Slut - Woodruff Jettie - Страница 26

“What the fuck do you want from me? What the fuck, Gabriella? Fuck you. Fuck you for doing this to us. Fuck you for this whole fucking mess.”

“No, fuck you for this mess, Paxton. Fuck you very much,” I repeated, only my words were soft and innocent, unlike his angry ones. He shoved my foot away from his body and stepped back, fingers running through his hair with a deep breath.

I came to my feet, placing my breasts back behind my dress. “Nothing in there told me I cheated on you. Not one thing.”

The look I got was one of pure unbelieving. “Seriously, Gabriella? Look again,” he ordered with a tight grip to the back of my arm. “See. Look at that. His hands are all over you. Every fucking picture, he’s got his hands on you.”

“Did you confront him, Paxton? Of course you did, but that’s a big secret, right? Something you don’t want me to find out about for whatever reason. What do you know, Paxton? Why don’t we start there? I’ll tell you, and you tell me. You want to play? Huh?” I questioned as my emotions changed yet again, this time to rage. How dare he? Who the hell did he think he was?

“He lied. Just like you, Gabriella. He lied.”

“But you’re not going to tell me what he said, right?”

“You don’t need to know that.”

“Right, I don’t need to know that, but you should know everything I’ve been hiding,” I responded with irritation. This was so fucked up. I didn’t even know what the hell I had kept hidden from him, yet he wanted to know. He wanted answers that I didn’t have, nonetheless he wasn’t willing to share any of his. So messed up.

“Call your friend.”

“No, I’m going back to the cottage, and you can go to hell. I know what time you leave for work. I’ll make sure I’m here.”

Paxton grunted some sort of evil laugh. “You’re not going anywhere.”

I grabbed my phone from the table, and glared daggers at him. My finger swiped the phone and we stared each other down while he waited for me to call Mi. Only I didn’t call Mi. I dialed three numbers; nine-one-one, and then held my finger on the send button. “I’m not your slut, Paxton. I don’t fucking need you. I need those two little girls in there and that’s it.”

“You’re joking. You’ll never take them anywhere. Over my dead body. Give me the phone.”

“No way, and we can keep this going for as long as you want. You can’t keep them from me, and if I have to get outside help to make sure you don’t, I will,” I threatened with my phone pointed right at him, finger on the send button like a trigger, daring him to make a move.

“Oh yeah, you’re good at getting outside help, especially ones with fringe benefits. Sounds like you had more than one, you like Mi’s man, too, huh?”

Nope, wasn’t stooping to that level either. He could be the idiot, and I’d keep my punches above the belt.

“Don’t turn the electric off, I’ll be here by six in the morning.”

“Gabriella, don’t do this. We have to talk about this shit.”

“You don’t want talk about anything, Paxton. You want to call the shots, and decide what we discuss. I’m not interested in that.”

Paxton spoke to me through gritted teeth and narrowed eyes, voice changing from a soft plead, to anger in the blink of an eye. “I’m so sick of this fucking game. If you would have threatened to call the cops on me before, I would have locked you in a cage for a week. What the fuck? I don’t want to play your fucking game anymore, Gabriella.”

My cell phone dropped to my side and I quietly responded while walking to the door behind the closed curtain. “It’s not my game. I quit a long time ago. You’re the sore loser.”

“Stay here,” Paxton begged in a more civil tone when I stepped out to the damp grass.

I didn’t stay, and I didn’t turn around. I walked away, feeling like I had just completed a great accomplishment. I had. I was sure I had never walked away from him in the past, especially to another house. I walked exactly five steps before I realized I still had that tampon problem. “Shit,” I said aloud, turning back to Paxton, standing in the door, just like he had when I arrived.

“Vagina problem?”

“Please don’t make me stay here, Paxton,” I begged quietly, hoping to soften his heart a little. Not that I thought he had one or anything.

“I’ll trade you. You stay here where I know you’re inside and safe, and I’ll give you a tampon when you need it. And you’re not allowed to say ‘fuck you’,” he added with the famous Paxton smirk, knowing he upped me one. Fucker. I was so close.

“I’ll call the cops,” I threatened with a lot less conviction than before.

“Do it.”

“I hate you.”

“No you don’t. Goodnight, Mrs. Pierce,” he said in calm, yet arrogant voice, lips moving to mine.

I turned my head, keeping his lips from touching mine, and stomped past him to my room with the adjacent bathroom. Dangling a stupid box of tampons in front of my eyes, of all things to keep me there, tampons wasn’t one I would have expected.

Nonetheless, my bed did feel amazing. I crawled in, retrieving my tablet from the nightstand with mixed emotions. I searched through the tablet again, looking for something I might have hid in a secret folder to no avail. Nothing but my love for reading, a few recipes, and a reminder that Rowan was about to start first grade, and Phi kindergarten. The date for school shopping had come and gone two days ago. I switched off the device when the battery light blinked with two beeps.

I stared out to the moon over the ocean, seeing a beach ball floating in the pool, its silhouette mimicking the full moon. Thoughts of my existence, the lies, and all that I didn’t know yet, flooded my mind. I didn’t know where to turn, who to turn to, or what I was turning for. Part of me just wanted to forget it. Forget the past and fall back into this role that Paxton wanted me in. The part that my sister and her son were out there somewhere and needed me wouldn’t let me. And truth be told, I couldn’t move forward with Paxton until I knew our past. The real past, not this covered up pretend thing we portrayed to our friends.

I jumped for my phone when it beeped. I knew Paxton was probably watching me, and I knew it wasn’t beneath him to storm in and take it from me.

Mi—You okay?

Gabby—Yes. Fine. Sorry, I didn’t mean to put you in that situation.

Mi—No worries. Can you meet me for breakfast? We need to talk.

Gabby—Yes. I will have my girls, but we can go to the park. Sutton.

Mi—The one with the red bridge?

Gabby—Yes, that one. Nine?

Mi—Perfect. See you there.

My eyes landed right on the camera over the door, staring right at me. I stared it down like it was Paxton, standing right in front of me, waiting for him to open the door. He didn’t. Paxton never came and my eyes closed. Thoughts about my mom on a Brazilian beach eased my mind from all my worries. I pretended to hear my mother’s soft words as she described the beach to Izzy and I. I dozed off into a deep sleep. A peaceful, relaxing slumber.

“Gabriella? Gabriella, wake up.”

My eyes couldn’t keep up with my mind, willing them to open. I heard Paxton calling my name, I just couldn’t respond from my comatose state.

“Gabriella,” he said again, this time shaking my shoulder.

“What?” I questioned through small slits in my eyes as the lamp turned on beside my bed. Bright light kept me from seeing him in color. All I could see was one black blob, but I knew it was him. His scent hit me as my eyes slammed shut from the unwelcoming light.

“Wake up. We have to talk.”

I looked at the neon blue numbers across the room through a small opening in one eye. “Now? It’s two o’clock in the morning.”

“I know, but I have to say something.”

“Okay, what?”

“I don’t know,” he said as he sat on my bed, forcing me to move my leg out of his way. His head went into his hands and his fingers tightened around the hair on his head.