Page 93 of Paradox
“Getting out of your hair,” I speak down to his boots, then push past him.
He lets me go, I’m assuming in an attempt to call my bluff. But when he realizes I’m serious, he runs to block me from the shack.
“Get out of my way, Eden.”
“Get back in the cabin.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Still looking down, I shake my head.
The fingers of his right hand squeeze my cheeks so tightly his short nails start to dig in.
My chin trembles, and the first tear falls.
With a frustrated grunt, Eden tears his hand away and pounds it on the front of the shack behind him.
“I won’t let you treat me like this anymore. I put up with it for too long in the beginning, and now you think you can push me around whenever you feel like it.”
I see him raise his fist just like he had the day he first threw me in the shack. When he left me there to rot. When he swore up and down that I meant nothing to him.
I squeeze my eyes tight and wait for impact.
A loud crack echoes around me, but when I don’t feel a thing, I open my eyes to see Eden’s fist against a newly cracked wooden board beside the shack's door.
His shoulders rise and fall with the deepness of his fury.
My jaw clenches tight.
I won’t ask him if he’s hurt.
“I know you work hard, but I don’t sit on my ass all day.”
He draws his fist back, and when he swings again, he breaks the board completely.
His forehead falls to the door followed by his hand hanging loosely by his side. His knuckles are busted. Blood is dripping down his fingers to the snow, and I can see splinters in his skin.
“I cook. I clean. I do everything you don’t. I have dinner prepared and waiting, just sitting there for when you finally decide to come back in. So is it really too much to ask that I get a smile to match the one I have for you?”
“I’m sorry.” He sounds as defeated as I am.
“I thought we were a team. I thought we were working well together.”
Eden turns to face me but remains slumped against the door. “We were.”
“So you agree that we aren’t now?”
“I don’t know what the fuck I agree with.”
“That’s all I need to know,” I tell him, and try to push him aside.
“You’re not going in there.”
“You can’t stop me.”
“Get back in the cabin.”
