Page 109 of Forget Me Not

“Oh, maybe you’re just stronger than me, then.”

“Why are you so pissed off?”

I freeze, biting the inside of my cheek. The hair on the back of my neck stands up and I know he’s watching me while I watch the sink full of bubbles and dirty dishes as if it holds the answers to all my questions.

“I’m not pissed off. I never said I was pissed off.”

Jack sighs, scraping the leftover remnants of the food I’d cooked from someone’s plate and into the garbage can.

“Because you’re acting pissed off.”

I know I am, but I can’t bring myself to admit it. Truth is, right now, I want to scream. To fight. To argue. I want to hurt him like he’s hurting me, but I can’t do it.

This isn’t healthy, but . . . it’s life.

“You’re being ridiculous.”

I bite my tongue so hard I taste blood in my mouth. Tears well in my eyes, but I push them back. They’ll only make this worse.

“You didn’t speak to me all night, Jack.”

I don’t know what I was hoping for. I should have known better.

“Jesus Christ,” he grits under his breath, huffing out a deep sigh. He drops the plate he was holding in the sink in front of me, splashing water over the side and onto the front of my shirt.

I gasp as the heat hits my stomach and reach for a towel.

“You know, you could have at least been nice. These are my friends.”

“I was nice.” I cooked a three-course meal, by myself. Cleaned the house. Got the groceries. I mingled, tried to fit into the conversation where I could when I understood nothing Jack’s work friends were talking about. And I worked this morning.

Right now, I’m exhausted. I want to go to bed, but we’re here, standing in our tiny kitchen, arguing about who’s right when in reality, no one is. Neither is right, but it’s a battle of wills to see who will crack first and apologize.

“I just wanted to have a good time, tonight, but you spent most of it being weird and quiet.”

“I didn’t know anyone,” I snap, dropping the sponge back into the sink. “You didn’t introduce me to anyone, and you let that girl hang all over you.”

“Holy shit,” he groans, staring up at the ceiling. “Now we’re on this, again.”

“Why are we on this again, Jack?” I whirl on him, losing my temper in the process. This is all too much. Lately, everything has been too much. “First Sophie, now a girl from work? Do you think I’m fucking stupid?”

“I think you’re making yourself look that way. Accusing me of shit I didn’t do.”

“Except you did do it with Sophie or am I just supposed to forget about that, too?”

“I can’t have friends? Do I have to tell you when I talk to my mom now, too? Your first mistake is convincing yourself that you’re the center of attention in my world, Nova. I’m a busy man. It comes with the territory.”

Ouch.

I’ve never hated him, until this moment.

The Jack I used to know? That’s not the man that sleeps beside me every night.

Quietly, all the fight in my body shuts down. I turn back toward the sink, resume washing the dishes as Jack continues on his tirade and I wish myself away. Home. Port Nova. The inn. The cottage. Home. Gran and Pappap.

I repeat this mantra over and over in my head, but it’s not working tonight.

No, tonight, Jack wants me to listen to him.

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