Old habits die hard. I can’t exactly explain why I’m letting Brett hold me, allowing him to run his hands down my back and press his lips to my cheek, but I’m letting him anyway. I’m convincing myself that it feels nice. That I need this. That this is where I’m meant to be.
Maybe I’m no better than Adam, unable to let go of the past, trudging through bad choices over and over again, doomed to relive the same misery again and again, but we just never learn and refuse to change.
Like how I pressured him to open up to me, so desperate for his love and attention, that’s what I’ve been doing since I was a kid. Giving people the chance to love me and blaming them when they don’t. Just setting myself up for disappointment again and again.
After Adam got in his car and drove away, I came back inside the club with Brett. We went to the office, where we always used to hang out. I’m sitting on the desk with him between my legs like we used to.
But I can’t stop thinking about Adam. How I put all of my feelings on the line for him and he threw them away. How I’ve started growing attached to a man who will never allow himself to feel the same for me.
I feel like the world’s biggest fool.
I’m lost in my own head as Brett pulls my face toward his and stares into my eyes just before leaning in to kiss me. With a flinch, I pull away.
“What are you doing?”
“You’re still my girl, Sage. You always were.”
I pull farther away, pushing a hand to his chest to get some distance. “I need some space right now.”
“Space from me?” he asks, looking wounded.
My brows pinch together in confusion. “We broke up, Brett. I…started seeing someone else. Why aren’t you mad? Didn’t you see what we just did?”
He lets out two heavy breaths with his eyes on my face before he responds. “Of course I did. It was for me, wasn’t it?”
A chill runs down my spine.
It wasn’t for you.
“Sure…I guess. But why aren’t you mad?”
“Because I knew you’d come back to me. I knew he couldn’t keep you.” His eyes are dark and hooded as he stares at me with a menacing expression. Brett is so handsome but loses all of his good looks with his cocky and detached attitude. For years, I’ve been trying to burrow myself in his heart the same way I did with Adam and look where that got me.
“But…I’m still with him. We just had a little fight.”
“You’re in here now, aren’t you?”
A sob lodges itself in my throat. “I’m in here now because I got in a fight with him. Because I need emotional support. Is this some kind of competition to you?”
I try to hop off the desk when he presses against me to hold me in place. What have I done? I’ve cornered myself in a room with a man who has every right to be furious with me. Brett would never really hurt me, but he would also never pass up the opportunity to make me hurt if he thought I deserved it.
He grabs the back of my neck and I let out a yelp from fear and a hint of pain. Then he crashes his mouth against mine, and I let him kiss me because it’s all I know. Not because I want to but because I have to. This relationship is all I know.
As he pulls away, his dark eyes focus on mine. “For over a month now, I’ve had to endure those videos, Sage. Seeing you two together. Seeing him fucking you like that. It killed me.”
“Brett…” I plead as I lean away from his grip.
“But you’re back, Sage. You’re back with me, and I just need to hear you say you’re mine.”
“Brett…” I repeat, my voice growing tense at the tightening of his hand.
“Guys like Adam Goode get everything. The perfect family. The perfect home. Money, fame, even the perfect women. I can’t stand the thought of you with him. So please, baby…” His forehead is against mine and I can feel him trembling, as if he’s teetering on the edge, ready to explode without warning.
When he lets go of my neck, I feel a moment of relief.
Then I’m blindsided. His palm comes crashing against the side of my face, nearly knocking me off the desk. I’m too stunned to even gasp or cry or react. I just hold my hand to my cheek and stare at him in shock.
“I thought you liked it rough. I saw the video where he hit you.”
“That was consensual!” I cry out as my chest shudders with a sob.
Terror and frustration mingle through my mind as panic sets in. Is this a joke to him? Brett would never truly hurt me, but does he really think I want it like this? Because of how he’s seen me in those videos?
When his hand holds my hair at the scalp, something in me snaps. I swing my hand hard until it lands with a resounding smack against his face, and he freezes, staring at me with the same shock I wore a moment ago. As if I’m somehow the offender.
For a moment, I’m afraid I’ve only angered him more and we’re about to have an all-out brawl, one I will surely lose on account of size and strength alone, but fuck it. If I die fighting, I die fighting.
To my relief, he doesn’t hit me back. Instead, he steps away.
“So that pretty boy can slap you around, but I can’t?”
“It’s not like that, and you know it.”
He’s staring at me with hurt and anger written in the hard, contoured shape of his eyes and nose. “No, I don’t think I do know, Sage. The truth is, I don’t understand anything anymore. You were my girl. Then you just left, and a week later, you’re making waves with that guy? The guy who’s gotten everything handed to him. Everything we had to work for, fight for, claw our way out of poverty for, he never had to do shit for. You let that guy have his way with you.”
Tears stream from my eyes like a faucet. I’m a sobbing mess as I let it all out. “You never cared about me, and you still don’t. How could you watch those videos and never call? Never text? Because I’m nothing to you, and I know that now.”
He doesn’t say a word as I wipe at the tears sliding over my aching cheek.
“You think Adam Goode only gets perfect women?” I say through my chest-racking sobs. “Well, for a moment, he had me, and I’m perfect too, but neither of you seems to think that. You turned your back on me, Brett. Then he turned his back on me. You can both go to hell.”
