Page 76 of Tap Left
“Daire—”
“Please,” he begs. “Just hear me out. I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to wake up. I don’t know why I spent so many years hating you and wishing I could blame you for Ryan’s death. When you came to me and told me that you cared about me, I was too young and stupid to know that I was fucking up the greatest thing that had ever happened to me. I pushed you away when all I really wanted to do was make you mine.”
Everything burns and my throat is too clogged to speak. These are the words I’ve always needed from him. The ones I’ve always wanted. But it turns out that maybe I haven’t changed at all because I’m too terrified to acknowledge them now.
“I don’t know how to be the man you deserve,” he ventures on. “I only know that I want to try. And I know in the past I’ve fucked up. I’ve fucked you over. I’ve been a dick, and I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I’m asking for it now.”
“You have it,” I whisper. “You have my forgiveness, Daire.”
Tears are leaking down my face now, and Daire looks happy. He thinks that means we’re okay. He wants to believe that wipes the slate clean, but it doesn’t. Giving into him is too scary, and I just can’t. It feels like putting myself out there only to have my heart eviscerated again. I can’t breathe, and all I really want to do is tell him to leave.
“I haven’t had a drink in a year, LB,” he tells me. “I know you won’t believe me, but it’s true.”
“No,” I argue. “I saw you at karaoke, Daire.”
“You saw me order drinks. You never saw me drink them.”
My fingers tremble, and I can’t think straight. What he’s telling me right now, I can’t wrap my head around. It isn’t right. I know it isn’t right. Daire sees it on my face, and he falls quiet. My peaceful, ignorant bubble has burst. He’s come in here and wrecked everything all over again. And I hate him for it because he’s a liar.
I tell him so.
“You can’t do this to me again!” I scream.
His eyes widen as if I’ve slapped him, and it only fuels my rage.
“Do you know how many years I spent wishing that you would see me as something else? Thinking that I wasn’t good enough for you? Wondering why it was always me you called when you were drunk?”
He tries to speak, but I stop him. I don’t want to hear any more of his lies.
“You don’t get to come here now and tell me that you’ve loved me all along, Daire. No. It isn’t fair. And I don’t know why you want to hurt me. Do you get off on it? Is that it? Does it make you feel good to hang on to me and never let me be happy because you know I’m too weak to let you go?”
“Lola—”
“I hate you!” I shriek. “Do you get that? You have fucked me up, over and over and over again. You have ruined me for anyone else. You have turned me into this… this crazy bitch who says mean things. This is all your fault.”
Daire’s face turns to stone. “That’s where you’re wrong, LB. You don’t need any help being cruel. You can do that all on your own.”
And with that parting shot, Daire does what he’s best at.
He leaves.
32
Lola
Mellie stumblesinto the apartment with the key that I gave her, kicking the door shut before unloading two armfuls of groceries on the kitchen counter. “What’s up, buttercup?”
She’s out of breath and exhausted, but still thinking of me. I walk to the fridge and grab her a bottle of water, forking it over with a smile. “Have I ever told you how awesome you are?”
She chugs half the bottle. “You’ve told me a time or two.”
“I mean it, though.” Emotion chokes my voice. “I just want you to know that. It’s important to me.”
She furrows her brows and twists the cap back on the water. “Everything okay?”
I sit down beside her at the bar and tear into a packet of gummy worms from one of the bags she brought. “It’s fine. I just remember that when Ryan died, I told myself that I was never going to take anything for granted again. And sometimes, I forget that.”
“I get that,” she says. “Life can change in the blink of a moment.”
