Slow Agony (7 page)

“What?” I got up from the table. There were so many things messed up with that statement. So many messed up things. “First of all, I never cheated on him, and I have told him this over and over again. He refuses to believe me.” I rested a hand on the table. “Second of all, where did you get the idea that Griffin and I weren’t having sex?”

They were in Griffin’s bedroom, the door shut behind them, but I could still hear everything they were saying, and I felt a little bit embarrassed about it. I busied myself with clearing the table and loading Griffin’s dishwasher. I figured it was the least I could do.

“You lied to me,” Daisy was saying. She sounded like she was crying, and I felt guilty about that. I mean, I didn’t like the girl on principle, because she was dating Griffin. But I found that I didn’t feel happy to know that she was hurting.

“Not about anything important,” Griffin said. “You push a lot, Daisy. You want everything explained all neat and tidy. And sometimes things aren’t like that. They’re messy and complicated and confusing.”

“You lied about everything.”

I scraped leftover eggs into the trash can.

“I didn’t.”

“You said you were a Christian, and you’re not.”

“I am,” he said.

“No. Because if you have a wider view of spirituality, then you aren’t.”

“Why not? Why does it have to be so cut and dry, Daisy?”

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t turn this around on me. Because you’re the liar. And I believed you, because you never once tried anything with me. We could sleep in the same bed, and you were a perfect gentleman, and I thought it must be true.”

“I never told you that I’d never had sex before, did I?” he said.

“You said you didn’t anymore.”

“And you assumed it was like a God thing,” he said.

“And it’s not?”

He was quiet.

I turned on the sink and ran water over the dishes. As I rinsed each, I stacked it in the dishwasher. When I turned off the faucet, Daisy was talking again.

“If our relationship isn’t built on a strong spiritual foundation, then I don’t know what kind of future it has.”

“Future?” said Griffin. “It’s only been a month.”

“A month and a
half
,” she said.

“Look, can’t we wait until Leigh’s gone and talk about this then?”

“How long is she going to be here?”

“A couple of weeks, maybe.”

“A couple of
weeks?
”

“Yeah.”

“No way, Griffin.” The door to the bedroom opened. “You better figure out some way for us to talk before then. Because I’m not waiting around for you while a woman that you were sleeping with is staying in the same apartment with you.” She stalked out into the living room.

I busied myself wiping down the counters.

Griffin came after her, catching her by the arm. “Don’t run off like this.”

She wrenched her arm away. Tears were streaming down her face. “You should have thought of all of this before you lied to me.”

He rubbed the top of his head. “I’m sorry.”

“You know, I don’t think you are. I think you’re only sorry that I found you out.” She slammed the door to the apartment.

Griffin glared at me. “Nice going.” Then he went after her.

The apartment was empty and quiet now. I finished cleaning up the kitchen. I didn’t run the dishwasher because it was only half full. When I was finished, I sat down at the table. Maybe I could have been nicer to Daisy. I was sorry that I’d made her cry.

But overall, if it meant that she and Griffin were having problems, and that they might break up, then I wasn’t that upset about it. I didn’t want him to be with anyone else. I didn’t want it at all.

In about ten minutes, Griffin came back into the apartment. He looked defeated and tired. He slouched in the doorway to the kitchen. “Why’d you have to do that?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You made her feel like crap,” he said.

“Like I said before, I didn’t think it was a good idea for all of us to hang out.”

“She’s a very nice girl, doll. Maybe she’s not as intelligent and as sophisticated as you, but she’s really nice. And you weren’t nice to her.”

“You think I’m smarter than she is?”

He threw his hands up in the air and went into the living room.

I got up and went to the doorway. “I don’t get it. Why would you date someone like her?”

He flopped down on the couch. “She was nice. She
is
nice.”

“That’s the only quality you’re looking for in a girl?”

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and rubbing the back of his head. “I was lonely. And I knew there wouldn’t be... pressure.”

“Pressure?”

“Pressure to have sex.”

I came into the living room and sat down on the couch with him. “I thought that was okay.” I put a tentative hand on his arm.

