After Hours (InterMix)(97)
His tone knocked me off balance, the change as sudden and ringing as a slap. My heart thud-thud-thudded so hard I imagined it must be echoing ripples through my tea.
“I looked it up. Online.” Christ, it sounded even lamer than it had felt when I’d been snooping.
His back straightened with the jolt of a cocked rifle, and even seated he looked eight feet tall. “If I wanted you to know I’d have f*cking told you.”
“I . . . I’m sorry. I just wanted to understand. I was curious, after we talked.”
“Well, congratulations. Hope you enjoyed that little bedtime story.” He wasn’t just annoyed—he was pissed. And a pissed-off Kelly Robak was a terrifying creature to stare in the face.
I didn’t know what to say, but I suspected if I cried he’d probably get even more annoyed, so I bit my tongue and focused on the pain until the emotional surge subsided.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, at a loss for anything better.
“I’m sure you are.” He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, but he seemed to calm.
We were quiet a long moment. I fiddled with the tea bag’s string. “It must have made it hard. When you were working at the prison.”
His eyes narrowed. “I cried myself to sleep every night.”
Threatened by the cruelty in his tone, I felt my hackles rise. “Wow. Glib, much?”
“What do you want me to say? Want me to lay down on a couch and weep about what shit luck I had in the daddy lottery?”
“No. I just . . . I dunno. I just know now, and I wanted you to know I knew. In case you wanted to talk about it or anything.”
“Not gonna happen.”
“Maybe I want to talk about it.”
“I’m even less qualified to wear a white coat than you are, sweetheart. Got no interest in being your therapist. ’Specially if this session’s gonna be about me getting my shit beat out in utero.”
I sighed, stymied by how callous he was being, how thoroughly he was rejecting my attempts to empathize. He could hoist that wall up quick as any resident I’d met on the ward.
“At least it wasn’t on purpose,” I offered. “I mean, at least he didn’t know.” Beating up your girlfriend was heinous, but even the sort of * who’d do that would’ve suffered, to find out he could’ve made her miscarry his baby. “It’s a pretty dismal silver lining, but—”
“He f*cking knew,” Kelly said.
The blood drained from my head and fingers, leaving me cold. My hands fled the counter of their own accord, hiding in my lap.
“You really thought that was some accident? Fucking kicked in the stomach?”
“That article—”
“That wasn’t your plain old everyday beating,” Kelly said, wearing an ugly, joyless smirk. “How f*cking naive are you? That was just a DIY abortion that didn’t take.”
My numb face flushed hot, stinging like frostbite. “Jesus, Kel.”
I mustered the balls to touch his arm, but he yanked it back. He wanted no part of this bonding session, and I felt hollow and scared, wishing to God I hadn’t brought it up.
“Don’t you pet me like some stray.” The stool squeaked as he shoved to standing, wobbled twice and settled.
I’d frozen, unsure how to be around this version of Kelly. I’d never seen him upset before. I hadn’t known him capable of this kind of emotion, or known he nursed any wound raw enough to trigger so harsh a recoil. It struck me with a rattling blow that I didn’t know what he was capable of, full stop. I didn’t want to find out. I wanted to go home, and he wanted the same.
“I’ll get your keys.” Cold as ice.
I nodded stiffly and he disappeared down the hallway. He returned in seconds, tossing my keys on the counter where they slid to a stop beside my untouched tea. I gathered them and hopped to the floor, grabbed my bag. He followed me to the front door, leaning in the frame, backlit by the kitchen lights. I stalled on the top step, feeling like there ought to be some kind of farewell. Something official to punctuate the end of this experiment in delusion.
At least we were even. He’d meddled in my life, threatening Marco. I’d meddled in his, snooping into the most personal shadows of his past, places I should’ve waited to be invited into. We were done, for sure, but at least I could tell myself we were parting as equals. We’d f*cked up equally bad.
The only difference was, I’d forgiven him.