Page 30 of Shattered

Following my rules. Exactly.

When I finally broke down and made myself a sandwich, I found he’d used the last of the bread and hadn’t mentioned it.

“Did you seriously eat all the bread?” I called out, he was in the bathroom, I could hear the shower running, but I knew he could hear me.

“Yes.” His voice echoed back. Was I imagining the smugness in his tone?

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You said to only help when you ask. Grocery shopping counts as helping.”

I wanted to throw the empty bread bag at his head.

That afternoon, I was trying to paint when Sarah showed up.

She took one look at the apartment—me furiously attacking a canvas in one corner, Axel working in hostile silence at the kitchen table—and her eyebrows rose so expressively that words weren’t necessary.

“I’m going to take a call,” Axel said, grabbing his phone and heading toward the bedroom area.

The moment he was gone, Sarah turned to me. “What is happening?”

“Axel’s helping. Temporarily.”

“It looks like you’re in a silent war.”

I set down my brush. “He was being too helpful, I was being ungrateful, and now we’re both frustrated.”

“Have you tried talking to him?”

“We talk.”

“No, I mean actually talking. About what’s bothering you instead of expecting him to read your mind.”

“I told him what I wanted!”

“And he listened. And now you’re mad that he listened exactly.” Sarah sat on the couch. “Delia. There’s a differencebetween setting boundaries and picking fights. You’re leaning hard into the second one.”

“That’s not?—”

“You asked him to only help when you ask. He’s doing that. So why are you still angry?”

I opened my mouth to argue but nothing came out. Because she was right. I was still angry. And it had nothing to do with Axel and everything to do with the fact that I hated needing help in the first place.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I admitted quietly. “How to let someone help without feeling like I’m failing at everything.”

“Maybe that’s what you should tell him. Instead of fighting about bread.”

From the bedroom area, I heard Axel’s voice, low, still on his call.

Sarah was right. I knew she was right.

But it didn’t make me any less mad about the bread. Axel really ticked my nerves with that one.

CHAPTER 7

Axel

The driveto the Santoro house felt longer than it actually was.