He jerked away, raising his face to look at me. “No. It was okay with you. But it isn’t...” He got off the couch. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I was quiet. It had taken a lot of time for Griffin and I to be able to have sex. The things that had happened to him in his past had been difficult for him to work through. Even after we’d managed to do it successfully, he still sometimes had issues. It made me so angry at the people who’d hurt him.

He went back into his bedroom and shut the door.

I went after him. I knocked on the door. “Griffin, I don’t think you really liked her.”

“Leave me alone.”

“You weren’t honest with her, and you were only with her because you were lonely.”

“Would you shut up?” he said. “Watch a movie or something. I want to be alone.”

“I’m only saying this because it seems kind of obvious that you aren’t happy here. Without me. And I’m not happy without you. And...” I took a deep breath. “I want you back, Griffin.”

Chapter Five

Silence came from the other side of the door. Complete silence.

My heart thudded in my chest, waiting for him to respond to what I’d just said. But he said nothing. I stood outside the door for several long minutes, waiting.

Finally, I backed away. He wasn’t saying anything. That was answer enough. He was never going to get past what happened. I was an idiot for thinking that he could.

The door opened. “You don’t get to say things like that.”

“I don’t?”

“No.” He swept out of his bedroom, his expression hard. “You’re the one who screwed it all up. So, you don’t get to try to reconcile everything like you’re the wronged party or something.”

I licked my lips. “I don’t know if it’s fair to say I screwed everything up. You’re the one who left.”

“I left because you were messing around behind my back.”

“But I wasn’t,” I said. “You were paranoid.”

“You were pissed at me.” He put his finger in my face. “You were mad, because you wanted to have sex like seven times a day—”

“No, it was only that things had slowed down,” I said. “At the beginning, we were all over each other. But it had been nine months, and we were slowing down. I didn’t realize it was normal. Griffin, I never had a relationship that long before.”

He laughed bitterly. “I wasn’t enough for you.”

“No,” I said. “I was... I shouldn’t have put pressure on you.”

He turned away from me. “You really shouldn’t have.”

“Because it made it worse,” I said.

He still wasn’t looking at me. “Because I can’t handle that. Because it made me feel like you were forcing me to do it, and I don’t like that.”

“I know,” I said. “I screwed up. About that, I did. I’m sorry.” I chewed on my lip. “But I said I was sorry about it before New Year’s. And things were getting better.”

He stiffened at the mention of New Year’s Eve. “Things weren’t getting better, Leigh. That’s the night I caught you. I
saw
you with him.”

“You didn’t see anything,” I said.

He looked at me. His expression was fierce. “He was kissing you.”

“He was
hugging
me,” I said. “I was hugging him. It was innocent.”

Griffin went into the kitchen. “I know what I saw.”

“You saw it wrong,” I said. It was the most heartbreaking thing on earth to me that he refused to believe me. I followed him into the kitchen. “Clint was telling me that he stopped doing coke, and I was happy for him. He used to be my friend, and the cocaine made him greedy and selfish, and I was happy he was rid of it. And so I hugged him. Why don’t you believe me?”

He opened the refrigerator and dug through it. “Because it’s not like you hadn’t screwed him before.” He came out with a bottle of Newcastle.

“It’s a little early, isn’t it?” I said.

“You want one?”

“Yeah,” I said.

He handed me a beer, shut the refrigerator door, and went over to a drawer. “That guy was the weasel that was in your apartment the first day I got there. The one who you ran off with that one night. The night when I had to beat up the other guy who was slamming you up against a wall and calling you names? You remember that?”

“I do,” I said.

He came out with a bottle opener. He opened his beer and tossed it to me. “That’s the guy who you were kissing.
Clint
.”

I tried to catch it, but I missed. It fell on the floor, and I had to pick it up. “I wasn’t kissing him.” I opened my beer. “I don’t know why you think you saw that. Maybe from the angle you were looking at, it looked like a kiss, but I swear to God, Griffin, I wasn’t kissing him.”

Griffin leaned against the counter and took a long draught of his beer. “Why won’t you admit it, doll? After all this time, after everything, you could come clean. Stop lying to me.”

