“We?”
“Me,” he corrected. “I need you. I love you.” His eyes were attempting the hooded, sultry look, but instead he appeared drowsy and stupid.
“The fact that you think we were good together anywhere just proves that this was never a match to begin with.” I stopped myself from saying more. I was better at controlling my temper now.
My therapist was right about that.
“Good riddance, Gerald Johnson III.” I rolled my eyes and ripped my arm away from him as I got out of the car.
Of course, the man couldn’t let a breakup be clean and easy. He had to roll down his window and make a fool out of us both. “Good riddance? I gave you everything. I just needed a little something in return. Not a whore going to a costume party with her big ass out. That should be for me to see only anyway.”
Right.
So, this is probably a good time to state that, as a twin, I wasn’t the good one. Delilah was. She got the good grades, she was the one who never rebelled, never caused too much of a stir. The one who smoothed over a situation instead of making it worse.
I, on the other hand, barely made it through high school and got sent to juvie when I was so loaded I attempted to shoplift. I don’t really remember it. It was a low point for me.
I had my reasons and I kept them locked away in a box under my bed.
This was who I was though. Even though I always had a family that showered me with love throughout my whole life. Addiction can affect anyone.
I didn’t need to come from a troubled family or past to have drugs hook their claws into me. Fentanyl worked fast, manmade and potent. It took one time experimenting with a friend, and I was hooked. A few bad occurrences later, and that was it.
But juvie shaped me into one of the lucky ones. I got clean, I went to rehab, I tried not to look back.
Still, I wasn’t the good twin. I really tried to be someone like my valedictorian of a sister. But if I was honest with myself, I was the fucking fireball you threw in when you wanted hell, not the angel who’d bring you heaven like my sister.
Quite frankly, I’d dressed as Harley Quinn for a reason. My shirt had Daddy’s Lil Monster printed across it, and the red lipstick contrasting against my pale face makeup gave the impression of outrageous behavior.
The costume was all about fun but suddenly, it felt right. I wondered why I was holding back. Why did a woman always have to suppress her emotions so she wouldn’t offend anyone else? We were entitled to—no, wedeserved—the space to feel when we’d been wronged.
My costume fit the bill tonight.
I strode right back up to his car and dug into my purse. I didn’t normally carry around spray paint, but earlier that day when I’d been getting the last parts of our costumes, I saw the red spray paint on sale and couldn’t resist. It was a vibrant bloodred. The perfect shade to draw the eye for a painting, or a bold color choice for restoring a piece of furniture.
I loved doing both things. They calmed my mind in a way most things couldn’t.
The spray paint would serve as such a good part of my next piece, but it was about to serve another purpose.
My steps slowed as I uncapped the can. Had he not been so dense, he could have taken the hint and driven off as I shook it.
“Izzy, what are you do—”
The red spray went right through the window and into his face. “The sex between us was never good,” I informed him in a monotone.
He screamed and hit the button to close his window as fast as he could.
I didn’t stop spraying. I started to writeassholeacross the sleek black door, but he peeled away, finally realizing his mistake.
That mistake of his wasn’t breaking up with me before the early Halloween party at the office. It was dating me at all in the first place.
I sighed a breath that felt fresh, clean, not as heavy as it had been, and looked up at the clouds. A moment of freedom outside my jar, setting free all the frustration and rage, felt freaking fantastic, like I’d been stuffed within small confines and finally got to stretch. I smirked at the sky. Some higher power up there should have known a Gerald the Third wasn’t made for an Izzy the First. I was too tweaked underneath it all to deal with someone everyone thought was such a stand-up guy, I guess.
Although, telling my family I’d lost him was going to be a bitch. My mom had smiled the first time she met him, like he was going to solve all her problems with me. “He’ll help settle your soul, Izzy,” she’d said.
How wrong she’d been.
“So, guess that relationship’s over,” a deep voice rumbled from the shadows of a side street.