“And a liar.”
I began to look around, and when I realized that I was trying to find something to throw, I knew, with absolute certainty, that I needed to leave.
Every second that we stayed within each other’s vicinity was bad for my peace of mind. This little scene would haunt me for months. Just seeing him up close like this and breathing him in, it would mess me up, set me back.
I met his steady stare, trying not to snarl. “That is beside the point. None of this is your business. Nothing in my life is your business. Are we clear?”
“Please, Danika, stay clear of him. I know you have a right to do as you please, but understand that I wouldn’t have interfered if I weren’t concerned. This guy is bad news. He’ll break your heart, and when he does, I may well break his neck.”
My mouth was trembling. With rage. With pain. The notion that he was watching over me like a big brother, that he thought of himself that way…it stung.
It cut.
It wounded.
And I was wounded enough.
I pointed at him. “You stop it. Quit acting like you give a damn, and stay the f**k out of my life. You and I…we are nothing to each other. Less than strangers.”
He shook his head and that set me off. I had to restrain myself from attacking him, but in my head, I was shoving, hitting, slapping. Grabbing his shirt in both fists.
In reality, in that pregnant, futile moment, we only stared at each other.
We were both panting. I clenched and unclenched my fists and watched his hands copying the motion.
“Please,” he mouthed.
I left, and thank God he didn’t stop me.
I went to a very public gala with Milton the next weekend. There was a red carpet with photographers. I smiled like I was having the best night of my life for those cameras and tried not to think about the fact that I had said yes to this mostly out of spite. Tristan would see these pictures, and he would know just how much of a say he had in my life.
I let Milton kiss me good night when he dropped me back off at my apartment, but I didn’t invite him in. It was a good kiss. The man knew what he was doing. I knew I’d let him do it again.
He met me for lunch the following Monday in a posh café near the L.A. gallery.
He had a black eye and a badly swollen cheek that he claimed was from football practice. His story didn’t change, even when I tried to pry further.
Still, I couldn’t get the bizarre notion that Tristan had done it out of my head. I had no proof, just a strong gut feeling.
I cooked lasagna for him at my place the following weekend, and then I let him kiss me again. I even let him get to second base, and was half-tempted to let him get to third.
Though I didn’t, it was nice to feel tempted. I’d half feared that part of me was permanently broken.
Perhaps I still had some shot at a love life.
He was easy to talk to, and we chatted on the phone nearly every day for three weeks. I wasn’t quite letting myself think of him as my boyfriend or ready to even want something like that, but it certainly seemed to be heading in that direction.
I wasn’t sure how to feel about it all, but I was enjoying myself. He didn’t give me butterflies exactly, but at least I felt something, some shadow of the fervor that I’d tasted for a brief time.
It was nothing like the inferno of passion I’d felt for Tristan, but even so, it was a relief to find that I could still be lit at all, even if it was just a tiny flame.
It was the three-week mark almost exactly when I got a call from his number, only it wasn’t him on the other end this time.
We’d made plans to meet that night for dinner, and I hadn’t been expecting a call from him, so my tone was a bit of a question as I answered, “Hello?”
“Is this Danika?” a woman on the other end asked. She sounded like she’d been crying.
“Yes. Who is this?”
“This is Belinda.”
“Hello, Belinda. How may I help you?” Her shaky voice sent me into autopilot, which for me was a sort of detached professionalism.
“I am Milton’s girlfriend,” she proclaimed, her shaky voice turning hard with anger.
“Excuse me?” I asked, completely caught off guard. How had I missed this?
“He and I have been together for nine years. I live with him. He doesn’t know that I know about you, but when he gets out of the shower, I’ll hand him the phone, and he can tell you all about me.”
I didn’t have a clue what to say to that, so we shared an awkward silence for a good two minutes before I came out with, “I had no idea—“
“Well, now you do, so what are you going to do about it?” Her tone was animated, but there was something so off about the entire thing, like she wasn’t at all surprised. How many times had Milton pulled this on her? I wondered feeling a little disconnected from the entire thing.
Finally, Milton came on the line, his tone an apology, an apology for me, which I heard quickly set Belinda off on the other end.
“Danika, I can explain.”
I rolled my eyes, feeling more stupid than hurt. He’d only said four words, but all of the pieces of him clicked into place with those words, the way he shaped each syllable like he’d said it a thousand times, the perfect inflection in his cajoling tone as he launched the beginning salvo that led to the lies.
I heard the liar in him, the line he was about to tell. I had his number now. There was no undoing it. “Don’t bother. Just erase me from your contact list, please.”
It said a lot that my mind focused mostly on Tristan and the fact that he’d been right about Milton. If I had listened to him, I’d have saved myself that embarrassment.
That pissed me off more than any other part of the entire sordid thing.
CHAPTER FIVE
FOUR YEARS AFTER THE ACCIDENT
I’d been on only a few casual dates in the last year, when I met Andrew at a showing.
He was a photographer, an artist, but the least temperamental one I’d ever met. We hit it off from our very first conversation. We felt like very old friends, right off the bat.
He was very sweet and also very good on paper. The genuine attraction thing was obviously a pitfall for me, so I was quite satisfied with this.
Good on paper seemed to be the safest bet I could hope for.