Bet on It (74)
“Are you OK?” She rushed to stand up, not caring about her naked state. “Did something trigger you? Do you need—”
“No.” He shook his head and cursed under his breath, shoving his shirt awkwardly down his torso. “I mean yes, but I …
He stopped again, and she was left floundering.
“I need to go.” Even his voice was stressed.
“Home? Is something going on with Gram?”
He took in a heavy, shaky breath that had her moving closer. “No.” Another breath. “Gram is fine. She’s fine. I just need to go.”
“OK.…” Aja tried to wrap her mind around what he was telling her. “Was it something I did? Did I—”
“No.” The word was finite. “It’s not you. It’s never you. M-my dad is comin’. He’s comin’ tomorrow and I need to go. I can’t be in the same place with him. I can’t.”
Her knees went weak, and she had to lock her legs to stay upright. He wasn’t talking about leaving her apartment. He was talking about leaving Greenbelt. Now. As in right now. She’d known this was coming. This had always been the inevitable end to what they had. So why did it feel so sudden?
“OK, I understand, Walker. But can we talk for a second? I have … I need to say something.”
He shook his head, slipping his feet into his shoes. “I can’t think right now. I can’t. I can’t.”
Her eyes watered. “Oh…”
He stood up, clothes on, phone and keys in hand. He was ready to go. Ready to leave her.
Aja opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. What was there to say? She wasn’t about to beg him to stay. Not when he felt so badly like he needed to go. Who would that benefit?
She grabbed the flat sheet from the bed, wrapping it around herself, covering her body in an effort to feel less exposed. Her footsteps were small as she followed him to the door.
“I’m sorry,” he told her. She couldn’t take her eyes off of his hand as it curled around the knob. “I’m so sorry, Aja. You deserve better than this. There was no way I could have…” He ran a hand through his hair. “This was always how this was goin’ to end, I think. I was fuckin’ foolin’ myself.”
She could hear his feet thunder on the old wooden steps as they took him downstairs. She stood at the door until she heard his truck drive off. Then she waited, convinced that he would come back. When he didn’t, the tears finally fell.
Chapter 25
He was a coward. There was no way around it. Settling into the core of him, right down to his very bones, was a type of cowardice he hadn’t even known was possible for him to inhabit.
He’d mulled over his actions a thousand times. Trying to come to some kind of conclusion that didn’t leave him believing wholeheartedly that he was an awful person. He never got there though. No justification was enough to quell his self-loathing. How could it? He’d run out on both his Gram and Aja without so much as a real explanation why.
He’d left Aja’s in a daze, his head hurting as much as his heart as he pushed his truck hard to get to Gram’s faster. When he’d gotten there, she’d been sitting in her spot on the couch, the table lamp on beside her. She hadn’t been watching the television or reading the paper; she’d been staring straight ahead. She didn’t even look up when he came in. Made no move to stop him when he thundered up the stairs to his room.
He had his bags packed in five minutes. He had laundry waiting to come out of the dryer, but he made no move to retrieve it. He’d just count it as another loss. One in a long line of losses he was experiencing.
He stopped by the couch when he made it back downstairs, bags in hand. His jaw tight. He didn’t know what to say. Especially knowing that he was about to hurt her. He tried to lessen the blow by reminding himself that she’d been through this exact scenario once before. Hell, the first time she’d had even longer to prepare. What did it say about him that his own grandmother was so used to him leaving that he doubted this would even be a blip on her radar?
He’d told her that he loved her on the way out. Told her that he was sorry, so, so sorry, but he wasn’t ready to see Benny yet. Wasn’t ready for whatever life-changing thing was going to roll into Greenbelt along with his father.
She’d said that she understood, but the weariness in her voice was obvious. Shame folded over him, thick like a blanket, but it wasn’t enough to make him stay.
He got to Charleston in the wee hours of the morning. The relief he felt upon seeing the city skyline from the highway was nearly enough to make him cry. He made it back to his silent apartment, threw his bags down by the door, and passed out on the couch within minutes.
It wasn’t until the next afternoon that the relief of being home found itself confronted with the pain of what he’d left in Greenbelt.
Being back in a place where he could walk down the street and know that the shadow of his past wasn’t visible to everyone else felt incredible. So did not being paranoid when he heard people around him laugh or chuckle. Those feelings were invaluable, and he’d missed them.
He was also thankful to be back in his apartment, where the walls were thicker, and in his bed, with a mattress that didn’t have his back hurting when he woke up. He also got to be truly alone for the first time in almost two full months. That might have been the best part: the silence, the freedom to walk around his house with his dick out without worrying about anyone else.