The Real(70)

Blinded by pain and boiling with rage, I stood so abruptly I knocked her back in her seat. I cupped my jaw where the last blow landed before I ripped the brush from her hand, cracking it in half and tossing it to the floor.

“What the fuck, Kat!”

“Don’t act like you didn’t deserve it,” she hissed. “What? You can’t take a punch, Jefferson All-Star!? Eight months I’ve been in pain because you let me fall. Eight months!” she screamed at my retreating back as I walked to the bathroom with my heartbeat ringing in my ears. Until then I never knew words had the ability to ruin flesh and bone worse than a hand or fist. How those syllables could rip apart visions of a future while they left invisible scars. Throbbing everywhere, I glanced in the mirror and saw my jaw was swelling and a large gash across my temple was bleeding freely. I watched it trail a path down my jaw and drip to the carpet. I threw out half of her cabinet to get to the antiseptic as she slammed the bedroom door. Intent on seeing it through, I turned on my heel and snatched the bottle off the floor before she came back into the room, her pills her focus, the pills her afterthought, not her husband. I shook my head as she moved toward me.

“This has got to stop.”

“Give them to me,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Jesus Christ, Kat, look at me! You need to think about what you’re doing!”

“What I’m doing? You’re ruining my life!”

“I’m pointing out the fucking obvious. This shit is changing you.”

“Give them to me!” Her face was porcelain perfection and her eyes stung the deepest part of me. They were laced with hate, and it was all for me.

“No.”

She flew at me then, the blows coming more rapidly, her nails scratching my skin, my face, her eyes wild. It was as if a switch had flipped. I moved to stop her, and it only fueled her. She landed every blow, determined to draw as much from me as she could, and I backed away before I snapped. The second I loosened my grip, she snatched the bottle away. Head pulsing from the fresh hits, I watched her open her bottle and palm a pill, swallowing it to spite me.

“What the fuck did you just do, Kat?”

“Stay away from me, Cameron,” she warned, tears pouring out of her as if I’d somehow hurt her. “You don’t know what it’s like to need this, you don’t know what it’s like to need it to breathe! You don’t love me. There’s no way you love me!”

“How can you say that? We went through this together!”

“I hate you,” she heaved out through a sob. “I hate you.”

“Cameron.” Max’s voice sounded on the other side of my door before he rapped his knuckles against it.

“What are you doing here, Max? It’s late.”

“Door was unlocked. Why in the hell is it so fucking dark in here?”

Fuck.

I closed my eyes. “Not feeling great, man. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“You and me both. I think I got dumped.”

“Dumped?” I answered, searching my cabinets for some way to cover the bruises and finding nothing.

“Yeah, if you can call it that. She let me in then kicked me out. Look, man, why am I talking through a door? Got anything stronger than beer?”

Gripping the bottle in offering, I opened the door to see he was shitfaced. There was no way I could ask him to leave. I ducked my head as I walked past him. He was on my heels as I moved toward the kitchen. “So how did it go with Kat?”

“Same old shit. I think I might be divorced soon.”

“I’ll drink to that,” he said, snatching my bottle from my grip before taking a healthy sip.

“What’s with the stalker lighting? Why are you sitting in the dark?”

“Just got home.”

He flipped the switch in the kitchen and I cringed. “Where’s Abbie?” He peered over at me. “The fuck happened to you?”

“My goddamned life,” I said bluntly and instantly regretted it.

Max sobered. “What happened?”

“Nope,” I said, shaking my head. “Like I said, I’m not in the mood.”

“I didn’t come over to make love. Kat did that to you?”

Whatever lie I told him, I already knew he wouldn’t believe.

He took my silence as confirmation. “Then why the hell aren’t you on the phone with your lawyer? She can’t touch you now.”

I stared down at the bottle. “First, because it’s two o’clock in the morning. And second, because it’s not worth it.”

“Jesus Christ, man,” he said, moving toward me as I took a step back. “Kat’s done this before?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to,” he said, taking another step forward.

I shook my head, my voice stone. “Back off. Leave it alone.”

“How long?”

Something foreign crept up my spine. The same part of me that lashed out at Abbie. I couldn’t control my bite. “I don’t want to talk about it, fucking ever. We’re never going to have this conversation.”

I gritted my teeth as he watched me too closely. “Let it go, Max. She’s gone.”

“Okay,” he admonished. “Where’s Abbie?”