Page 12 of Rebound With Me
“I didn’t.” The way she’s looking at me right now, covering herself, confused and scared, it’s killing me. “Who are you?”
I’ve been mad at myself a lot in my life, but never before have I fucked up like this at such an inopportune moment. “Fuck.” I stand up slowly so I don’t pass out, because there’s not much blood going to my head at this point.
She grabs a throw pillow and holds it in front of her chest, sitting up straight, not taking her eyes off of me.
I start to pace back and forth like a tiger in a cage. There’s no way for me to spin this now. I punch the air. “Fuck!” I gotta come clean. I suddenly stop and stand in front of her with my feet apart, hands on my hips. She is backing up into the sofa, away from me. I blew it.
“I’m Sadie’s ex. Okay? Sadie, the nanny? She was my girlfriend and on Saturday she told me it was over and that she’d been seeing this principal guy for two fucking months.”
I watch her face change as she processes what I’m saying.
“Nobody’s ever cheated on me before. I was so fucking mad, when she left my place I followed her, and she went to your guy’s place. When he came out I was across the street and I wanted to beat the shit out of him.” I start pacing again. “But I followed him, because I wanted to see what kind of guy he was, and he came here. To your place.”
I can tell she is barely absorbing what I’m saying.I know what you’re thinking. Oh. Shit.
“I waited outside, across the street, pacing around like I am now, and all of a sudden, your window opens up and all these clothes and things start flying out onto the sidewalk, and then he runs out and you’re yelling and screaming down at him.”
She’s caught up. She looks horrified. Not because of me—because I saw her.I know what you’re thinking. Oh fuck. I saw you when you think you were at your worst, but I thought you were beautiful.
I stand still again, because I want to make sure she gets this part. “You were so mad. You were as mad as I was, but you were saying all this amazing shit. You were so angry and articulate, and I thought—this person feels exactly like I do right now, but she’s using words instead of fists. I thought it was amazing. No really, it was amazing to me.”
She’s covering her mouth with her hands, her knees up to her chest.
“You were all: ‘you motherflorking piece of grit!’ Like, swearing but not swearing, and it was so funny and weird, and he was being such a worthless prick.”
She blinks slowly, but doesn’t say anything, so I continue.
“From then on, all I could think about was you…” I let that float around for a few seconds. “I didn’t want to beat the shit out of the principal anymore, which is good—for me. I don’t need that kind of trouble. All I could think about was…being with you. But you didn’t leave your apartment for two days and if you hadn’t come out tonight I would have buzzed you.”
She flinches and lowers her hands to the pillow again. “Wait, so…You’ve been watching my apartment for two days?”
“Well not all the time, obviously, I have a job and a life.”
“So you were only part-time stalking me.” She’s not teasing me, she’s trying to figure this out.
“It wasn’t stalking!”
“You followed me to the wine store?”
“Okay, it was maybe a little bit stalking, but everyone does that in New York. You see someone you’re interested in when you’re out walking, you follow her to see what’s up. That’s not stalking. That’s being a guy in New York.”
She arches her eyebrow, not sure if she agrees with me, but letting it slide. She screws up her beautiful face and says something that I am not expecting: “I don’t understand. Are you still in love with Sadie?”
“What? No! Fuck no.”
“But are you…it sounds like you still have a lot of feelings about her.”
Feelings. Yeah, I got feelings. I’m sure as shit not going to tell her about them. “The only feeling I have aboutheris anger!” My face is hot. I need to move. I should just go. Why am I even here?Fuck.“I can’t believe she did this! I can’t believe she cheated on me for two months with that prick and I can’t believe she fucking left us!”
I take two steps and punch the wall in front of me before I even realize I’m doing it.
She screams.
My fist is through the drywall.
“Oh shit.” I pull my fist out and look over at her. “I am so sorry.” I look back at her. She doesn’t look scared and confused like she did when I mentioned “the principal,” right now she just looks concerned. For me.
“Are you okay?”
