I swear I could see his teeth grinding together. That must not feel good. He was clutching the edge of the sink so hard that his knuckles were white. What the hell could make a person so angry?
“Is it work?” I pressed.
“Get out, Lennox,” Vic breathed, not looking at me.
I was treading in dangerous territory. I felt like an explorer finding some new species. I needed to know its origins, no matter the cost.
“Is it . . . your parents?” I asked, my voice low. Mistake number two of my evening.
Vic grabbed a decorative glass plate from the counter and, without hesitation, threw one against the wall, inches from my head. It shattered, small shards of it peppering my head.
Maybe I'm crazy (strike that; I know I'm crazy, two different psychiatrists have told me so), but I didn't run. I wasn't afraid of Vic. He hadn’t been aiming for my head. If he was, we had a much bigger issue. Like what terrible aim he had.
He held a second plate in a loose grip, his gaze on the floor. “Get out,” he said, his voice barely audible. His regularly smooth and relaxing tone had been replaced with a gravelly rasp.
Even though he couldn't see it, I shook my head. I wasn't one to leave a person in need; at least, I didn't think I was, I'd never actually been in a situation to leave a person in need.
“Get out!” He threw the second plate to the floor, which exploded like a miniature grenade.
I jumped up and back. I'll admit, that scared me. His posture was so erect and refined, but everything about him screamed undone. I didn't know what I should do, I didn't know what I could do, but I did know that I couldn't leave him.
Tentatively, because there were shards of glass all over the floor, I walked into his kitchen. Every muscle in his body was clenched, from his neck to his calves. I reached and touched his forearm. He jerked his arm out, catching me off balance. I stumbled back, tripping over my own feet, and fell. Glass shards pierced the fabric of my clothes, and embedded into my butt and legs; warm blood trickled freely from pricks in the palms of my hands.
The sharp pain from the hundreds of minuscule shards was nothing compared to the pain I felt from the look Vic gave me. It wasn't a look of remorse or even concern, but of anger—he stared down at me like I was another plate to break.
Quickly, I stood up and, not bothering to grab my shoes, ran out of his apartment. I tried to focus on the pain radiating through me and not on my humiliation. I believed I could help him and instead I had landed on my ass in a bunch of broken glass. He told me to leave and I hadn’t. Again I had reached out to Vic, and again I had made a fool of myself. There was no one to blame but me.
I had the morning off from work, the first one in weeks. If that wasn't fortuitous then I don't know what is. I spent hours the previous night pulling glass out of my skin with tweezers. I should have laughed at the sight of myself pulling the shards out of my ass using a mirror, but I couldn’t laugh; my heart was too sore.
The glass excavation had taken most of the night, so by the time I had gone to bed it was nearly four in the morning. Naturally, when I heard a knock at my door around seven, I wanted to castrate whoever was at the door.
“What!” I yelled at the mystery knocker. I was unwilling get up to look.
“You forgot your shoes.”
I immediately pushed my tangled hair from my eyes to see Vic holding my shoes.
I spent the better part of the night thinking about the events the led up to what I now refer to as the Moore Glass Excavation Party. Sure, I didn't get out like he said, but when someone is combusting before your eyes you don't leave them—you get the fire extinguisher! I paid for my stupidity, or bravery, or whatever the kids are calling it these days. I understand that. Through the night, I became less humiliated and more furious. Vic told me to leave, but I didn’t. So fucking what? That doesn't give him an excuse to go from being Bruce Banner to the Incredible Hulk.
I expected an apology at the very least. Yet, here Vic was, holding my shoes and without an apology. It definitely wasn't what I expected.
Vic was wearing tight gray jeans and a black V-neck sweater. He looked like typical Vic, as if last night never happened. On any other occasion, I would have taken a mental picture of him and gone to town on myself, but right now, I just wanted to punch him in the face.
“What?” Vic asked.
“What do you mean, ‘what?’” My voice was pitched high in incredulity at his blasé response. I raised my hands to show him the bloodied bandages.
He smiled! The bastard smiled his crooked, cocksure smile that normally melted my insides. Again, right now it just made me want to punch him.
He shrugged and said, “I told you to leave.” Vic stepped to the side of the bed and moved some of my tangled hair out of my face. “Had a rough night, did you?”
I scoffed, shaking his hand off of my face. This was seriously not how I expected it to go. I wanted an apology, dammit.
Vic unceremoniously dropped my shoes on the floor. The air around us shifted, and became heavy and charged. Vic sat down on the edge of the bed, his weight creating a cavern that pulled me to his side. He grabbed my wrists and examined the bloodied bandages covering my hands—first the left, then the right.
“You should have left.”
“Yeah, well you won’t have to tell me to leave again, because I’m never going back to your place again. Ever. Now that I know what kind of crazy—”