Page 308 of My Sweet Dollie, You Have to Love Me
I want to ask him so badly if he’s okay. To know if he needs someone to look after him the way he’s always cared for me.
“Enjoying the movie?” Shane distracts me by asking, but his attention remains on his phone, already in his hand.
“Not really.” I lose my phone to the bedsheets without answering Ambrose because I can’t say all I want to in an email.
“What are you looking at?” I probably shouldn’t question Shane, given what happened last time, but I really do want this over. And if he can’t keep his distance from randoms on the internet, I’m clearly not what he wants, either.
“I was just watching some videos. Sport stuff.”
“I looked,” I admit, for no reason other than I want him out of my house.
“At my phone? While I wasn’t in the room?”
“Yes.”
“I fucking knew you would. I knew you had. That’s why I tilted it.”
“You knew nothing until I admitted it. I put it back in the exact right place.” I stare ahead at the movie I don’t want to watch, as a group of teenage girls walk down what looks like the longest street in history.
“No, I knew.”
“No, you didn’t. Let’s be honest with each other.”
“Sure. I am.”
“So, who is she?”
“Who?”
“The girl playing golf in little more than a pair of panties.”
“I don’t know. I was watching it for the golf.”
Shane has never watched golf in his life.
“You don’t like golf.”
“Yes, I do.”
No, he doesn’t. He’s made a point of criticizing the sport each time he thinks it’s hogging a TV channel.
“No, you like the girl in the short skirt and her ass.”So, tell me why I’m trapped in this relationship?“And I’d like this to end. We really aren’t working.”
“We fucking aren’t, are we!” Anger flows through him as he jumps from the bed, yanking off the sheets in a tight grip, so fast that the soda cans fly through the air and explode against my pink painted walls. Wet brown stains appear instantly on the floor and the carpet that’s always so soft below my socks.
He’s in therapy. His moods shouldn’t be so extreme, but his pupils are blown with a manic look in his eyes. The sweat from his anger shouldn’t be enough to stick his long hair up in devil horns as he runs his fingers through it.
I fall from the bed, knowing where this is going, knowing that what happened last time will repeat itself.
And I can’t go through that again, even while I feel like I deserve it.
My heart pounds in my chest, echoing in my ears. Thump, thump, thump, thump. I need out of this stuffy room that feels like it’s closing in on me. Fast feet take me forward, then back because he jumps in front of the door, arms spread wide and sealing me in.
The fear in my eyes feeds him, and he rushes forward.
That same tight grip clutches at the headboard, yanking on the statement edges, stud-embedded and soon to be damaged, as he pulls at them with such force my bed creaks.
“Stop,” I plead, drifting back to a corner where I can turn away and hide from all he’s doing. “Breaking my stuff hurts me.” It physically hurts me, and I feel a pain inside that dwells as another creak seeps from my bed.
