Page 113 of The Tartan Thesis

“I should’ve known from the beginning,” I say, the words coming faster now. “After the way you treated me, few others would have forgiven you, much less befriended you. But I swept it all aside.” My voice breaks as the fury begins to weaken, sadness ready to take its place. “Then I fell for you. I truly put myself out there for a guy, for the first time in my life, and you can’t even do me the courtesy of telling me what’s wrong? You won’t even give me that?”

He looks like he’s about to argue, but I don’t let him start.

“You want to push me away?” I say. “Fine. Go.”

His jaw works back and forth, staring me down. I stare right back.

The sorrow threatens to overwhelm me as the fire in my chest dies out. I need him to make a decision. Stay and talk it out or go. But I can’t stand here like this for much longer, so I decide for him. I give him what he wants.

I point to the door. My hand is trembling and I don’t try to hide it. I take a deep breath and work to keep any more tears from falling as I say, “Get. The fuck. Out.”

The words scrape on the way out, but they land.

He stares at me for another moment. Then, something in his expression closes. “Don’t ever speak to me again,” he says from the doorway, not looking at me.

Then he’s out of the house, still barefoot in his rush to leave me behind.

I stagger to the stairs and sit hard, my legs not holding me anymore. The door is still open. I shove it closed with my foot. Then I put my head in my hands and cry harder than I have in years.

I thought I’d become numb to the disappointment of men who didn’t want to stay, who’d get what they wanted and leave. But it’s no small sting of sadness I feel at my current loss. It’s a whole-body ache. Because this time, it was Torin.

35

Torin

At Sea

Translation: Unsure, uncertain

Usage: To describe someone who is confused and unable to make up their mind

“Wait. You broke up with Beau?” Freya says. “Already? Why?”

Her confusion is justifiable, given that our last conversation had taken place a couple of hours ago and had been about Beau and I getting together. After leaving his house, I’d wandered barefoot until I arrived at my blessedly empty flat. After standing in the kitchen and staring at my frozen feet for countless minutes, I dropped my shoes in the middle of the floor and called my sister, opting for speakerphone so I didn’t have to look at her when I told her it was over.

Christ. It’s over.

“It happened again,” I say, my voice hollow, just like my insides. The hurt and anger and sadness have all run their course, leaving me feeling like an empty husk in their absence. Maybe whisky will help me feel something again.

“What do you mean, Torin?” Freya asks as I pull a glass out of the cupboard. “What happened again?”

“He was using me for my research,” I say with little conviction, pouring myself far more than a dram. “Just like James did.”

“How do you know?” she asks, voice full of concern. “What exactly did Beau do?”

“I told him what my research area was.” I sigh. “I was very specific about what I was studying and why.” I’d even had an emotional breakdown in front of him over it, fool that I was.

“And he’s researching the same thing?”

“Aye,” I say and take a gulp, letting the spirit burn its way down. “He told me he’d once considered a similar topic and had changed his mind, but today I found a proposal on his desk, along with a mountain of notes, and it turns out he hadn’t changed his mind at all.”

“No!” she says, but it’s more disbelief than denial.

“Aye.” I take another swig as I repeat the awful truth of it all. “He lied to me. He gained my trust, made me fall for him, and all along, he was planning to steal my life’s work right out from under me.”

“I’m so sorry, Torin,” Freya says, but there’s something in her tone I don’t want.

Pity.