Chapter Nineteen
Mia
Since I have school tomorrow, I open up my laptop and go online to check my syllabus and see what I’ve missed. It hasn’t been on my mind this week, so I’ve done literally none of the reading. I’m going to show up to class completely unprepared and hope no one calls on me. I can’t even pull the “my boyfriend died” card, because since he was murdered by a damn mob boss, there’s no record of that even being a thing that actually happened.
Now that my mind has inevitably gone there, I’m depressed again. I tool around with the syllabus for a few more minutes, flipping through The Awakening, but I do not find the motivation to read even a single page.
Finally I just fall back on the bed and stare up at the ceiling, trying not to get lost in my thoughts and feelings. I don’t want to think about Vince because it breaks my heart, but it also feels like a betrayal not to think about him. Probably as much a betrayal as lying in this bed, where I let his murderer give me an orgasm just last night.
I’ve never hated myself more for wanting Mateo. And I’ve judged myself pretty hard for that, so that’s really saying something.
I pop upright as I hear my door open. I scowl when I see Mateo walk in. Meg was supposed to keep him off my ass tonight.
He doesn’t have his suit jacket on, but he’s still wearing the dress shirt and slacks, his dark hair perfectly tousled. He still looks incredibly sexy—for a murderer. I glare at him, resting a hand on my laptop so he’ll get the impression I’m busy.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Getting stuff ready for school tomorrow. You said I have to go back,” I remind him, a bit sullenly.
He doesn’t waste his time responding to my petulance. “Why did you ask Meg to keep me away tonight?”
Sighing, I state boldly, “Because you murdered my boyfriend and I don’t want to fuck you anymore.”
“That’s not true,” he says mildly, approaching my bed, flicking a glance at my laptop, then the book. “What are you reading?”
“Still The Awakening. I’m not reading it, I’m avoiding it. I’m only halfway through and I hate everything about it.”
“Don’t finish it,” he advises, plucking it off the bed and literally tossing it across the room and onto the floor. “I’ll save you the trouble. She kills herself to get away from her responsibilities and the crushing emptiness that is life.”
I roll my eyes. “Was she a Morelli?”
“That’s cold,” he states.
“You’ve been fucking me without a condom since we started sharing and Meg specifically asked you not to,” I reply, meeting his gaze. Might as well get into that, since it’s the only reason I wanted to see him tonight.
Nodding, he takes a seat on the edge of my bed. “I was going to start soon, if you weren’t pregnant already.”
“And if you already got me pregnant?” I ask, despite the notion making my stomach sink. “What then?”
He doesn’t immediately answer, then he does, and it’s awful. “There was already a chance Vince got you pregnant the night you told me about. If there was a chance you were pregnant, I needed there to also be a chance it was mine.” This makes my heart stop anyway, but he continues, “I also know you want a baby, and I figured if you got pregnant straight out of the gate like this, when there was still a chance it wasn’t mine, we could pass it off as…”
“Vince’s baby,” I finish, although my voice is hardly audible.
I hadn’t even thought of that. Not once. I’ve been lost in sadness and grief, and the practicalities of life, the basic principles of unprotected sex and the possible consequences hadn’t even crossed my mind. The night I had all that wine and Vince and I had really mean sex with each other, he didn’t use a condom. Mateo had asked when I was last with him, and even though it was humiliating, it was when things were so wonderful and I wanted to be honest.
Mateo nods. “Then Meg wouldn’t have to know, but you’d still get your baby.”
“So, if I’m not pregnant now, I never get a baby,” I say. Though, honestly, I hope I am pregnant. And I hope the baby’s Vince’s, not Mateo’s.
Vince’s final act of revenge—it would be a good one, too. Mateo would hate that, and it would make Vince really happy; the thought kind of makes me smile.
“You’ll still get your baby; it will just have to wait a while. A long while, if the current state of things is any indication,” he says, sighing and lying back on my bed, the way I had just a moment ago.
I despise the impulse to ask him what’s wrong. To let him put his head in my lap, to run my fingers through his dark hair and let him share his burden.
I will not do that.
“If Meg doesn’t change her mind though, I don’t get a baby.”
“I’ll give you a baby whether she changes her mind or not, that will just make things less pleasant. Accidents happen. Condoms break. But Meg isn’t my biggest fan right now either, so I need to wait a while before I pull something like that.”
I shake my head. “You’re awful.”
