He sneered at me. “Sure you do. And I guess you need to puff on some filthy fucking cigarettes to loosen up a bit too, do you?”
I didn’t have an answer to that, just stood hovering awkward and feeling disgusted with myself.
He stepped up closer, and sniffed at the air. “You smell revolting, Anna. What the fuck do you think you’re playing at?”
I hated him like this, after too many drinks out at Oscars. I hated the way his ego grew, and his self-righteousness grew along with it. And it was sad, because he wasn’t like this, not in regular life when he was caring, and trying, and wanting to save me from my own failing brain.
“I just smoke sometimes now,” I told him, and shrugged to try to lighten it.
His eyes were full of rage, and I didn’t blame him for that. I knew I was asking a lot for him to pick up the pieces. I knew I was asking a lot for him to treat me like the woman I used to be before I’d walked out and left him behind.
“This is his doing, isn’t it?” he spat. “This is that piece of shit’s influence on you all over again?”
I didn’t have an answer for that, but I felt my cheeks burning up.
“Don’t think I don’t know about you diving right back into that filthy pit with that filthy cunt, Anna. I know all about what you ran back to, with those slutty little legs of yours spread wide and begging.”
I shook my head. “It wasn’t like that.”
He laughed in my face. “Oh, believe me. I know what it was like. I pulled you up from the wreck of it last time around, remember?”
I did remember.
I remembered and I was grateful, and I would be again, but he looked so spiteful and so wronged that I couldn’t find the words to tell him so.
“He ditched you for that other bitch again, didn’t he?” he laughed. “Like you didn’t learn your lesson first time around.”
We’d had this conversation over a nice meal, and a heart to heart, and me offering a million apologies and telling him I was eager to try again. I thought we’d covered it. He’d told me we had. He’d told me he’d accepted that I’d had a blip in my sanity and was ready to try again.
He’d said he wanted that too.
“Please, let’s go to bed,” I said. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.”
I took off my necklace and dropped it on the bedside table, and tried to ease into our night time, but he was right up and at me, spinning me around by my arm and putting his face up close to mine.
“We’ll talk about it whenever I fucking want to talk about it. We’ll talk about it with your filthy fucking breath on the air and that vile, perverted cunt still coming between us.”
“I don’t know what you mean…” I tried. “Nobody is coming between us… we’re starting again…”
“So show me you want me,” he said, and his voice was low and cold. “If you’re so keen to start again, show me how you want me so much more than him. You barely looked at me in the club, just like fucking always. People are laughing at me, you know? They’re laughing that I’m pathetic enough to give you another fucking go…”
My heart dropped and thumped, right in my belly. Because I couldn’t. I couldn’t show him that I wanted him so much more than Lucas. I was still trying to show myself.
I knew people would be laughing at him, and I was sorry.
I was sorry, and I wanted to show it, but I couldn’t.
I’d told him it would take time, building bridges and making a new life together before we could be what we were before, and he’d told me it would be ok. He’d told me we’d work at it.
“I can’t show you anything just yet,” I managed to say. “We need time…”
“Oh, right,” he snapped back. “So, we need time now, do we? You didn’t need time when you were diving into bed with that cunt, did you? I bet you were climbing the fucking walls to get to his dick.”
“Stop,” I said, but my voice was just a breath. “It wasn’t like that…”
I hated how he squeezed my arm and yanked me towards him. I hated how his eyes glared harder and his fingers gripped tighter.
“Answer me one thing,” he said. “What is it you like so much about that piece of shit? What is it about him that drives you so fucking crazy?”
“It wasn’t like that…” I said again, and tried to pull away.
But he wouldn’t let me. He gripped tighter, and sneered harder, and put his face right up to mine.
“You always were that dirty little slut, weren’t you?” he hissed. “I tried to make you someone better, but it never worked, did it?”