I leave all the lights off and go straight for my flat. A place she’s never been. But… shit. She has, Lana said she’d come here. I might not have seen it with my own eyes but that doesn’t mean I don’t picture her here. Her scent is still in my nose, on my skin. If I didn’t know any better, I would think I could turn around and find her standing in the bedroom doorway, waiting for me.
Fuck. My head’s a fucking mess.
I turn the coffee machine on and drop my phone to the side before stripping out of my clothes once again and heading for the shower. One that’s not full of her products and her scent.
I scrub every inch of my skin in my attempt to forget. To forget the broken look on her face. The way her shoulders sagged in defeat. The way my heart damn near burst out of my chest as I stared down at her, having achieved what I set out to. I was meant to feel better for teaching her a lesson, but all I felt was regret. I’d hurt the one person who means something to me, the only woman to have been more to me than a quick fuck.
“Fuck,” I scream into the confines of my shower, slamming my palms against the tiles in frustration.
I can’t have fucking feelings for the woman. She’s everything I don’t want. She’s from a life I want to forget, not dive straight back into.
Lana’s words come back to me. “Have you ever considered that she might feel the same? She’s working in your studio, for fuck’s sake. She might want to rebel from all this just like you. She might actually be your perfect woman.”
“No, no, no.” I bang my head down again and again, hoping it’ll remove these kinds of thoughts from my mind. I don’t fucking need this. I don’t need a distraction, I don’t need a woman, and I certainly don’t need to hand my fucking bollocks over to one for her to squeeze whenever the fuck she wants to. I’ve seen it happen time and time again with friends. I want to be me, live my life, not one that some woman dictates.
When I eventually make it back to the kitchen, I forgo the coffee and head straight for the bottle of whisky in the cupboard. Hair of the dog, I tell myself, pretending that it’s not the ache still pulling at my chest from leaving her that I’m trying to numb.
My phone’s been angrily vibrating on the kitchen counter as I lie on the sofa, nursing my bottle. I know it’s my mum going crazy because I bailed on the family breakfast that had been arranged for this morning before Harrison and Summer headed off on their honeymoon, but quite frankly, I couldn’t give a shit.
I ignore it the best I can as I run through everything that happened in the last twenty-four hours. I do everything I can to keep my life as drama free as possible. I knew the moment I laid eyes on Tabitha that she was going to be trouble. It’s why I tried to get rid of her.
I sit up, remembering something from last night. My need to discover who she really was has me swiping my phone from the side, ordering an Uber and pulling my shoes on.
I’m down at the door, waiting for the car before it pulls up. Now I’ve had the idea I’m desperate to try to jog my memory.
My parents’ house is empty, as I was expecting. They’re probably still smoozing the guests that stayed the night at the hotel. I push the front door closed behind me, but I don’t look back to see if it’s shut or not. Instead I head for the stairs. Taking two at a time, I feel like a teenager again, running away from being told off for not towing the family line. Again.
I push through my bedroom door. It’s exactly as it was the day I moved out. I expected Mum and Dad to do something with it, not just shut the door and forget about it.
I pull open my wardrobe door and find a stack of books like I remember and rummage through until I find the one I want.
Our school yearbook.
The photographs are in alphabetical order, so I don’t need to go far past my own to find an image of a nondescript mousy brown-haired girl, who I still don’t recognise, named Tabitha Anderson.
“Jesus.” I rub at my rough jaw as I stare into a pair of grey eyes that have become so familiar. My heart twists looking into them, despite her only being sixteen in this photograph.
I sit back on my bed with the book on my lap as I continue staring, desperately trying to drag up some old memory of her. But there’s nothing.
Guilt pulls at my insides that I don’t remember this girl. This girl who’s turned into a woman who means more to me than I’m willing to admit.
“You’re a fucking arsehole,” I tell myself.
I’ve treated her like nothing but shit. All the while she’s known exactly who I am and not told a soul my secret.
It’s a good job I can’t bring myself to admit how I feel, because even if I did, I wouldn’t deserve her. She needs a decent guy. One who will treat her the way she deserves, not one who goes storming into her hotel room with the intention of getting revenge for something that doesn’t really mean much in the grand scheme of things. My stomach turns over. She would be much better with Christian. He’s a decent guy. He was decent enough to escort Tabitha to yesterday’s wedding having only had one date. That’s a man who knows how to treat a woman, right there.
At some point I must give in to my exhaustion, because the next thing I know I’m being woken to the sound of my dad shouting through the house, asking if anyone’s there before feet pound up the stairs.
“Hello? Is there anyone–”
“Zach,” Mum says on a sigh when she pokes her head around my door and finds me half asleep on my bed.
“What the hell are you doing here? We thought we’d been bloody robbed,” Dad barks while Mum must notice the expression on my face and places her hand on Dad’s forearm to stop him before she comes to sit beside me.
“Go and make us all a coffee, yeah?” she instructs Dad, who immediately follows her order like he always does.
Once he’s gone, she turns her soft, kind eyes on me before briefly glancing down at what’s in my hands.
“Whoa, it’s been a few years since I’ve seen one of these,” she says, taking it from me and looking at the photographs. “Aw, you were so handsome, even back then.” She makes it sound like it was a million years ago. Mind you, considering I’ve been very intimate with a girl I went to school with yet I don’t remember, maybe it was a million years ago.
“Tabitha was there yesterday, wasn’t she? Did you get a chance to catch up with her?”
I blow out a long breath as I try to figure out exactly how to answer that question.
“I really need to get going.”
“What’s going on, Zach? You missed breakfast this morning and now this? Talk to me, please,” she begs, her eyes soft and beginning to fill with tears. Unable to watch someone else I care about cry in front of me, I get up from the bed.
“It’s… nothing. I just couldn’t remember who she was is all. Fancied a trip down memory lane.”
“Do you want some food before you go?”
“No, I’m good. I just need to…” I trail off, not really having an answer, just needing to get the hell out of here.
“Okay, well. We’re here if you need us,” Mum says sadly.
I nod. It’s all I’m capable of as I once again walk away from both my parents and the house. Why do I find it so hard to confide in them? Why do I keep this wall up between us like I’m trying to use it to protect myself?
I stop at the shop on the way home for some food, but most importantly, some more whisky. I’m not working tonight so I intend on getting wasted in the hope I can forget all this bullshit ever happened.
My next client isn’t until Wednesday night, so as I lock the door behind me, I vow not to step foot back through it, or even open it again until I’m needed downstairs.
