- Gemma -
could tell Alex was fuming. Even in the dark, his knuckles looked white against the steering wheel, and he seemed to be thinking so hard I could practically hear the gears turning in his head.
“Just don’t let that asshole bring you down,” he said. “That’s what he wants. Don’t let him win.”
“He hasn’t won, Alex. Don’t you get it? That’s why he did this. He lost his favorite punching bag, and he’s beside himself.”
Alex’s jaw clenched so hard it reminded me that he wasn’t merely some scrawny teen pissed on my behalf anymore. He was a man—a big man—and he was probably capable of just as much anger as my ex.
I glanced at the digital clock and then out the windshield at the red and white brake lights ahead of us, wishing I were already home under Jeanie’s Snuggie with Tink licking my cheeks like nothing happened.
“Can I ask you a question?” he asked, his voice suddenly softer, as if he’d realized his anger wasn’t improving the atmosphere in the small car.
“Can I stop you?”
His lips twisted with tangible frustration.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m just…embarrassed you even saw that. And right after what we just did.” I dropped my head back against the seat rest. “It was just bad timing.”
“There’s never a good time to have your car trashed and your reputation called into question.”
“What did you want to ask me?”
“How did you end up with a guy like that?”
I picked at my thumbnail.
“I don’t get it. When I look at you, I see a beautiful, smart woman who would never bend to the will of someone so…unstable.”
“Well, thanks for the compliment,” I said. “But I wasn’t always the person I am now.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’ve always been those things,” he said. “You forget that I’ve known you since you were a teenager, and even then you were the most—”
“That’s enough, Alex. More than enough.”
He came to a stop behind the car ahead of us and looked at me, his dark eyes sad in the dim light.
I exhaled. “Even if those nice things are true, I didn’t believe them for a long time. That’s how I ended up with a guy like that.”
His eyes turned down at the corners.
“I saw myself the way he saw me: as a pathetic, lonely, desperate fat ass. So when he treated me like that’s what I was, I didn’t see a problem with it.”
“Gemma—”
“You asked.”
“So what changed?”
“I don’t know,” I said, nodding towards the windshield when traffic started to move.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Excuse me?”
“Leaving a situation like that takes courage,” he said. “Something gave you that.”
I didn’t want to relieve any of this. Not even for one second. All this pain was buried so deep inside me, and it took so much energy to keep it there. But I respected Alex. And I trusted him. He’d never given me any reason not to, and he’d never made me question my worth. So perhaps he deserved the truth. After all, if he couldn’t handle it, maybe he would distance himself from me before my feelings for him went any further…
“He broke my wrist,” I said finally.
“What?”
“Well, technically, I broke it,” I said. “From falling when he was knocking me around.”
He kept his eyes on the road.
“And he made a joke after he picked me up at the hospital.” My chest burned at the memory.
Alex stayed silent.
“He said maybe I’d finally lose some weight now that it would be harder for me to pick up a fork.”
Alex squeezed his jaw in one hand.
“It hit me like a truck then that he didn’t love me, that all he really loved was tearing me down. That he was the unworthy piece of shit, not me.”
Alex turned into the lot outside Jeanie’s apartment building.
“That’s when I decided I’d rather die trying to leave the relationship than die in it.”
He pulled up to the curb and put the car in park.
“Does that answer your question?”
He nodded.
I unbuckled my seatbelt. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Gemma?”
I looked at him and raised my brows.
His eyes pleaded with me. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Say it doesn’t bother you. Say none of it bothers you.”
“I can’t say that,” he said. “It wouldn’t be true.”
My lips twitched towards a frown. “Then at least say it doesn’t spoil the nice time we had earlier.”
“Hey—” He reached over and cradled my cheek in his hand. “Nothing could spoil that.”
My heart cracked at the warmth of his touch, at the kindness in his eyes. I lifted a hand and pressed his against my cheek.
“You were…” His voice trailed off in a way that was so romantic I forgot everything we’d been discussing for a moment.
I leaned forward and kissed him, holding myself there for a second before parting my lips and letting him inhale my pain. When my eyes started to water, I sat back and dropped my voice to a whisper. “Thank you.”
“Do you need me to kiss you anywhere else?” he asked. “Because it would be an absolute pleasure to drag you in the backseat and—”
“Another time?” I asked.
“I’ll hold you to that.”
I pressed my lips together and let myself out, but as soon as I turned my back on his car, I heard the window rolling down and glanced over my shoulder. “Miss me already?” I asked.
“Naw. The view’s nice when you walk away, too.”
My cheeks blushed against the crisp evening air.
“Just wanted to say I’ll drive you to work in the morning. Save you having to find another way.”
“But you’re not on until ten.”
“You’re supposed to say ‘thanks, I look forward to seeing you then.’”
I smiled. “Thanks. I look forward to seeing you then.”
“I like it when you do what I tell you,” he said. “Gives me an idea for our next trip to the steam room.”
“Goodnight, Alex.”
“Great night, actually.”
I bit the inside of my cheek and disappeared into the building, relieved to be out of the chilly air with my wet hair.
“Is it raining?” Jeanie asked as I let myself in, the steam from a Cup Noodle rising around her face.
I slumped against the inside of the door and shook my head.
“Why are you smiling like an idiot?”
I sighed as Tinkerbell ran up and pressed her front paws against my knee. “Not because Ray dumped trash all over my car and wrote ‘fat whore’ across the windshield with whipped cream.”
Her face fell with her next bite, which splashed back in the steaming broth. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
“I wish.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Yet you look like Santa just confirmed your place on the nice list… So what gives?”
I scooped Tink into my arms and let her skinny tongue lap at my cheeks.
“I’m waiting,” she said, still clutching her dinner to her chest.
“Alex drove me home.”
A surprised smile lifted her cheeks. “And?”
“That’s not all he did.”