“My mom will be home soon,” I say. “She’ll be pretty pissed if she sees you here.” The threat of my mom coming home doesn’t work.
“I’ll take my chances.”
Finally, I’m so frustrated I try rationalizing with him. “Henry, you knew that this was going to end sooner or later.” I wish he would let me get over him. I wish he would forget about me. I wish that he would get out of here and find somebody else to play with. “I think its best that it’s happening now, at the beginning of the year.”
If this happened any later, I don’t know where I’d end up. Maybe in a psych ward.
And how would you like your meds today, Riley? Liquid or pill form?
“But, I love you,” he tells me. His voice is soft and there’s angst in it.
“You think you love me.”
“No. I love you.”
Hearing those words leave his lips breaks me apart all over again. I keep telling myself to ignore them—the words. But I can’t. I’m crippled on the borderline of love, lust, and grief. “Just shut up. Quit screwing with my head. I’m a person, not a game. And you keep screwing with me and screwing with me. I swear you get some sick pleasure out of this.”
He’s wearing a devilish grin and I already know what he’s thinking. “Don’t even think about it. You know that’s not what I meant.”
“But it’s all I think about. You’re all I think about. It’s like you’re the cocaine and I’m the junkie. I want more of you. I need more of you. If I can’t have you it drives me crazy.”
Lies. Lies. And more Lies.
“If you want more of that, then go get it from Callie.”
He stands and inches closer. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
I sigh. “I used to. Now I’m not sure what to believe anymore.”
“Callie doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s you—you’re the one I’m addicted to. Callie is just arm candy. Easily replaceable.”
“If you’re so addicted to me and Callie is so easily replaceable, why haven’t you replaced her yet? And why are you always with her and not me?”
A vivid picture of an alcoholic pops into my head. She’s passed out in her front yard clutching an empty bottle of vodka. Addicts are with what they’re addicted to at all times. And when they are without the fits begin. Shaking. Hysteria. Henry looks fine to me.
“Maybe you said it best, I’m selfish.” He takes another step. “Also, I have a lot of complications going on in my life right now. I wish you could understand that.”
He’s so close to me I can practically taste his cool, minty breath. If I move an inch my lips will brush against his. “Henry, stop.” His arms are over my head and he’s peering down into my eyes.
My hands are trembling and I clasp them together. I want him so bad that my nerve endings are sparking. I’m a live wire.
In a last ditch effort to save myself from seduction I duck down and crawl under his left arm. Henry spins around and laughs as I back into my door. “You’re quick Ry.”
I’m glad I’m so quick. Staring a second longer into his eyes and I would have wound up on my bed—with him.
I open the door and he grabs his shirt off the floor and tosses it over his shoulder. I usher him through the door and he faces me from the hall. His expression is vacant. “Is this really over? If it is I’m not sure if I can handle it.”
“Oh it’s really over.” I start closing the door and Henry wedges his hand in between the frame. “Henry just go.”
“What can I do to change your mind?”
/> “Nothing.” The word vibrates in my throat as the tears swell in my eyes. The image of him touching Callie’s face resurfaces and it’s painful. Replaying that moment in my mind is like pouring nail polish remover into an infected cut. Heat rises to my skin. My blood simmers and I feel like my veins have been tapped while my blood flows freely into some hungry vampire’s mouth. “Unless you have some miraculous epiphany and decide to dump, Callie.” I hope he senses the sarcasm as I mock his previous comment.
“I see,” he says.
“Goodbye, Henry.”
Then I slam the door in his face.