“I saw you in the booth, with that guy you work with.” Her laugh was light, but it masked a nervousness I didn’t want directed at me. “I didn’t think you could look that mad, but you were… a little scary.”
“Neverto you.” I didn’t mean to say that with so much emphasis, but I wouldn’t take it back.
The pink across her cheeks was stark against the makeup of the costume. Stark and pretty. “I’m not worried about that.”
Talking about me and my temper wasn’t going to work for me. “Are you really going to try to make Elliot fall in love with you?” Not the best topic to shift to, but I hated the idea. The more it sat in my brain, the more I loathed what it would do to both of them.
“No.” It was as simple an answer as she could’ve given, and I’d never wanted to hear anomore. “But I am going to try to make me be more bold. Are you and he really…?”
“Really what?”
“Really… not together?”
Ah. That. “We’re really not.” I’d always struggled with that answer, but it had always been true. Today it felt different though, because Fallyn was a variable that had never been there before. I didn’t know what to do with this shift in perspective or even how to define it.
“Would you really have hit the other guy? From your work? Because you looked like it.”
I didn’t hit anyone these days. That was behind me. “Depended on how far he pushed me. I haven’t always been so…”
“Teddy bearish?” she supplied helpfully.
“Close enough.”
Fallyn tilted toward me, then straightened again, and the abruptly corrected few inches between us felt like the Grand Canyon. “I didn’t mean to pry,” she said.
“You shared your past, it only seems fair you know mine.” Why was I offering that? She hadn’t asked about then, only about today.
She shook her head. “Secrets don’t work that way.”
“Trust does.” I had an out. A reason to stop talking, and I was pushing to tell this story anyway. Why?
Because there was an invisible string tugging me toward her, and it was almost tangible. I wanted to connect with Fallyn, and at the same time I wanted her to walk away and never come back, because she should have better. “You may run for the hills when I tell you.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
This was where I should stop talking and go find lunch or my co-workers or anything that wasn’t this rabbit hole into the past. “I was the bully in high school.” And instead, I was doing this. “I could give you all sorts of excuses—it kept me from getting picked on for being fat, it was backlash for what I dealt with athome—but I was relentless. I got in alotof fights, and I don’t like that I was ever that person.”
“But you’re not now.” Fallyn hadn’t pulled away or so much as flinched.
She would soon enough.
“No, I’m not,” I said.
She nudged me with her shoulder, and the spark that ignited was both incredible and unwelcome. “Is there more to the story? Not that there has to be.”
There was. “One day my dad pushed hard. Probably not more than he had in the past, but it had already been the kind of day that leaves a person feeling raw. I hit back. I’d never done that before, and I kept swinging until…” I couldn’t finish the sentence because I couldn’t relive the memory. It wasn’t like I’d killed my old man, but it got dark.
Fallyn rested her hand on my upper arm.
Such a simple action, and it cracked a part of my psyche. “I didn’t stop until bones were broken and he was unconscious. I spent time in jail for assault. I hated him, but I also hated the fear he had when he looked at me, and that I’d been capable of doing that to another person.” I dragged in a sharp breath. “So few things are more important to me than keeping my temper.”
“You’re not that person anymore,” she repeated. She didn’t pull away, and the way she studied me was with sympathy, but not pity or disgust.
“He’s still there. I just cage him.”
Fallyn simply nodded.
Time to climb out of that basement and with a lot of luck never step into it again. “I know it’s been a little nuts since you got here, but I’m glad you made the trip, and I’m glad it was you on the other side of the screen.” And dig myself a whole new and different kind of pit instead.