Page 103 of I'm Gonna Get You Back
Jesus, was he with Clara this whole time?
I assumed he was going to go straight back to bed once we left basedon the deluge of curse words he threw at me this morning when I woke him up to take her home. Keys clang into the bowl by the door. His shoes hit the wall as he kicks them off. The cacophony of Mitchell.
A large shadow looms over me, but I barely glance up.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at the Legacy Brunch?” Mitchell asks.
“I’m waiting for Dad,” I say. My words jumble together, smushed against the cushion.
“What happened?”
“Go away.”
“You go. If you want to wallow so bad, you have a whole-ass room you can do that in.” He flops next to me. “You obviously want to talk.”
He’s got a point because I don’t leave.
“So talk,” he says.
I sigh. Turn so my face is less consumed by the pillow.
“Letting Clara sleep over was a mistake.”
The memory of her twined around me drags a miserable sound from my throat.
“Why?” he asks.
“We shouldn’t have gone there. We’re not together.”
“Technically you never were.”
My nostrils flare. “Thanks for that.”
He shrugs. “Just saying, what’s different now?”
“Nothing,” I snap. “That’s the problem. She still doesn’t want me.”
All I hear then is a loud, longlaugh. Okay, that pisses me off. I sit up.
“Dude, it’s not funny,” I near shout. I feel my face heating, the angry vein in my temple throbbing.
Mitchell keeps laughing and rakes his hands through his hair like he wants to pull it out. “You two are trying to kill me.”
And before I know what’s happening, I throw myself across the couch to get him to shut up, headbutting him in the process. We fall to the ground in a shattering crash, Julianne’s potpourri bowl flying as we knock against the coffee table.
“Get off!” he yells.
But every pent-up, twisted feeling urges me on. Because I can’t have her. Because without him, I’m terrified I’d have no one.
He gets a grip around me and throws me back, then in a spastic spray of limbs, he swoops a leg around, pinning me. He’s got me locked on the ground, his legs squeezing me in a vise. I try to escape, but he pins me harder. I can’t move.
Brilliant idea to sucker punch a wrestler.
He’s panting, too, swipes the back of his hand under his nose, leaving a faint trail of blood across it. He pinches the bridge of his nose but still manages to glare at me.
“Let me up,” I say.
“That would be a fuck no.” His nose sounds stuffy and all of a sudden, I realize what a complete asshole I’m being.
