She chose Alfie.
38: Insecure
He was scum. And there was nothing Mace could say or do that would make a difference to Cinta. She’d asked for one night, one block of time for something important to her and he couldn’t get his life together enough to make that happen. Worse, he was a coward. Once he knew he’d screwed up, he let events unfold around him without trying to control them and it was midnight before he left the office.
He could have insisted he needed to go. He’d said it, mentioned Cinta’s show, and Anderson had looked at him as though he’d asked permission for a bathroom break he wasn’t eligible for.
There’d been shouting, both of them. Anderson was furious, demanding answers on an expense report, insisting on a conference call to India and another to London, and Mace hadn’t shouted loudly enough, hadn’t simply walked out. Anderson raised a real issue, it had launch funding implications, and fuck, Mace needed it fixed more than he wanted to look at paintings he’d already seen, eat food off toothpicks and stand in a room full of strangers trying to make inane small talk.
But he’d had the option to pack up and walk away. They weren’t saving lives, they weren’t solving world hunger, and he didn’t take it, and now, sitting in the dark in his car, he couldn’t understand why.
He’d made a clear-cut choice between Cinta and Ipseity and he’d told her in the strongest language possible she was unimportant to him, that she was second best.
What did that make him? An out and out bastard. Not the kind of man he wanted to be. Not a man Buster would be proud of. A low, twisted, lying fuck incapable of getting out of his own car to deal with the impact of his actions.
And yet he hadn’t been blind to the consequences. He understood the risks and he’d consciously made the choice to solve the clamouring urgent problem in his face and ignore the crisis he was nurturing. He’d had a hundred gentle warnings from Cinta and he’d acted as if every one of them was meaningless, as if her patience was endless, her love without defeat.
He was a fireman fiddling over a spot blaze while the whole forest went up behind him, cutting him off from safe ground.
Once she’d been the fire and he’d been intent on putting her out. Tonight he’d all but smothered the light and heat they’d shared to ash.
He got out of his heap of shit car and locked it. The alternative was sleeping in it, or going back to the office, crashing in a hotel, and if he did any of those things it was the signed death certificate on his relationship, and he knew that as well as he knew he was powerless to defend himself against anything she might say and do.
But for all that, he simply couldn’t believe she wouldn’t understand and she wouldn’t wait for his life to be less storm-tossed by the flood of new and unaccountably critical and unexpected demands he got hit with daily.
It wouldn’t always be this way. It’d settle down to something smoother. The kind of life they could have together if he actually made it would be extraordinary. They only had to hold tight and ride it out together till the rough patch was over. In the context of things, that’s all this was, a patch of the coarsest sandpaper, some serous singeing.
And they were strong enough to withstand that.
He had to believe it.
Inside the loft lights blazed and music played. Alanis Morissette’s aggressive break-up song, You Oughta Know. He’d half expected—hoped, like the yellow cur he was—Cinta would be in bed and he wouldn’t have to deal with things till morning brought both of them distance. He’d sleep on the couch in the office and cook her breakfast, go in to work late.
He stood in the doorway for long enough to realise she was playing the song on repeat. His head was spinning from lack of sleep, from the breadth of his own duplicity and the knowledge this was a dying deal he was ill equipped to resuscitate tonight.
He was so fucked.
She was in the studio, he could smell oil paint. She stood in front of an easel wearing her yoga pants and his old singlet. Her arms and feet were bare and it was way too cold for that. Her hair was curled and loose, reflecting the light, tangled down her back, her skin had a sheen from some moisturiser she’d used. He’d never gotten to see her dressed up. He hadn’t been here when she was getting ready to help her laugh her nerves away. He had no idea how she got the paintings to the gallery or what it took for her to choose which ones to show, which parts of her soul to bare in public, because that’s what all her work showed. He knew nothing about art, but he knew each painting carried a little piece of her essence, a part of her whole.
He’d lost forever that first chance to watch her shine amidst her work, to see her process its reception. He hadn’t looked in her eyes and told her he was proud of her, excited for her and scared for her. He hadn’t told her he loved her for no reason, with no agenda, in such a long time she must surely doubt he still did.
Speech had never been his thing, but he’d always been around to show Cinta what she meant to him. She’d learned to hold him accountable for his actions when his words didn’t come. And tonight his actions made him deplorable. Unforgiveable.
He waited in the doorway while Alanis ground out her kick-arse lyrics again. Cinta was painting over a canvas with primer, returning it to a fresh surface. The irony wasn’t lost on him. He’d made a mess and she was cleaning up to start again.
His hands shook to touch her but he was cut off from that privilege. He should go to his knees and beg her for another chance, but his feet had grown barnacles and stuck him to his spot by the door.
“I waited up for you.” Her voice, plain and unemotional, stung his skin. She didn’t turn, kept working. “I’m not going to yell at you.”
Why didn’t she pick up her blade and knife through the part of him that chose to treat her so needlessly cruelly? Maybe then he could understand himself enough to know what to say.
“I’m not even angry anymore. I’ve had hours to get over that. I’m disappointed. I’m hurt, but what makes this whole thing worse is I understand. You did what you had to do. I can’t shout at you for doing what I know I might’ve once had to do to someone.”
She turned her head, a half glance in his direction. “I’m assuming all your limbs and faculties are intact and in working order and you didn’t get drafted into a last minute plan to save the world from certain destruction?” She waited a beat. “Didn’t think so. I took your lack of ability to phone or text me as proof you’d been abducted by aliens. Good to see you made it out alive.”
Jesus. Her anger was so
buried and blue hot it was keeping her warm. He made a sound, unconscious, more distressed animal than human.