Page 65 of The Love Bandits

All of the progress I’ve made over the last year would take its last gasping breath, and I’d be the Jake of before, who ended each night lonely, no matter who was around.

I tell myself that’s the entire reason why I don’t leave, not because Elaine both stuck her neck out for me and confided in me, and abandoning her would be a shitty repayment.

And when I follow her downstairs in the dark, Professor X padding behind me, I tell myself I’m only checking on her because if she does something stupid, I could be drawn into the aftermath, not because I want to make sure she’s okay.

When I approach the front door, I see her through the window beside it, advancing on that shitty little car with the Yankees bat poised to strike.

“Fuck,” I say conversationally to the cat at my feet.

She meows her agreement.

I don’t wait to see what Elaine does next, because her intent is pretty obvious. Instead, I open the door.

She turns to look at me, her eyes gleaming like the cat’s in the dark.

“You’re going to stop me, aren’t you?” she asks, her voice a jagged thing.

It makes me want to put my arms around her, to offer her the kind of comfort no one’s ever offered me. But here’s the thing—neither of us were raised on hugs and soft words; after our talk today, I understand that she’s like me. Forged from harder things.

She needs this. She needs to prove to herself that she’s not broken but is instead someone who’s capable of breaking things.

“No…but do you need the car? Maybe you’d be better off beating the bat against a rock or—”

She swears, and taps the bat against the pavement at her feet. I see some of the fight going out of her, and I’d do anything to keep it from happening, to keep her mad instead of desolate.

“Just beat up the back of it,” I say quickly. “It should still drive fine, and if it doesn’t, you can have my Jake Jeffries car.” I run a back through my hair. “If I don’t have to burn the identity, no one’s going to come looking for it. It’s clean.”

She watches me through the dark for a moment, the cat sitting its butt down on my bare foot. “You’d do that for me after…everything?”

“Sure. I can’t take it with me.”

Maybe my words downplay the gesture, but they’re meant to. Because I’d like to believe that I don’t have anything personal riding on the outcome of this moment.

Her eyes shutter, but she nods. “Thank you.”

Then she hefts the bat up in a position that would do Babe Ruth proud, and she brings it down hard on the backend of the car.

A dog starts barking in the house next door as Elaine brings the bat down again, putting a dent in the back passenger side door this time, then again, and again.

I don’t know for sure, but I think I see tears tracking down her cheeks. It feels wrong to stand here and watch her instead of helping, so I glance inside the front door and find a broken pink umbrella in a stand by the door. I grab it and then heft Professor X into the house, shutting her in and earning a paw swipe and some scratch marks on my arm.

I stride up next to Elaine as she swings again, splinters flying off the bat, already half-ruined. I wail on the dented car with the broken umbrella, making her laugh as she swings again, this time cracking the rear passenger window, the glass spiderwebbing.

The door to the cabin bursts open. Damien’s in the doorway, Nicole peering over his shoulder. The cat’s standing with them, her eyes glowing in the dark.

“Oh, it’s okay,” Nicole says. “Lainey’s finally processing her shit. Proceed with the destruction.”

“She right about that?” Damien asks, glancing between both of us. “Everything okay?”

Elaine nods heavily. “It’s going to be.”

Damien nods to me once—anI’m trusting you with thisnod—and then shuts the door. I feel like someone just cut me down at the knees.

It’s not that people don’t trust me: they do. Many of them. But no one’s ever known what he knows, what Elaine knows, and still decided to trust me. No one other than Ryan.

I’m unworthy, and I know it.

Elaine glances at me, her eyes shining. Definitely tears.

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