No, she corrected herself. As if he couldn’t wait to have a lovely, mature conversation with her.
But when he was dressed, he picked up his bags. Her heart lurched. Just like the night they’d bumped into Aunt Mary, he seemed to be surrounded by invisible spikes, warding off all tenderness with the set of his shoulders and the muscle ticking at his jaw. But she didn’t care. She reached for him anyway. “Red—”
He jerked away from her outstretched hand as if she was toxic.
They stood in silence for a moment, wide-eyed and tense. Soaking in the aftermath of that near-automatic rejection. Then he blinked hard, seemed to pull himself together. Avoiding her gaze, he bit out, “Is it true? Am I on your list?”
Oh, God. He’d heard. That’s what this was about. Mortification hit her like a bullet, ripping through flesh and blood and bone to decimate her composure. He knew how much the list meant to her. Maybe he thought she was pathetic, and clingy, and all the other things Henry had called her before he’d left. But that didn’t sound right. That didn’t sound like Red, so what could be the problem?
“Chloe,” he said, tightly leashed anger singeing his words. “Answer me.”
She might be confused, but she wasn’t going to lie. “Yes.” His face shut down like his power had been cut. Suddenly, he was a cold, distant stranger, and she didn’t understand. “Why are you so upset?”
Just like that, he wasn’t blank anymore. A sort of horrified rage filled him, clear in the flat blade of his mouth and his empty gaze. It even brimmed from his voice. “Are you seriously doing this?” he asked. “What, are you trying to say I’m overreacting?”
“No,” she said immediately. “Absolutely not.” Her mind raced. Things were becoming clearer, but she didn’t know how to fix this tangle sensitively, so she went with plain facts. Obviously, he thought his presence on the list meant something awful. She could explain otherwise. She just had to be patient. “Just calm down, okay? Being on the list isn’t a bad thing.”
Disbelief joined his fury, like kerosene to a flame. He spoke rapidly, his whole body shaking. “Calm down? It’s not a bad thing? I’m not an idiot, Chloe. This whole time, I was—and you were just using me for your fucking—ticking boxes and laughing with your sisters about—”
“I would never do that and you know it!” she snapped, panic sharpening her breaths. “Red, listen to me. I put you on the list because you’re important.”
He dragged his hands through his hair so hard she knew it must have hurt. “Important like doing something bad?” he rasped, his tone harsh and mocking. “Didn’t you use me for that, too? And I thought it was fucking cute.”
She stiffened. “You don’t understand—”
His shout was ragged, ripped from his chest, a mix of anger and pain that burned her like acid. “Don’t tell me I don’t fucking understand. You will not make a fool out of me!”
A strained silence fell. He looked as shocked by his outburst as she felt. But the hollow emptiness between them birthed a desperate idea: she couldn’t make him trust her, not when he was so obviously spiraling, but she could show him the truth—if only he’d give her a chance. She’d find proof, find the list, and he’d come back to her and stop shaking, stop shouting, stop looking at her like she was someone else.
She’d never wanted to strangle anyone as much as she wanted to strangle a stranger named Pippa right now.
“Just wait,” she said. “I’ll show you.” She bent over the coffee table, rifling through rubble and paper and countless notebooks, searching for the notebook, the one that would fix everything.
He heaved out a breath. Made a sound like cracking glass that might have been a laugh—a broken, broken laugh. “Yeah, I bet. You’ll search for some kind of evidence that’ll prove you aren’t a manipulative, lying user, only you won’t be able to find it. But oh, shit, if only you could. Right?” He didn’t sound angry anymore. He sounded tired. Bone-deep, dog tired. “Just stop, Chlo. You got me. It’s done. So tick me off the list and I’ll pretend I never fucking met you. Good riddance.” He turned and strode out of the room.
No, no, no.
She stood for a moment, stricken, unable to speak, or think properly, or even take a decent breath. Those words whipped at her heart and carved deeper lacerations than they should. She tried to remind herself that it was all a misunderstanding, that this was what Dani would call him being triggered.
But her demons howled louder: He's leaving you.
Once upon a time, Chloe had promised herself that she would never chase anyone who wanted to leave. She would never allow abandonment, desperation, love to make a fool of her. But her feet moved without permission, slowly at first, then faster, until she was stumbling over stray boxes and leaning against the walls for balance, righting herself with vicious determination. By the time she caught him, he was standing in the open doorway, his back to her. On the threshold.
Wasn’t this always how it ended?
But he didn’t move. He didn’t take the last step. His muscles were tense, as if frozen. He seemed to vibrate with something that might have been rage or regret or indecision.
Hope flared inside her, sharp and dangerous and impossible to resist. “Trust me. Just trust me.”
He didn’t turn around. “I don’t think I can.”
She clamped her molars together so hard, she swore she heard one crack. A lump of painful pride, acid and sawdust and heavy concrete, formed at the back of her throat. Chloe tried to swallow it and failed. She tried to believe he wouldn’t do this—wouldn’t walk out on her just like that, wouldn’t refuse to hear her out for even a second—and failed.
When she spoke again, her voice was panicked and fearful and she hated herself for it. No. No. She hated him for it, hated him for proving her every anxiety right. Surely he wouldn’t prove them right. “Red. Don’t.”
Silence. Silence that burned.
“If you can leave this easily,” she said, desperate, “don’t fucking come back.”
The slam of the door shook her bones.
She broke.
*
As soon as Red stepped out into the corridor, something forced his mind back into his body. For the last ten minutes he’d been distant, detached, floating above himself like a ghost. Watching himself lose it. Feeling the echo of his own pain as if it belonged to someone else. Now he felt it firsthand, as if God had just punched him in the gut.