Page 33 of Affliction

Terry kicked the pavement with his boot and turned his back to me. He seemed like he was trying to calm himself down before he said another word.

“I wouldn’t treat you differently,” he finally said. “And you haven’t told me, but I think I’ve pieced enough of it together on my own. I don’t know who did something to you or what they did, but I want to kill them for it. I want to hurt whoever hurt you. Whoever made you look at me like I may start beating you. So damn, if that doesn’t make you mine, I don’t know what does.”

“No, you can’t have me like this. You just can’t. We’re not the same people anymore, and I need to see more from you.”

“I hope we aren’t those people anymore because those two really screwed this up. And I don’t want to do that again. I want to be with you. I want us to talk about things and stop hurting each other on purpose. Hasn’t there been too much hurt, Mia? Haven’t we hurt each other enough?” His voice was pleading and rang with need.

“That’s all we do, hurt each other. We don’t know any other way.” I moved further away from him. A look of fear crossed Terry’s eyes as he watched me step away. “You can’t have me. I’m sorry, but you can’t.”

With that, the side door of the club swung open, and out came Bryce.

“Mia, babe, are you ready to head out?” Bryce looked between us like he was trying to piece together what had happened out here.

“Yeah, I am.” My voice was small and could barely be heard above the noise coming from the club. But I knew Bryce had heard me.

“No, don’t. Stay here with me,” Terry begged. He moved toward me, trying to grab my hand as I took steps toward Bryce.

“I can’t.” I closed the distance between us, and I wrapped my arm around his waist.

As we walked away, I heard Terry calling my name. He was lacking the heat that was there the last time he said my name. Now, his voice was full of sorrow and desperation. I closed my eyes for a moment, leaning into Bryce’s embrace.

“This isn’t fair to him, Mia. You and I both know that,” Bryce told me.

“Not now, Bryce. Please, just not now.” I was too worn down from the entire evening to begin to process what was fair and what wasn’t. Bryce simply nodded and placed his arm around me, pulling me tightly to him. He led me away from the booming club.

Just as we reached the street, I turned and looked back at the way we had come. There stood Terry and Ally. They were watching us leave. Terry looked like he had been gutted. Ally was rubbing his arm and saying something to him. I saw Terry nodding in response.

“Are you sure you want to go?” Bryce asked.

“Yes, please take me home with you tonight. I need you to take care of me.”

He nodded in understanding. This had been the deal, after all; he was there whenever I needed him. I’d done the same for him on several occasions. As wrong as it felt to leave Terry standing there like that, I did it anyway.

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