He raises his eyebrows. “You have to go back in to your jail cell?”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re fucking right about that,” he snarls, a fury I don’t understand sparking in his eyes. “Do you know what I just risked to get you out of there?”
I bristle back.
I don’t know if it’s his expression or his tone that hurts me.
All I know is that I’m not about to stand here and get yelled at by another man.
“I didn’t ask you to risk anything for me!” I hiss at him.
“Keep your fucking voice down.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
“You’re being a fucking brat right now,” he spits. “So I guess nothing’s changed, huh?”
If he’d slapped me, it would have hurt less.
“What did you just say to me?”
“You heard,” he says, doubling down. “You’re a brat. I’m just trying to help you. I’m trying to save you. Like I’m always fucking doing.”
Right.
So that’s what this is about.
It’s silly of me to expect that thirteen years of absence will just cause our last meeting to dissolve into the cavern of lost time.
My logical, sensible side says that he has every reason to be bitter and hurt.
But I’ve been through a lot.
And of the two of us, it’s clear to me, that the last thirteen years have been easier on him than they have been on me.
So I ignore my calm, sensible voice.
Instead, I listen to the small, petty part of myself that’s been bruised and broken and betrayed in countless different ways since we’ve been a part.
“Fuck you,” I snarl at him. “You have no idea why I said what I said back then. You have no idea what I’ve been through.”
“Nothing great, considering I found you in prison.”
“It wasn’t prison; it was a fucking holding cell,” I snap. “And you don’t know a goddamn thing about me.”
“No, you’re right about that. Maybe I never did.”
His features are hard as they stare down at me. It feels… wrong. Unnatural. Alien.
He looks like another person, and for a moment, I’m actually glad.
Because that little fact makes it way easier for me to walk away from him.
I whirl around, but before I can get very far, I find myself airborne.
“Hey!” I yell as Cillian throws me over his shoulder. “Let go of me!”