Page 121 of You Might Be Bad for Me

Adrenaline rushes through my blood. The hate, the shame, and the unrelenting guilt surge within me. And I can’t say anything back. I can’t have this conversation with her.

When I don’t say anything, when I feel myself shutting down, she snaps. “Fuck you,” she tries to yell at me but her voice cracks as she grabs her bag and storms out of the room.

She doesn’t have her shoes on and she’s not wearing a bra under my shirt.

“You’re not leaving?” It’s meant to be a statement but the question is there in the undertone. All because I said she got over his death easier than I did? It’s a fact. I fucking know it is.

“Yes, I am,” she snaps as she turns around just as I walk up behind her. I have to halt my pace and take half a step back as she cranes her neck to bite out, “How dare you tell me that it was easy for me.”

“You don’t know-” I try to tell her that she has no idea how well I relate to her pain, but she doesn’t let me finish.

“Leave me alone.”

She angrily brushes under her eyes as she quickly descends the stairs with me right behind her. The front door is right there and she makes a beeline for it.

She’s out of her fucking mind if she thinks I’m letting her leave here like this. “Addison. Wait a fucking minute.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” she yells back and tries to whip open the door. My palm hits it first, slamming it back shut.

“You’re not leaving like this,” I warn her. My muscles are coiled, but it’s the fear making me wound so tight. She’s leaving. And she’s not coming back.

I can feel it in every inch of me.

“Yes, I am,” she replies, though with shaken confidence.

“The fuck you are.” My words are pushed through clenched teeth.

“If you respect me in any sense of the word, you will let me leave. Right now.”

“Addison, don’t do that.”

“I mean it, Daniel. I need to be alone right now.”

“I want to be there for you.” I don’t know how true the words are until I’ve said them. And oh, how fucking ironic they are.

“Well, you can’t.” She shuts me down.

Her green eyes stare up at me and all I can see is the same look she’d give Tyler when he was being clingy. The look that so obviously said she needed time and that she was overwhelmed. I get it now why he always hovered.

I’m afraid if I let her go now, she’s never coming back. I can’t lose her. Not again.

“I’m coming by tonight.” I give her the only compromise I’m capable of.

I lower my arm but she doesn’t respond. With a swift tug she pulls the door open and walks out, bare feet and all.

I stand in the doorway and watch her reach in her bag for flip-flops then put them on at the corner of the street.

She keeps looking over her shoulder, maybe to see if I’m coming for her.

And I am. She knows better than to think otherwise.

But I’ll let her get a head start.

* * *

Five years ago

He hovers.Constantly hovering.

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