Page 152 of Fault Lines
“You gonna send them back?” he said, not looking at me.
“Yeah,” I said.
He laughed, ugly and sharp. “Bet he’s real happy about that. Cam. Bet he’s already celebrating, looking for the next woman to screw. Not that he’s been waiting around.”
I shook my head, fighting the urge to argue. “I haven’t talked to him. I wouldn’t know.”
Nate turned, his face twisted with something halfway between a sneer and a plea. “But you will. Soon as it’s official, you’ll run back to him. Don’t deny it.”
I stood, feeling my knees go soft. “That’s not fair.”
He slammed his hand on the counter, making me jump. “Nothing about this is fair, Livi. You said you were done with him. You said you wanted a life with me. But every time I turn around, it’s like I’m competing with a ghost. A fucking memory!”
I tried to step past him, but he blocked my way.
“Nate, please,” I said. “I’m tired. Can we just—”
He jabbed a finger at me. “You never fucking loved me. You just wanted a new project. Something to keep you busy until you could go crawling back.”
The words hit me harder than I expected. I opened my mouth to deny it, but the tears came instead, stinging and hot.
He saw them, and for a moment I thought it would calm him down, make him see how much he was hurting me. But it only made him angrier.
“God, you’re pathetic,” he spat. “Crying over him, even now. You don’t even try to hide it.”
He knocked the beer bottle over; it spun across the counter and shattered on the tile. Glass and foam everywhere.
I started to cry for real then, ugly and gasping.
Nate stalked closer. “You think you’re the only one hurting? You think you’re the only one who’s ever lost anything?”
He grabbed my arm, hard, fingers digging into the soft part just above my wrist. I tried to pull away, but he held on.
“I tried, Livi,” he said, voice cracking. “I fucking tried. But you never gave me a chance. You never gave us a chance.”
I shook my head, sobbing. “I did. I swear I did.”
He let go, shoving me backward. I lost my balance and hit the corner of the countertop with my hip, pain blooming white-hot. I yelped and tried to sidestep him, but he was already right there, looming over me.
“Why can’t you just love me?!” he screamed, face inches from mine. “Why can’t you just—”
I reached for his arm, maybe to calm him, maybe to steady myself. He slapped my hand away, hard. Before I knew what was happening, the back of his other hand exploded on my face. Harder than he meant to, maybe, but enough that my head whipped to the side and I crashed into the cabinet door. There was a dull, wet thud, and then everything went blurry.
I slumped to the ground, vision tunneling. I could feel the blood in my hair, warm and thick, and the room spun in slow, nauseating loops.
For a minute, Nate kept yelling. I could hear his voice, high and fractured, but the words turned liquid, then static, then nothing at all.
I fumbled for my phone, fingers slick with blood and panic. I got it out, managed to swipe and hit the call button. I didn’t even know who I was dialing until the ringing started.
“Hello?” Cam’s voice, sharp with alarm.
I tried to answer, but my mouth was full of copper. I heard Nate curse, and then there was a bright, shattering sound as my phone was stomped out of my hand and into a spray of glass and plastic.
I curled up, hands over my head, waiting for the next blow. But it didn’t come.
Nate’s footsteps thundered into the bedroom, then the bathroom. Cupboard doors slamming, the medicine cabinet ripped open and rattled shut. The hiss of the faucet, then the unmistakable sound of retching.
I pressed my palm to the side of my head and felt the skin split open, a ragged line above my ear. The blood was still coming, slower now, but steady. I tried to stand, made it halfway up the cabinet, then slid down again. I didn’t want to cry anymore, but the tears kept coming, mixing with the blood on my cheeks until I couldn’t tell one from the other.