Sighing, he says, “You’re the wrong woman to plot with. Sorry, I’ll save my plotting for Meg.”
“She trusts you enough to share you with someone else, and you’re going to deny her the one thing she asked of you.”
Frowning, he looks up at me. “For you. You’re the one who wants a goddamn baby, Mia.”
“Well, I don’t want your baby,” I state, turning my attention back to the laptop.
This annoys him. He pushes himself up on his elbow, narrowing his eyes at me. “Bullshit.”
“Your genes are fucked up,” I state. “You’re all angry, explosive, soulless monsters. I don’t want to have a little monster. I’ll go to a sperm bank.”
He laughs shortly, amused. “Like hell you will.”
“Get some PH.D level sperm. Some doctor sperm. Maybe some NFL linebacker sperm. Really any other kind of sperm.”
“Uh huh.”
“I’ll ask Adrian for sperm,” I say, just to annoy him now.
Mateo rolls his eyes. “Elise will kick your ass. And he’s a soulless monster, too, remember?”
“Still better than having a Morelli,” I reply.
“Touché.”
“You have to start using a condom,” I tell him. “Or you have to let me have birth control. One way or the other, we have to do something. Maybe you don’t care about respecting Meg’s wishes, but I do. You never even spend the night with her anymore.”
“I’ve had my hands full with you. If you’d just hurry up and forgive me, we could all move on with our lives.”
Meeting his gaze, I tell him seriously, “I’m never going to, so I wouldn’t wait around for that.”
“I don’t believe that,” he says, turning over and crawling across the bed. He closes my laptop and moves it to the nightstand, then he sets himself up among the pillows.
“Well, you should. I told you I wouldn’t and I meant it. If you’re waiting around for my forgiveness, I’ll consider giving it to you at your funeral.”
“Ouch.”
I shake my head, not amused. “You crossed the line, Mateo. I told you where it was because I thought it would matter to you. I tried to stop you, I didn’t want you to ruin this, but you’re you and you can’t be bothered with limits. But people have them, and if you can’t respect that, then you have to be prepared to lose the feelings they had for you. I told you all this. Not even just as a warning that night, I told you all of this the first night we were together in this room, when I was trying to impart lessons that I paid a heavy price to learn.” I shake my head, so frustrated with him I can hardly handle it. “But you didn’t hear me. You didn’t learn. And you can keep me here, you can even fuck me, we both know I can’t stop you. But you won’t get back what you had those first three nights. You’ll never have my heart again.”
He studies me long and hard, his arms crossed, considering my words. Finally he asks, “Why would you want to live like that? You must’ve realized by now I meant it very literally when I said you would never leave me again. You’ve seen how far I’ll go to make sure of that. I won’t change my mind. I’m going to keep you here for the rest of your life. Why would you choose unhappiness? Why would you deny us both like that, when you have no alternative?”
I consider this for a moment, because it’s actually a good question. I wouldn’t have before all this happened. I thought exactly the same way when it was Meg he was keeping forever, when it was Meg who was stuck with him, whether she liked it or not. I thought if she was stuck with him, she might as well be happy with him. I lied to her to give her that. But now, when it’s me in her position, he’s right—I’ll deny myself, even if I actually want it, just to deny him.
“It’s my responsibility now,” I tell him. “To Vince. To you. To the world, maybe. I never held you accountable before. I let you get away with anything. I gave up everything for you. I completely sabotaged my relationship with Vince because I wouldn’t let you go—because I kept glorifying you in my mind. He needed me to be sorry, and I wouldn’t. And why? For what? I didn’t need to fight him on that. If the shoe was on your foot instead of his, if the roles had been reversed, if Vince had raped me and I thought it was you, and you needed someone safe to blame, and you knew you couldn’t lash out at him so you needed to blame me, I would’ve let you. I would’ve accepted it, I would’ve apologized, I would’ve done what I had to do to heal you, because I can take it. Because I’m stronger than he was. I’m stronger than you are, because you don’t have a heart. You don’t have empathy. You don’t care about people, and I do. I can endure any trauma that you put me through and I will be fucking fine. Would I have preferred happiness? Of course. That was all I wanted. I thought I was finally leaving Vince and I would be with you and it would be fucking great. I would get more nights like the ones we had. I would get to actually enjoy you this time.” I shake my head, surprised the disappointment of losing this future doesn’t feel heavier, but it doesn’t right now. “I wanted that, Mateo. But you couldn’t let us have it. And now I realize, you may be a monster, but I helped make you that way. I lied for you. I protected you from the consequences of your own actions out of misplaced loyalty, but it didn’t serve you, it spoiled you. I forgave you for everything you did to me, because again, I can take it, but that was the wrong thing to do. It made you think you could get away with anything. And you can’t get away with this. You went too far. You’re you, so there’s no justice system, there’s no court of law, there’s nobody who can punish you. Only me. So I will. I will be your consequence until you get sick of me and kill me, too.”
