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“And I need a boyfriend who keeps to his word. Looks like we’re both disappointed tonight.”
“Why is there a fucking stick up your ass?”
My harsh laugh is drenched with lost hope. “Of course you forgot. Even though it’s been all I’ve talked about the last few weeks. The fundraiser, Adrian. The fucking fundraiser.”
“Maybe if you spoke softer, I’d have remembered.”
I stare up at him, trying to find all the beauty in him I’d once appreciated. As mad as I am right now, I can’t help but acknowledge that yes, he’s still beautiful. That raggedy swoop of dark hair, those blue eyes—bloodshot though they may be—that burn like Arctic ice.
But that beauty is marred by the years I’ve spent waiting.
Waiting for him to change.
Waiting for him to come home.
Waiting for him to realize that I’m worth being sober for. Thatweare worth being sober for.
“It’s happened too many times.” My anger is softening, mutating into something sadder that doesn’t quite have a name. “You promised me. After The Accident, you prom—”
“You’re going to bring up The fucking Accident again?Again?”
His roar takes me off guard. I stumble backwards and my calves hit the edge of the coffee table hard. He’s wild drunk tonight. I’ve only ever seen that happen once before. It ended with blood and tears.
I recover fast and push at his chest. “You just—”
BAM.
I can’t even get the words out before his hand smashes across my face. My ears ring like a gong struck inside my skull. I blink a couple of times, but nothing is clear. Everything looks pixelated, fuzzy, indistinct.
I press my palm to my cheek, and when I pull it back, I see blood smeared across it. He cut me open. Of course he did—he refuses to take that stupid, gaudy ring off his finger.
Even now, the gold insignia embossed there winks mockingly at me.
“You… you hit me,” I say in disbelief.
“And I’ll do it again if you push me,” he growls, slurring his words just enough to let me know that his veins are still thrumming with poison.
This is the beast,I tell myself.This is not my Adrian.
This is not him.
This is not him.
This is not him.
But I find that the mantra I started repeating years ago no longer soothes me. Can you separate the man from the beast if they share the same body? Does it even matter where one stops and the other begins? Which one’s the lie? Which one is true?
“Get out,” I whisper.
He swings his gaze in my direction. One corner of his mouth turns up in a sneer. “Are you forgetting this is my fuckin’ house, too?”
“I don’t care whose house it is. I want you out of here.” I make sure to keep a good distance between us as I say the words with as much venom as I can muster. “This is the last time you break your promise to me.”
“You’ve kicked me out before.”
“This time, it’s gonna take.”
Adrian snorts. Even now—even after The Accident, the endless disappointments, even after tearing open my face with the ring he never takes off—his smirk still carries a hint of the man I’d fallen for. “You’re forgetting about one thing, Junepenny,” he says, using his old nickname for me. “You love me.”
