Five Ways to Fall (Ten Tiny Breaths, #4)(42)
“Well, I think you have a pretty good thing going with Jack right now,” Ben finally offers, his fingers trailing up and down my arm lightly.
I smile to myself. “Yeah, he’s great.” I always knew Jack was a good person, who without a doubt truly cared about me. I think that’s why it hurt so damn much when he turned his back on me all those years ago. It’s also how I knew that what Annabelle did must have hurt him terribly. It’s why my relationship with her went even farther downhill after their divorce.
“And Mason’s a good guy. I know he can come off as kind of weird, but he’s someone you can count on. Maybe now that he’s getting laid, he’ll relax a bit.”
I groan and then cringe. “I forgot about that until now. Thanks.” I roll into Ben’s chest, inhaling the scent of him—soap, laundry detergent, and a clean sweat from this heat—as I try to block the visual suddenly plaguing me. “Do you think he was a virgin before her?”
Ben chuckles. “No, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t. I mean, I didn’t pull up a chair and watch, but I think he got his dick wet at a party our first year.”
That earns a second cringe. “Jesus, Ben! Does Wilma know you talk to girls with that mouth?”
“My mama would beat me senseless if she ever heard me talking like that to a girl,” he admits soberly. “If you can believe it, I do filter myself.”
“I don’t believe it.” If these are the kinds of things that come out of his dirty mouth, I shudder at what’s hidden up there in that brain of his.
With a chuckle, Ben picks up a piece of my hair and begins twirling the ends in his fingertips. “So tell me a story about red paint.”
The sudden change in topic startles me but I recover with a few seconds’ pause. “It’s an offensive color. Some would say satanic.”
“Was the red paint yours?”
I sigh. “My, aren’t we dragging all of my skeletons out on this fine, sunny day.” I actually don’t care if Ben thinks I’m crazy. Given that I just led him into a waylay to gun down my ex and his new wife, I’ve already done a pretty good job of painting a very unflattering picture of myself. Yet here we are. That tells me that either Ben’s not the judgmental type or he’s horny enough to screw crazy chicks. Possibly both.
“She moved into my apartment, Ben. She packed my things up in boxes and left them by the door for me.” Ben’s other hand finds its way to my belt to hook a finger in as he lies quietly, listening to me explain how I walked through each room of the apartment that day and found nothing but the smell of bleach and signs of her. Of them, together. Red decorative cushions were neatly laid on the couch, replacing my oversized, worn charcoal ones. On the walls, where my photos of rusty old trucks used to hang, were brilliantly hued pictures of Tuscan fields.
Each new item was a blade swiftly plunging into my chest. I no longer existed in Jared’s life. Just two weeks after the devastating news. And it all looked so effortless. I remember clutching my stomach as I dared make my way back toward the bedroom, the scent of fresh paint catching my nose as I approached. I knew that it was the worst idea ever—that the outcome was guaranteed disaster that would cripple me. But I had to see it to know for sure. It was like walking head-on into an oncoming train. And when I pushed open the door . . .
The train ran right over me.
Everything about our bedroom felt different. Wrong. From the rearranged furniture to the red poppy–print sheets to the picture mocking me from above the iron headboard. The headboard that I had gripped as Jared lay beneath, staring up at me with heated green eyes so many times, while he told me he loved me.
I couldn’t look away from that giant black-and-white picture of the two of them lying in bed, white sheets strategically covering their nudity as their limbs coiled around each other’s bodies, even as it gutted me. I knew it predated our time together because my name was missing from his left shoulder.
The freshly painted crimson walls only served to magnify the intimacy of the photograph, to the point where they may as well have been lying in bed right there, in person. Gritting my teeth, I reached over and yanked the closet door open. Where my clothes used to dangle haphazardly, a new wardrobe hung neatly.
My teeth gnashed against each other as I threw open the top dresser drawer to find lace panties and bras mingling cozily with Jared’s boxer briefs.
It was official. The bitch had moved in.
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I slammed the drawer shut, fighting the urge to scream. She should have had the decency to wait until I was gone! She should have had the decency not to touch my f*cking stuff! As I lay curled up in the fetal position in Lina’s apartment next door, crying over losing the love of my life, Caroline was playing Martha-thieving- Stewart, her snaky fingers defiling my belongings as she quickly packed me up. As she took over my life.
In that moment, as I eyed the clothes, the bed, all her pretty little “girly” things, the rage detonating inside of me had only one target. And it was a volatile type of rage that wasn’t going to listen to reason or consider consequences.
All it wanted to do was dull my agonizing heartbreak, soothe my wounded pride.
And the can of red paint sitting in the corner, taunting me, was the perfect antidote.
There’s a long pause after I divulge some of the finer details to Ben. Why I told him all of that, I don’t know. But now that I have, I realize that it felt kind of good. A relief. He knows exactly who I am. What I’m capable of.