Page 121 of Dirty Like Brody
She said she didn’t want the guitarist gig. Was pretty vehement about it,actually.
The other possibility swirled in my brain like it had all fucking day, as much as I tried to ignore it and just chill the fuck out, not jump toconclusions.
Maybe she still has feelingsforhim.
Yeah. Fuckingmaybe.
Who thefuckknew?
I never really knew for sure what was going on between her and Seth in the first place. Whatever it was, maybe she’d never gottenpastit.
Maybe that’s what this was about? But how the hell wouldIknow.
Not like she was saying shit all to meaboutit.
* * *
Iwokeup with my guts all tied in knots, feeling like I was a hundred years old, so bent out of shape and brittle, and ready to snap. Over breakfast Jessa was foggy and distant, which was maybe due to her late night, but I wasn’t gonnariskit.
“So what’s the problem?” I asked her. “Are we ever gonna talkaboutit?”
She looked up at me, all distracted, over her tea. “Talkaboutwhat?”
“You tell me. Seth’s back on the scene and you’re walking around like the sky’s abouttofall.”
She blinked at me, slowly shaking her head. “No,I’mnot.”
I tossed my fork down on my plate, the eggs she’d made for me only partly eaten, whatever appetite I’d had gone. I sat there fuming as she stared at me, resisting the urge to upend the entire table, which seemed like it’d be pretty fucking satisfying rightaboutnow.
So yeah, maybe I had some anger management issues to deal with. I’d file that away for later introspection. But it’s not like I went around all my life wanting to flip dining roomtables.
It was justthis. This bullshit.Withher.
Never-fucking-ending.
“No?”Isaid.
She shook her head slowly, her big brown eyes watching me—kinda like a skittish deer about to bolt into the woods, never to be seenagain.
And yeah, I realized that coming at her like this was probably the last way I should go about it if all I really wanted was to get her to open up and talk to me, but fuck it. I was pissed, and fuck, no—I didn’t want to hear about it. I didn’t want to hear about how uncomfortable she felt because her old boyfriend was back and how that’d brought up old feelings orwhatever.
I thought we were done withthisshit.
She’d said it wasme—always me; not him. That I was the one she’d always wanted. So what was the fuckingproblem?
“Seth’s not after you anymore, is that it?” Her eyes got bigger and I could tell I’d struck a nerve. “You know, he used to follow you around like a fucking puppy. Maybe youmissthat.”
“I miss a lot of things, Brody,” she said. “I don’t miss that.” Tears had started to gleam in her eyes, but fuck that. She wasn’t getting out of this bycrying.
“If you want me to come crawling after you,” I told her, “that’s never gonna happen. I’m never gonna be your lapdog. So you can cry all you want. It’s not gonna change athing.”
She didn’t even respond to that, just looked away. She sniffed like she was trying really hardnotto cry, but I was getting really sick of her crying… crying and not letting me in so I could just help fix whatever the fuck waswrong.
“You know why I kept messaging you?” I asked her. “All those years… even when you never responded?” She looked at me through her tears, which had started to fall. “After a while… I pretty much did it to torturemyself.”
“Don’t,” she said. “Don’tsaythat.”
“I did it to remind myself why I shouldstop. Because every time I messaged you to tell you I was thinking about you, or I wanted to talk to you, or I was sorry for how things went down, and you didn’t answer, it was another stab to my fucking heart. But I’mdonebeing a masochist, Jessa. You want to leave me hanging again, I’m not gonna be waiting around when you get back. You want to go out and party with your friends and fuck your way around the globe, never letting anyone in, including the guys you fuck, you do what you’ve gotta do but I am not chasingafteryou.”
