“It’s fine.” I was finding my strength now that the images were gone. Now that his touch was gone. “I’m fine,” I lied.
He wasn’t convinced.
“Apart from being moderately pissed off that you came into my place of work shouting and acting like a maniac,” I added icily.
He clutched the back of his neck once more, his jaw hard. “I didn’t mean to lose it, Becky. I fuckin’ promise. Jesus, I know I need to handle you with care. I only just got you back. I didn’t recognize that.” He nodded to the building. “But when Gage told me you were going back to work, I saw red.” His eyes went hard. “What the fuck are you thinking, Becky?” His voice was soft, but the edges were rough with fury.
I folded my arms. “I was thinking that this is my life and I’m in control of how I live it.” I paused. “And I’m totally not inviting Gage to my next sleepover. That mute can’t keep a secret.”
The cords in his neck pulsed, I was guessing at the effort it took to stay calm. “Yeah, babe. It’s your life. I want you to live it. You don’t, I don’t fuckin’ live mine,” he declared. “So I don’t want you self-destructin’, doing something you think you need to do to prove to people, to yourself. Jesus.” He ran his hands over his head. “After what you went through? Puttin’ yourself on stage?” He shook his head. “I can’t let you do that, Becky.”
I glared at him. “I wasn’t asking permission.” I sucked in a breath. “I didn’t ask for any of this.” I waved my hands down my body, between us. “For you to come into my life. To get so wrapped up in you I don’t know where you begin and I end. I certainly didn’t ask for that…. I may have set events in motion to make it so, but I didn’t ask for them to take me. To do what they did to me. To turn into this person, this thing I am now. No, it all just happened. I had no control. I don’t have control over any of that shit. Over the fact I can’t even stand my best friend fuckin’ hugging me because any human touch sends me right back into that room. That all hurtles out of my control. That”—I pointed to the building—“is something I can control, screwed up as it sounds. It’s the only thing I can control right now. So I’m doing it, whether you like it or not. And I’m sorry if it hurts you or damages your ego or whatever, but I don’t care. I can’t take on your shit as well as mine. I’ve got to be selfish right now or I’ll lose it.”
I was breathing heavily by the time I finished on a whisper. I didn’t exactly mean to blurt all of that out, but it had come to a bottleneck.
Gabriel wasn’t breathing heavily. He didn’t look like he was breathing at all. He was a statue, a beautiful, damaged statue, coated in rage and regret. The moment yawned into silence that filled the open air with my words. I was tempted to do something to break it, but I’d said enough. Far too much.
I was also tempted to wave my hand in front of his stone eyes to make sure he hadn’t left the building.
“Okay,” he said finally, his voice low and rough. “I get it, not havin’ control. ’Cause that’s all I want, to be able to control every single thing you can’t. To make it better, or at least kill the people who made it that way.” He clenched his fists to his sides. “And because I’ve got no one to kill, no way to control what they’ve done, I want to control you. Yeah, it’s fucked-up no matter what way you look at it, that need to control everything you do to make sure you’re never hurt again, but that’s me. That’s the real me. Fucked-up in ways I didn’t even know I could be. And I don’t want to be normal ’cause that means I won’t be tangled up in you either. So I can’t control you. I won’t like it.” His hard gaze traveled from me to the building. “In fact, I’m tempted to finish what that fucker started and burn that place to the ground so you won’t have anywhere to go but to me. But that’s ’cause I’m selfish too. But I’ll find a way to get right with it, only ’cause I can’t breathe without knowin’ you’re safe. This month, not being able to see you, has been hell. Having everyone see you?” He shook his head. “’Spect that’ll be similar. But I’ll deal.”
I drank in his words, sweet and bitter at the same time. Everything I wanted to hear but nothing I could handle.