Page 7 of Before the Fall
The way he always sounds like he’s in the right and I must listen to him still comes through loud and clear in every word he says. The difference now is I’m not the same girl he left behind in a pool of her own tears.
That Tia is long gone.
“No. I spent all those months trying to get over you. I finally did, so I won’t let you do this to me again.”
He’s quiet after my defiant little speech, and I begin to wonder if he’s thinking about leaving. He should. It would be better for both of us.
I listen for the sound of his footsteps to let me know he’s walking away, but I hear nothing. That means I’m still in danger of letting him back in. I have to remember that.
“Do what to you again?” he asks, as if he doesn’t know his own crimes when it comes to me.
As much as I want to stay angry, that question makes my chest hurt. My answer comes out in quiet voice as I try not to cry.
“Break my heart.”
He sighs against the door before saying, “I never wanted to do that.”
“Well, you did,” I say as I will those damn tears of mine to go the hell away. “Just go. Let me live my life. I was finally happy. After months of feeling like I’d never smile again, I’m okay now. If you ever cared for me, you’ll leave and never come back, Jaxon.”
“Tia, I’m here because I care for you. You have to let me in.”
I notice he doesn’t use the past tense and instead says care, like it’s something he still feels. No! I can’t let myself get sucked into dissecting his words and wondering what they mean. He told me loud and clear that he didn’t want to see me anymore that night in my old apartment. Nothing’s changed.
He’s still the same bad man he always was.
“Go away, Jaxon. I moved on. I found someone who cares about me. I hope you can find the same.”
Every word of that is a lie. I’ve never been able to move on. Oh, I thought I did, but as soon as I saw him standing in front of me tonight, that became a lie I’d told myself during all those months alone. None of the men I’ve dated could make me forget Jaxon. Even the thought of him happy with someone makes my heart hurt to this moment.
“Who? Who is he?” he asks, and I hear genuine jealousy in his voice.
Why?
Even more importantly, who does he think he is asking me that?
I throw the door open and stare at him in disbelief. “I can’t believe you have the nerve to ask me that.”
He smiles, even though my question wasn’t anything nice or funny. “I just said that hoping you’d get angry enough to open the door. I know I have no right to even be here.”
I hate that he knew just asking me that question would work. He’s right about one thing, though. He has no right being here or expecting me to be kind to him after what he did.
As he looks into my eyes, he says, “I missed you, Tia. Not a day has gone by that I didn’t think of you.”
So now he misses me? Where was he all those nights I lay in bed crying?
I push past him to walk out to the living room. “So you were a terrible boyfriend to another woman. How nice.”
Behind me, he says in a low voice, “There was no girlfriend, Tia.”
Spinning around to face him, I snap, “Don’t insult my intelligence. I remember you saying there was someone else.”
His face is expressionless when he answers, “I lied.”
“What? Why?” I ask, my head swimming with questions.
When he doesn’t answer, I ask, “Why would you tell me that? You broke my heart. I wanted to die when you dumped me. Now you stand here telling me you lied? Why? Did you just want to be away from me?”
Still, he refuses to answer me, so I pound on his chest, needing to make him hurt like I hurt right now. Like I hurt when he left me.