Mateo watches me as I conclude my speech. He doesn’t look angry, just annoyed. “I wish you wouldn’t commit to that.”
“And I wish you would’ve just listened to me when I begged you to, and none of this would’ve ever happened.”
“And what would have happened, Mia?” he throws back, watching my face. “Say I didn’t come over to Vince’s that night. Say I gave up, told Colin to go home, and let you stay with Vince? What then? Did you and Vince live happily ever after?” he asks, more than a little mockingly. “Did all your many fucking troubles just evaporate into thin air? Did you stop having feelings for me and endure your martyrdom to make him feel better about me being inside you?”
“Fuck you, Mateo,” I fling back.
“No, I want to know what magical happy ending I took from you. Because you know what I think I took from you, Mia? A kid who wasn’t fucking ready for you. A borderline abusive boyfriend—and I’m being generous here by using borderline, let’s be honest—who flew off the handle every time you said my name. And you said my name a lot, because I’m the one you wanted. Do you know what I took, Mia? I took out the fucking garbage for you.”
I’m up on my knees now, riled. “He wasn’t garbage. He was a person. And he had good in him.”
He rolls his eyes, ridiculing me. “Oh, you think everyone has fucking good in them, Mia. I’d love to hear your take on Charles Manson sometime.”
“I think you’d be great friends,” I toss back. “You could bond over all the murders you commit together.”
“You didn’t fucking mind it before, now did you? This isn’t new. I didn’t just become a murderer, Mia. I killed the last person I was in a meaningful relationship with, for god’s sake. I run half the crime in Chicago. Did you think my hands were clean before now?”
“I didn’t think about it. But you made me. You made me see it. And this wasn’t some random person, it was Vince. He was important to me and he was your cousin. Your family. That’s supposed to mean something. You want everyone to have unwavering loyalty to you, Mateo, but you don’t give any back. Not a drop.”
Now he looks a little like he does want to kill me. “Do you have any idea how much work I had to put into getting you back here? How much I risked? I’ve done everything in my considerable power to keep your meaningful relationships intact, to make this as painless as possible for you. The only person I couldn’t work around was Vince, and that’s because he’s so fucking difficult! I tried. I would’ve let you keep him around, but he was too goddamn stubborn. Too possessive. Too unbending. I kept everything else in your life the way you wanted it—everything but the loose cannon. You’re my fucking masterpiece, and you want to punish me.”
That’s a super weird thing to say.
That knocks me down a few pegs. I sit back on my legs, frowning at him.
“I have risked everything for you,” he states. “Everything. And I’m sure I’ll do it again, before all is said and done. Now, tell me again how I have no loyalty to anyone, Mia. I fucking dare you.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say quietly.
“I know you don’t,” he says, apparently annoyed by it. He rolls his eyes, shaking his head at me. It’s one of those occasional instances where I realize how much smarter he is than me, how far out of my league he is on every level, and it makes me a tad uncomfortable.
Climbing off the bed, he begins to undress. It’s not where he usually undresses, so his chair isn’t over here, but he’s off-kilter anyway from our fight.
“You have class in the morning. Let’s just go to bed.”
I don’t even argue this time. He’s confused me, thrown things at me that I don’t understand. Even though I meant everything I said tonight, after I turn out the lights and climb over to my side of the bed, I wait to see if he still wants to hold me. He obviously doesn’t appreciate being lectured, maybe especially by me, and I’ve clearly aggravated him this evening because he never yells at me.
But he still pulls me into his arms. He still snuggles me, dropping a brief kiss to the nape of my neck before settling in.
Maybe he’s settled, but I’m not. As he holds me tonight, I feel decidedly unsettled.
And the most unsettling thought of all is that I may never know what the hell he’s talking about, because he’ll probably never tell me.