Page 79 of Because I Need You
I looked down at the dirty white converse on my feet. “I obviously started looking for attention elsewhere. Luke and Noah’s mom helped as much as she could. When boys started paying attention to me, I felt special, until I didn’t.” I scrunched my nose as I thought about it. “I liked the emotional attention, but they were handsy and I wasn’t interested in that. Every single man I’ve ever come into contact with wanted my body, wanted to use me, you know.” I shrugged a shoulder. “I was able to fend most of them off, until that night in college. Then, suddenly, I felt truly powerless. Then, suddenly I did feel unworthy and like a failure.” I took another breath to continue. Gio remained quiet and unmoved. I didn’t know if he was even listening, but now I needed to purge myself of all of it.
“So, anyway, you know what happened that night. I went home, got Dad to buy me a knife.” I smiled sadly. “Learned how to use it from YouTube videos. Took some self-defense, blah blah blah, stabbed some people, blah blah blah. Went back to college even though I had daily panic attacks and vivid nightmares. I roomed with a friend, Eloise, because I was so scared to be alone. I graduated, got my masters online because at that point I was holding on to my sanity by a thread and couldn’t be on campus anymore. I got a job, kept my head down, hung out with Dad when I could. Mom had already left for Spain with this new guy that I don’t even know. Mima’s in a nursing home. Mima’s my grandma.” I paused to make sure he was still following. “She has onset dementia. Sometimes she remembers me. Most of the time she thinks I’m my mom and sits there insulting the fuck out of me.” I laughed, shaking my head. “It’s actually pretty funny when I think about it. I’m the only one who cares enough to visit her, despite everything, and she still treats me like shit.”
Another deep breath. People cheered in the distance, drunk people walked out of the stadium. I looked up at him again, noticing that his expression had finally softened slightly. “So, yeah, I re-connected with Will at an event for school, we started dating, and the moment he mentioned moving in, I said hell yeah.”
“Because you hate to be alone,” he said, startling me when he finally spoke.
“Pretty much.” I nodded. “He’s a good guy. A great guy,” I said. Giovanni’s jaw clenched again. “I just wish I’d felt differently about him.”
“How do you feel about me?”
I let out a surprised laugh. “You make me feel crazy.”
“Then, we’re on the same page.”
“That’s not a good thing.”
“Because you’d rather go home to your boring, vanilla boyfriend and fake smile for cameras for the rest of your life?”
I glanced up at him, narrowing my eyes. “Who said the smiles were fake?”
“Were they real?” He straightened. I bit my lip and looked away. “Isabel.” I looked at him again, wondering if this was when he’d finally touch me. I’d let him. I wouldn’t even hold it against him if he did. Instead, he said, “What happened to you wasn’t your fault, and no matter what anyone told you, you are enough.”
“Thank you for saying that,” I whispered, swallowing and blinking away the tears I felt pricking my eyes.
“So, can we go now?”
“Where?”
“Home.” He looked at me as if to say, where else?
“Okay.”
We rode in the backseat of the SUV together, in silence. We were sitting on complete opposite ends of it. He was so close to his door, I thought he might open it and jump out at any moment. I kept replaying his words over and over. What happened to you wasn’t your fault. You are enough. I hadn’t realized how badly I needed someone to say those things to me until that moment.
“So,” I started, since I never finished my story. “All of my best memories were with a man who was lying to me the entire time.”
“And you think I’d be that man.” He glanced over. “You think I’ll let you down eventually?”
“I don’t want to think that.”
“But you do.” He shook his head, looked away again. “Just like you thought I was fucking another woman just because you weren’t touching me.”
“I didn’t know what to think.”
“Not that.” He met my gaze again. “I know my reputation sucks, but I don’t want you to ever worry about that. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“Okay.” I swallowed. “Still, you have to understand why I’m not cut out for this…life.”
“I understand why you think that. It doesn’t mean I agree.”
Nothing else was said. We arrived at his place, took the elevator up. Everyone else kind of idled downstairs. I walked straight to his room, taking my shoes and socks off the minute I walked in the door and doing the same with the jersey I wore, but one of the buttons was stuck. Underneath, I was wearing a white sleeveless camisole and a white lace bra that matched my underwear. I wasn’t going to completely undress in his bedroom, though. It would give him the wrong idea. Or maybe the right idea. I didn’t even know anymore. Giovanni walked in the room. I turned and watched him shut the door with the back of his foot. He looked at the bed for a moment, which I’d made before I left, and then looked at me, pinning me with an intense stare. My heart began to gallop. I forced myself to look away, focusing on the stupid button again.
