“I told you that you need to clean up for yourself. Not for me. And you aren’t anyway.”
“I am. I just need to get myself out of this hole. I told you. Just one big win, and I’ll be good.”
“And I told you there won’t be a big win. That’s never going to happen.”
“You don’t fucking get it, Jodi. You don’t understand. You aren’t seeing it from my point of view.”
“No, because I’ve listened to it over and over, and I don’t get it. You should just change.”
He steps back and runs his eyes up and down me, leering. I shiver and fold my arms across my chest, trying to hide myself as if he has x-ray vision and can see right through me.
“I would change if I thought I could have you at the end of it.”
“Don’t do that.” Tears prick my eyes. “Don’t do that to me. Don’t put it all on me.””
“I’m not. This isn’t some emotional blackmail thing. I just want to be with you, Jodi.”
He grips my arms and gives me a desperate look. I can see what he wants me to do. He wants me to tell him that I’ll be his, to give him something to live for, but I can’t do that. I won’t. I’m not giving him false hope. Even if Brock wasn’t in the picture, I wouldn’t go back to Lucas. I don’t need any more complications.
“Lucas, this can’t be about me. You need to get help for yourself. I can’t do this.”
“So you do have another boyfriend. This is fucking ridiculous. Who is he, Jodi?”
“That isn’t it. This isn’t anything to do with me or someone else. I’m here to help you. Nothing more.”
“No, no, no. I don’t fucking believe you. You’re a slut. You’re fucking around with anyone and everyone.”
His words echo something Thomas said to me once before. He basically told me that I didn’t want to commit to him because I wanted to keep opening my legs for everyone else. It didn’t seem to matter that I only sleep with people I have real feelings for. Nothing got through to him—he only saw what he wanted to see.
“Lucas, I came here tonight to help you,” I tell him in the calmest, most considered voice I can manage. “But if you’re going to speak to me like that, then I have no reason to be here. None at all.”
“What? I’m not allowed to have an opinion then? I’ve loved you ever since we broke up. I’ve held onto the dream that me and you will be together again, and now I have to learn that you’re with someone else. Am I not allowed to be blindsided by that? I don’t even know how to feel. I’m gutted.”
I shouldn’t melt, I shouldn’t cave to more of his emotional blackmail, but I can’t stop myself. All th
e anger slides off me like water, and all I can see is his sad, desperate expression. He is desperate. He’s been through so much. The sadness of losing his parents, which sent him into this spiral in the first place, shines through.
“I’m sorry, Lucas. I didn’t know you held on to me and you like that. I thought we were friends.”
“We are.” He shakes his head. “We are friends. I don’t know why I keep going crazy for you.”
He reaches out to me, and I let him hold my hand. He smiles thinly before averting his gaze.
“Look, Lucas, I’ll give you the money I have to help you. It isn’t much. I have my own place to pay for now, so I can’t keep bailing you out over and over again. This will have to be the last time.”
“How much do you have?” He’s on high alert now. “It needs to be in the thousands.”
“No, three hundred dollars. That’s all I can do. Like I said, I have my own place—”
“So go back to Millie’s. I need more money than that!”
“Don’t be so selfish, Lucas. Are you freaking kidding me? I can’t live on my friend’s couch forever just so I can keep bailing you out. You need to stand on your own two feet. I can’t even afford this—”
“I already told you this is the last time. This isn’t me being selfish. I’m trying . . .”
I’m starting to see even clearer what Millie was talking about. I’m enabling Lucas, making him worse all the time by bailing him out. I want to hold my money in my hands and tell him to fuck off. I would if I didn’t keep imagining him kicked to death in a ditch somewhere in the seedier bits of Vegas.
“This is the last time as far as I’m concerned. I’m done with being your bank.”