Page 54 of Imperfectly Perfect

“It is,” Fallon answered, handing the plate and the fork over.

“Eat in the living room,” Savannah commented as Brinley walked through the entryway and out to the main room. She had very little desire to dig her table out from under the mound of crap that always seemed to end up on it. “Will you tell me why?”

“Why what?” Fallon handed a plate over to Savannah and kept her own in her fingers.

Savannah debated whether or not to push any harder. She wasn’t exactly in the best state of mind to navigate a serious conversation with Fallon, not one that could end whatever relationship they had so far.

“Why do you think Brin is struggling?” Savannah asked at the last minute. She didn’t have the capacity to dig through Fallon’s trauma and her own tonight. She barely had the capacity to listen about Brinley’s current state, but that was the one she absolutely needed to hear.

Fallon flicked her gaze toward the living room and then back to Savannah. “It’s just small things that remind me of how I used to behave, things I used to say and do. She’s very inquisitive, but she’s asked me things like what certain words mean.”

“What words?”

“Cunt. Dyke.”

Savannah nodded her head slowly. “She’s never heard those before…” She trailed off. How was she supposed to saybefore Fallon entered her lifeand not make it seem like an attack? It wasn’t because Fallon was teaching that language to Brinley, it was definitely Forrest, but it was because of Fallon’s presence that the conversations were happening.

“Before me,” Fallon supplied.

“Yeah, before you. There wasn’t a reason for Forrest to be upset enough to use that kind of language around her.”

“So he’s upset because a confident woman is in his presence?”

Was that supposed to be a dig about Savannah’s lack of confidence? She tried not to take it that way, but it wasn’t working very well. That niggling voice was in the back of her head already, and it would be a monumental task to shut it up.

“He’s upset because I’m changing the rules,” Savannah chimed back. “He’s not usually this bad.”

“You just told me that you left him because of his bad behavior.”

“I did,” Savannah agreed, already regretting that decision. She should have kept her mouth shut, that much was obvious now. But for a brief window of time, she’d thought that Fallon would understand. “But he wasn’t like that with Brin.”

“Just with you?” Fallon raised an eyebrow. “It often starts that way and then spreads to everyone in the vicinity. Children often end up the unnamed victims of domestic violence.”

“My life isn’t your life!” Savannah’s voice was sharper than she intended it to be, but she was so damn tired. She could barely think straight with all the ideas swimming around in her head. “And don’t presume to know anything about my divorce and my marriage or my ex-husband’s relationship with his daughter when you’re barely in my life.”

What she wasn’t saying was that if Fallon wanted to be involved in those things, then she better start being involved in them. She better start deepening and forming those relationships. If this was just sex, as Fallon claimed it to be, then Fallon needed to keep her nose out of Savannah’s business.

“Fair,” Fallon responded. She set her plate onto the counter and crossed her arms, eyeing Savannah over. “Just know that I’m worried about her. That should be enough.”

Savannah nodded her agreement. She took her plate and went back out to the living room. Brinley, shockingly, was halfway through her plate of greens and fish, something Savannah had given up trying to make because Brinley turned her nose up at it every time.

Saying nothing about the food because she was afraid Brinley would suddenly stop eating, Savannah sat in the same place she’d been on the couch and curled her legs up under her body. She started eating, unsure if Fallon would follow her out or if she’d leave the apartment. Was Fallon even aware of the turmoil in Savannah’s mind right now? Or was she oblivious to it?

It took some time, but Fallon finally came out of the kitchen and sat next to Savannah on the couch, eating her dinner mostly in silence. The room wasn’t filled with tension, but it was filled with something. Savannah sat in the quiet trying to figure out what that something was. Angst? Anger? Frustration? Perhaps just a slap of reality for both of them.

They weren’t in a relationship.

They had made that very clear to each other from the beginning.

And while Savannah had originally said she didn’t want a relationship, she wasn’t sure the no-strings-attached, booty-call type of sex was something she was very good at. And perhaps not Fallon either because since when had their relationship only been about sex?

Shaking the thought from her head, Savannah relaxed, her toes touching Fallon’s thigh on the couch. Fallon reached down and covered Savannah’s feet, curling her fingers around them and holding on tightly. Maybe it wasn’t all in Savannah’s mind then. Maybe Fallon was struggling with their arrangement just as much as she was.

And if she hadn’t just had the blow to Conrad’s case at Athena’s office or the actual gumption to ask about going back to the drawing board with Forrest, she might have the wherewithal to try and have a conversation with Fallon. But exhaustion was winning out, and Savannah wasn’t going to fight it.

She was too damn tired.

Tired of being the only one still upright when every fucking wave of shit hit. Tired of being the one to hold everything together. Tired of being the voice of reason. She just wanted to either disappear and not have that weight of responsibility, or she wanted to fight with everything she had and make everyone do what she thought was right—since they were all going to ask her in the long run anyway.

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