When I climb off the desk, he reaches for me, but I slap his hand away. “And for the record, I don’t let him slap me around for his pleasure. I do it for mine. Because it’s consensual. And I shouldn’t have to explain that to you.”
I keep my head down as I stumble out of the club, and the tears won’t stop. Every time I think I get my emotions under control, one single thought starts the onslaught again. Standing in front of the club, I keep to myself as I order my ride.
But the minute I get inside the older woman’s blue station wagon, I remember that feeling I had earlier tonight with Adam. The softness in his eyes and how I was so sure there was a spark there when there wasn’t. Only to find out he is still too broken to see me.
Then we turn onto my street, and I remember that night he came to the book club, and I feel murdered by his betrayal again. He called me his. He looked into my eyes and asked me to trust him. Touched me and took pleasure from my body like it was his to take, and I’m fuming with anger.
As she comes to a stop in front of my building, I feel almost too weak to even get out of the car.
“Thank you,” I reply with a sniffle as I tear open the door and stumble into the Laundromat. I hide my face from Gladys as I scurry toward my door.
Taking each step in a desperate race to get into my apartment, my safe space, my home, I nearly miss the huddled mass sitting at the top of the stairs.
I let out a scream as I lock eyes with him.
“Sage? Jesus Christ.” Adam’s frantic voice fills my ears. I barely have a second to utter a word before he pulls me into his arms. And the tears return.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper.
“I didn’t know where else to go.” His voice is raspy and tired sounding. It’s full of remorse.
As he pulls away from our hug, he holds my face in his hands and his brows fold inward at the sight of my tears. “What happened? Did he hurt you?”
First, I shake my head. Then, with a sob, I nod.
He did hurt me. And not just the slap across the face. The betrayal hurt. The name-calling. The attacking tone. Everything hurt.
For years, it all hurt so much and I swallowed that hurt like medicine. Taking every ounce of that pain in stride like I was supposed to because taking the pain in silence was the only way to be good.
Any form of defense was an offense.
Adam’s soft touch brushes my hair out of my face and I wipe at my face with the back of my hand, but he grabs my wrist to stop me.
“Don’t wipe them away. Just cry. I’ve got you.”
With another sob, the tears continue to pour out. I barely register what’s happening as he unlocks the door and pulls me inside. We don’t stop at the kitchen or the living room. He takes me directly to the bathroom.
There he holds me against his chest. And I can sense how paralyzed he is with indecision. He has no clue what to do, but he also has no idea that this is all I need.
When my tears have stopped and my face feels raw and swollen, he gently pulls me away from his chest. Instead of speaking, he moves toward the large claw-foot tub and turns on the faucet, pouring lavender-scented bubbles under the stream of water and checking the temperature.
Then he delicately pulls me toward the tub and sits on the edge as he carefully pulls my dress over my head. And since my panties are still in his pocket, I’m fully naked before him.
His hands are on my hips, and his eyes are on my face. The quiet moment stretches wordlessly before he leads me to the water, holding my hand as I climb in, sinking quickly under the bubbles like it’s my safe haven.
He disappears for a moment, coming back with a washcloth. Instead of handing it to me, he dips it under the suds and uses it to gently wipe the tearstains from my cheeks. Then he squeezes the water over my head, dousing my hair with it.
And I just lie there, letting him dote on me, feeling entirely at peace because I can’t remember the last time anyone ever took care of me. And I might still be angry at him, but it’s impossible to tear myself away from his attention.
When his hand sinks under the surface, gently cleaning every inch of me, I let my eyes close. He runs the washcloth over my chest and down my belly, over my hips and across the length of each leg. Even giving his attention to each of my toes on both feet.
As his hand travels up the inside of my leg, my eyes open. But just as I expect him to touch me, he pulls his hand away. He wrings out the washcloth and drapes it over the side of the tub. Then he drops into a sitting position and rests his back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling.
After a moment, he finally speaks.
“You were right. I fucking hate that you were right.”
“About what?” I whisper.
“I’ve followed the rules my entire life. I’ve always said what I’m supposed to say. I behaved the way I was supposed to behave. And now…I don’t know what the fuck to say half the time. I don’t even know who I am.”
“Adam, that’s not—” I whisper.
“I didn’t stick my neck out for my brother. When my father berated him, belittled him, humiliated him, I said nothing. Isaac was seventeen when he came out.” His voice trembles as he speaks. “He was just a kid, and I was a man. Why didn’t I defend him? I could have helped him. I should have protected him, but I was too focused on being the good son.
“Then, the day before his eighteenth birthday, he just…disappeared. It broke my mother’s heart, and I did nothing.”
These tears sting because these are the ones I don’t want to cry. I don’t like hearing Adam’s pain. I hate knowing that he’s beating himself up for something that is really his father’s fault.
“I’m sorry…”
“I’m afraid I can’t give you what you deserve, Sage.”
I don’t respond as I swallow down what feels like knives in my throat. But just the acknowledgment that Adam thinks about my needs, that we could be an us, stops me from speaking.
He turns toward me with bloodshot eyes.
“It was real, and you deserve a man who can admit that.”
“You just did,” I reply with a teary smile.
I can tell by the look in his eye that it’s not enough for him. That he still doesn’t feel worthy.