“I’m not lying!” I took a drink of my beer, and the cold, thick liquid felt good going down. “I didn’t kiss Clint. I haven’t kissed anyone but you in over a year. You don’t want me to be telling the truth. Because then you look like a bad guy for running out on me.”

He drained the rest of the beer and slammed it on the counter. “I came back.”

“You came back too late,” I said.

He looked down at his hands. His voice was quiet. “Yeah, I did.”

I drank some more Newcastle. It still tasted good. I couldn’t look at Griffin.

“Maybe it doesn’t matter, doll,” he said. “Maybe you were hugging him. Maybe I believe you.”

I raised my gaze to meet his.

He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring at the floor. “The fact of the matter is, we were already broken then. Because if we hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have run. And you wouldn’t have...” He swallowed. “But it all happened the way it did, didn’t it? And it’s... it’s
fucked
now.”

“It doesn’t have to be,” I said.

He was quiet for a minute. “I think it does.”

“Griffin—”

“Don’t.” He sighed. “You were right about one thing, though.”

“What?”

“I don’t think you should stay here. Maybe Sloane and Silas won’t mind after all.”

I readjusted the backpack on my shoulder as we walked up the sidewalk to a brick house. “I don’t like this, Griffin. If you and I just talked about what’s going on between us, then maybe everything would be okay.”

He was at least three steps ahead of me. “There’s nothing going on between us, doll. We used to be together. We aren’t anymore. We have nothing to talk about.”

“We do, though. I’m still in love with you.”

He whirled to face me. “No.”

“No?”

“No, you’re not.”

“How do you know how I feel?”

“If you were in love with me, if you were
ever
in love with me, you wouldn’t have—” He broke off. “This is why I don’t want to talk about it. It only makes me upset, and it doesn’t change anything.” He turned back around and walked up to the door. He knocked.

I hurried after him. “I never stopped being in love with you.”

“Stop talking,” he said. He knocked again.

“What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that you still have feelings for me too? Are you afraid that if we talk, you’ll remember that?”

The door opened and Sloane peeked her head out. “Oh, you’re here.”

Griffin shoved me through the door. “Keep her out of trouble. I’ll be back in two weeks.” He turned to go.

“You don’t want to come inside?” said Sloane.

“You aren’t even going to say goodbye to me?” I asked.

Griffin kept walking down the sidewalk, back towards his car. “Thanks for taking her.”

“Griffin!” I called after him.

“See you, Griffin,” said Sloane. She pulled me away from the door and closed it. She grinned at me. “Probably better to let him go.”

I sagged against the door. “All I do is let him go.”

“Oh,” she said, “you’re still into him, aren’t you?”

“Never stopped.”

She made a sympathetic face. “I’m sorry. I know all about that feeling.”

“What feeling?”

“Liking a guy who’s not liking you back?” She pointed at herself. “Me? I’m always friend zoned. It’s always like, ‘But Sloane, we’re such pals. I don’t see you that way.’” She shrugged. “I figure it’s just because I’m a better shot than they are, and I own cooler guns. Also, I have a scary brother.” She gestured to the staircase that was adjacent to the front door.

Silas was coming down the steps. Sloane was right. He did look scary. He was burly and muscled like ex-Op Wraith assassins tended to be. He had dark hair which he wore in a ponytail, dark eyes, and a few piercings. His eyebrow. His labret. His ears, which were stretched to fit bigger gauge jewelry. But none of that was what made him look scary. It was his expression—unconcerned but deadly. “So. You’re the chick who broke Griffin’s heart.”

I opened my mouth to speak. Nothing came out.

Silas trooped down the rest of the steps and sauntered past us.

“Don’t mind him,” said Sloane. “He takes a little while to warm up to people.”

“Okay,” I said.

Sloane started up the steps. “Come on. I’ll show you your room.”

I followed her. “It’s just you and Silas in this house?”

She grinned over her shoulder. “It’s awesome, right? Silas and I hacked into some of the Op Wraith accounts after the whole place went bust and got a nice chunk of change. We figured that investing in a house in a college town is always a good idea. After we graduate, we can rent it out.”