I waited while he continued to do whatever the hell he was doing. His silence said everything. Tiffany didn’t know he’d come to my apartment. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Neither was I for that matter—now I was really late for breakfast—but I had so many more questions for Manning. Why had he come? What would he tell them when he got home? How long was he in town for? Asking meant I cared, and Manning already held enough power over me. I couldn’t go back to that time in my life, when I thought I’d never move past him. When I’d spent what should’ve been my first semester of college trying to pick up the pieces of my life. The times Val had held me on the couch in the middle of the day, Ricki Lake in the background, a box of Kleenex clutched in her hand. She’d since banned any mention of Manning’s name in this apartment. If she were to walk in and find him here, she’d dropkick him all the way back to California, which was probably what I should’ve done by now.
“Your mom knows I’m seeing you,” he said finally. “But she’s the only one. She wanted me to take you to a show.”
“A show?” I asked.
“Broadway.”
Oh, how I loved my theater. It was a safe topic for conversation and one of the only things my mom knew about my life here—I went to the theater whenever I got the chance. Sometimes that meant skipping a few meals or letting Corbin spend money on me even though I hated to let him. For musicals and bright, flashing lights and once-in-a-lifetime performances, I tended to let my excitement get the best of me.
Not now, though. I made myself stand there not asking which show, waiting for him to finish.
Eventually Manning got up and brushed off his slacks. My eyes rose with him. “The whole unit really needs to be replaced,” he said as he fixed his tie in the reflection of the window.
“It’s fine,” I said. “I’ll tell the super.” We’d told him plenty of times that our heat was broken, but I needed Manning to leave or I’d revert back to one of two people—the child I was before the wedding, or the shell of myself I’d been right afterward.
“What else—” He turned and stopped as his eyes landed on my hair, which was no longer pulled back. Aside from a trim and some highlights, I hadn’t changed it much since I’d left, even though Val always threatened to shave it off while I was sleeping to get me to shed my beachy image. I blushed a little as Manning followed the length of it, down to my breasts. “I . . .”
I had to tilt my head back to see him. It reminded me of all the times I’d looked up at him, hoping for any sign that he’d noticed me, salivating for breadcrumbs, convincing myself our secret glances and touches meant something. I wasn’t that girl anymore, but in only half an hour, that was what he’d turned me into.
He cleared his throat, blinking back up to my face. “What else around here needs repairing?”
“Nothing. Just leave it, Manning. Please.”
He flinched as I said his name, then reached behind me to check the lock to the bathroom—which was also busted. “I guess the question is, what isn’t broken?” he said.
A flush worked its way up my chest. My apartment wasn’t much, but it was mine. I’d flown across the country, despite a fear of airplanes, all by myself. I hadn’t even had Corbin to hold my hand since he’d returned to New York ahead of me. I’d done everything on my own—gotten jobs, apartments, student loans, and I’d enrolled in NYU with nothing but a couple hundred dollars I’d saved from a part-time summer job back home. I’d become a pro at keeping plants and goldfish alive and sometimes Val, too. “I’m sorry things aren’t up to your standards,” I said, letting the sarcasm drip.
“My standards?” he asked. “This place isn’t fit for the mice it definitely has. This neighborhood—no, this city isn’t you.”
“You might find it hard to believe, but I like my life. I’m free now. Nobody tells me how to live. Nobody puts me in a box. I drink, I smoke, I-I have s—” I stopped as his knuckles whitened around the wrench. As much as I wanted to rub sex in his face, I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “I’m not the golden child here, and my friends don’t expect me to be. Corbin doesn’t put me on a fucking pedestal and expect me to stay there to keep him happy.”
“That’s not fair,” Manning said. “All I ever wanted was to see you happy, to see you become everything you were supposed to, even if it meant shutting off my own wants . . . and needs.”