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Ali didn’t say anything. She took her wet towel and went back to the bathroom, hanging it on the hook.
Cornell leaned against the door frame. “Ali, I’m tired and—”
“Don’t,” Ali said. “I told you the other day, don’t do that.” She yanked open the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet, slapping on moisturizer.
“What I’m doing is trying to talk to you.”
Closing the cabinet, Ali turned. “What is there to talk about, Cornell? That I’m so messed up, I’ve messed you up? That I’m repulsive and—”
“What? No!” He pushed off the door frame as Ali walked out of the bathroom.
She reached for one of his sweatshirts folded on the chair in the corner of the room. “You wanted to talk,” Ali said, tugging it over her head and sitting on the bed to put her socks on. “So let’s talk. Let’s talk about how the bottom is about a minute away from falling out of our relationship.”
Cornell knelt down in front of her, placing his hand on her leg. “Ali, that’s not the case. And you know it.”
I don’t know it, she fumed. I don’t feel it. I don’t feel us.
“Really?” she seethed, pulling on her other sock. “I’d love to hear how a relationship founded on fucking is supposed to keep standing when you can’t even keep it up.”
Cornell snatched his hand from her leg, and his mouth sat agape. Ali had just brushed her teeth, but a sour, wretched tang enveloped her mouth as the words left it, leaving a nasty, cruel aftertaste.
Fight me, Ali wanted to scream as her chest heaved. Fight for me. Fight for us. Because I can’t do it alone.
But Cornell remained as still as a statue—a tortured statue she hit so hard with her words she slapped hurt across its stone face.
Finally, Cornell looked away, pressing his lips together and letting a heavy breath out through his nose. “Well, that’s how one of us feels about this relationship at least,” he said, standing and linking his hands together behind his head.
Ali shook her head as her mouth began to tremble. She stood, grabbing her bag from the chair, unable to stay any longer. It was all too much—Cornell and his broken expression, standing in their home, at the foot of their bed. There was so much of them, and yet Ali couldn’t feel like less of a part of it if she tried.
“Where are you going?” Cornell asked as she walked out of their bedroom.
“I don’t know,” she mumbled, searching for her keys. I just need to get out of here.
Cornell somehow stood right in front of her. “Ali,” he said softly—so softly—as if her cruelty deserved any sort of kindness. Angrily, she swallowed down the cry that was hopelessly trying to escape her, forcing it to the ground where her eyes went, unable to look at Cornell as he tried to make an already awful situation better. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop! Stop being sorry!” Ali lifted her head. “I don’t want—I don’t need—you to be sorry.”
“I’m trying, Ali—”
“Try to be normal,” she shouted. “Be normal with me. Hug me, kiss me. Touch me. Fuck me.” She pushed against Cornell’s chest in frustration. “I don’t want another sorry. I want you to pretend better. Just give me that. Fake it. I don’t care anymore. Give me that, please, just one time.” She angrily wiped at her face.
And do it now,Ali silently begged. Grab me. Take off my clothes, and fucking ravage me. Don’t make me live another moment knowing the last person to touch me like that washim. How can you not see that?
“Fuck, Ali,” Cornell said, leaning against the kitchen counter. “There’s no pretending with you. There never could be. That’s the problem. I wish I could hide that I’m so fucking afraid of scaring you—of hurting you—that I can’t even… ” Cornell trailed off, shaking his head. “I could never live with myself if you felt that way with me.”
“You have no idea how I felt!” Ali shouted. They were supposed to be a team—both of them moving the game forward—an all-star offense driving the ball down the field.
Ali had no idea at what point she had been switched to the defense.
“I do,” Cornell said, and she stared as he pulled his sweatshirt and T-shirt off, leaving him standing in the kitchen in his joggers.
He pointed to his chest, at the angry claw marks right over his heart. Ali remembered the fear that seized her last night, threatening to drown her as she clung to Cornell, trying to climb into him as if he were the boat that would save her as she bobbed exhausted lost at sea.
“I know you were fucking terrified.”
Ali’s eyes danced over the marks on his chest, and she bit her lip to try and stop it from trembling.
“Not of you,” she told him through grinding teeth. “Not with you. I told you—”
