Page 57 of Not Another Yesterday
“Duh,” I huff with a mean attitude.
He frowns at me. “Because people like me… I’m very fucking likely to hurt my own kids, and maybe even you. Because I refuse to continue this bullshit cycle of abuse that has been part of my family for fucking generations, Cat.”
I’m too upset, too worked up to see reason. “So, you’re going to let what your mother did to you dictate your future with me?” A tiny voice in my head screams at me to back off. This is obviously not about me, but I don’t. “You have to let that go and move on,” I say like a wise-ass, knowing full well it’s not that easy.
“Oh really?” Ronan laughs, not even an iota of amusement reflected in the sharp angles of his face. He’s all tempered steel. “Fucking great, Cat. You’re right. Why didn’t I think of that before? Just fucking let it go. Got it,” he chuffs.
Guilt rises in my chest, but I still don’t back off.
“Stop being an asshole. You know what I mean. I mean stop allowing your mother’s ghost to be a part of our future. Stop letting what happened to you affect what you do with the rest of your life. Just stop!”
“I’m trying! I fucking try every god damn day.”
“Try harder!” I stomp my foot on the floor loudly.
Ronan comes to a dead stop in front of me and searches my face, his own hard, expressionless.
For an excruciating few seconds he simply studies me, his eyes pinned on mine before he shakes his head. “Fuck this,” he growls, then marches to the hallway where I see him grab his keys.
“Are you fucking walking out on me?”
He doesn’t turn around and instead walks out of the apartment. He slams the door with such force that that the picture of me and him on the entry table falls. It hits the floor and splinters. I flinch at the sound. It’s just glass, just wood, just a picture. But it feels like so much more than that.
I stand in the silence. I’m dazed, shellshocked. What the hell just happened? Ronan and I hardly ever fight, and we’ve certainly never yelled at each other like this. We’ve bickered, sure, have disagreed, have needed a time out, but we’ve never had a falling out like this. And we’ve never, ever just walked out on each other.
Wednesday, January 25th
Ronan
I jerk back as Shane lets out a high-pitched shriek the second I yank open the apartment door on my way to Murphy’s.
It’s only three o’clock—too early for me to head into work and too early for Shane to come home—but there he stands, his hand pressed to his chest where I assume his heart hammers against his ribs at our mutually unexpected face-to-face.
“Holy shit, what the fuck?” He sounds like he spent the night screaming into a mosh pit.
I skim his face, noting the light sheen of sweat, and cringe. “Oof, yeah. You look like shit, Shay.” I step aside to grant him entrance to our shared home.
“I’d flip you off if I wasn’t also feeling like shit.” The way he grimaces tells me his body aches with fever. “Thanks for jumping in early.”
I was still suffering through my anthropology class when Shane’s text came through only a couple of hours ago.
Shane:
I don’t want to be dramatic, but I think I’m dying.
Me:
???
Shane:
I feel like I swallowed shards of glass.
Me:
Maybe stop deep-throatingthe customers in the back alley?
Shane:
