Page 50 of Once Bitten
I didn’t do it because they’d been together; I did it because he’d hurt her. As much as I don’t want her talking to him, Ilearned something valuable tonight. She doesn’t really open up about our years apart, and I couldn’t bring myself to ask, but hearing her say that she’d never let him touch her filled the hole in my chest.
I had a shit-eating grin on my face, which I got rid of before opening the door and heading into the room, because if she knew I’d eavesdropped on her conversation, she’d have my balls for dinner. She likes to play the grown-up, after all, and pretend that her life was just dandy without me in it.
I’ve been feeling both guilt and some kind of twisted anger about the time we’d missed, knowing that it was my fault that she’d run into the arms of another man, but now I know that I’d been worried for nothing.
It’s not exactly easy being the only one with a family curse hanging around my neck like a damn noose, and she makes sure to remind me every day that she’s not the one who can’t live without me. Had she been anyone else, I’d have strangled her and left her body out in the wild by now.
That mouth of hers works overtime as soon as our paths cross. I sometimes get the feeling that she’s pushing to see just how much I can take or how willing I am. I’m stuck because, on the one hand, is my guilt and, on the other, is my mother.
Every sane man wants his woman and his family to get along, but these people take that to a whole new level. I’m not sure what she fed my mother, but Mom seems to think that I’m the biggest screw-up and not much of a man at that.
All because this one told her that I mistreated her and ran her out of the house. I have yet to get to the bottom of what I’d supposedly done, but Mom took it as gospel and gave me the cold shoulder for a few days until my soon-to-be mother-in-law broke out the wedding mags.
I’ve spent this past week trying to lay the groundwork for what I expect to be a lifetime of penance. She wins everyargument with that one reminder of what I had said to her that night. The fact that it was her first time just makes the guilt that much stronger, and so I just keep my head down and wait for the whirlwind to pass.
She’s just as annoyingly wonderful as I expected her to be. A woman raised by Chase Thornton couldn’t be anything less than what she is. I don’t need the other man to warn me about what would happen if I screwed this up; my own father has been on my ass already.
Everyone keeps pushing me to put a ring on her finger, as if we’d only been together for a few weeks. In their eyes, the years apart counted, I guess, but only I knew I had a lot more work to do before we got there. The ring was already in the vault. It’s been there before I was even born, so there’s no rush.
I need it to be perfect, to make up for the shit I’d put her through. So, even though they have no idea that I have a lot to make up for, I do, and I need to make sure she knows just how much she’s loved.
JESSICA
Isat in silence for a minute after hanging up the phone. That didn’t give me the thrill I thought it would because I’d already moved on. That thought was a bit jolting because it hadn’t been that long since that whole thing started.
Nothing had gone the way I’d expected. How could I have known that Julius would show up that night and set everything else that followed in motion? When I think that had I not left Dale when I did, we might not be together now, I get a cramp in my tummy.
Is life really this unpredictable? The trajectory had gone way off course and was now headed in a direction I’d never allowed myself to dream of. The weirdest part is that I have no lingering doubts about Julius.
After years spent protecting myself from him, avoiding him, we had come together as if it was meant to be. I sometimes get the feeling that I was not the one in control, that this was destiny or fate, and that I should just let things take their natural course.
That pain that had haunted me for so long no longer feels as monumental as it once did. Somewhere along the way, I had letit all go, just like that, and when I think about it, it doesn’t seem real. Where was all that anger and dislike?
The biggest thing is that I don’t expect him to hurt me ever again, which has got to be the strangest damn thing about this whole ordeal because up until a short while ago, he was the one who’d hurt me most in my life. The one person I’d sworn never to forgive.
Did I ever think that I would give him a second chance? It’s not my usual way of doing things. No one who had ever crossed me was allowed back by my side. So why has it been so easy with him? I keep searching for the answer to that one question and come up empty every time.
My heart, that deceitful witch, has gone rogue. If my mind comes up with a million reasons not to give in, not to trust him, that bitch rolls over and plays possum; she wants no part of it. Not to mention Susie, that taotie between my thighs who has been gorging herself on dick for the past week. I think she might mutiny if I tried to leave.
But is it really safe to let my guard down like this? Isn’t everything too perfect? Granted, from what I’ve seen and heard, he’d be screwing himself over royally if he didn’t do right by me and I did indeed walk away again; but was that enough?
I’m skirting the real issue here, but the truth is that part of me that had convinced myself that I hated him and would never forgive him was dead and refused to be revived. No matter what anyone else said, or how accepting my whole family had been, only I knew the depths of the pain he’d caused.
And still, with all that, I haven’t had a negative thought about him since he came back into my life. I don’t like thinking that I’m being stupid, and I know for a fact that I’m not the forgiving type, so why was it so easy for me to jump back into those muddy waters?
I’ve tried, believe me, I’ve tried, to hold on to some semblance of the girl who had sworn never to let our paths cross again, but she’s gone. I think what’s really nagging at me is all the time we've wasted between us.
How far would our lives have been had we not had that one night that went so wrong back then? Would we already be married, like his brother and his wife? With two kids and making plans for a third?
My mind only wanders to places like this, daydreaming the way I once did with my head in the clouds. Even the shards of my old friend that he’d left scattered on the floor couldn’t get a rise out of me. The man was so jealous he’d killed a damn robot.
I’m pretty sure my sister had told him about Toby’s other functions to start trouble, though she claims she was making it easier for me to explain. No matter, I’ll just make another one to keep him on his toes. The thought made me grin as I imagined the six-foot metal contraption standing at attention in some corner, just waiting to be used whenever he gets on my nerves.
That’s the threat I’d used on him anyway, even though I had no intentions of ever doing such a ghastly thing. Poor Toby had been my sparring partner for almost ten years; he was my buddy who’d kept me sane on many days when there was no other outlet. Now he was gone at the hands of a madman.
I think Julius is just mad that Toby was there when he wasn’t. He seems to think the robot was competition, the jackass. I had just had that thought when he walked out of the bathroom, looking all hot in his towel, hair wet and eight-pack on full display.
It grinds my gears that this is all it takes to get me going. Just one look at his body, and I forget all my grievances. Such a cliched thing to do, especially since he hadn’t suffered nearly enough for what he’d done.
