Believe (True Believers #3)(55)
Author: Erin McCarthy

If hippie could be defined as drug user, then yes. “No, not necessarily. She just wanted my name to be unusual.”

“She succeeded.”

“Don’t mind her,” Robin’s mother said as she led Robin into the house. “Nona thinks because she’s old that gives her the right to say whatever she is thinking.”

“It does,” Nona told me. “I’ll be a hundred years old this year, you know.”

“Wow,” I said, surprised. She had thin skin and even thinner hair, but she didn’t look that old. “That’s amazing.”

“She is not,” Robin’s father said, sounding annoyed. “She’s trying to impress you.”

“How do you know?” she asked. “A woman’s age is a secret.”

“You told me you were twenty-seven when I was born.”

“Maybe I lied.”

He rolled his eyes.

I liked Nona. She was jacked up, and I understood that better than nice and normal.

But once inside, she went into the kitchen with Robin’s mother to watch, and I’m guessing to criticize, the making of tea for Robin while her father retreated upstairs, probably to change out of the dress shirt. Robin lay on the couch, an afghan spread over her by her mother. I hovered in front of her like a jackass, wanting to pace but forcing myself to stand still.

“Your family is nice.”

“Yeah, they are.” Her hair was snarled and limp, and the skin under her eyes was bruised. As she folded her hands under her cheek, they trembled a little.

It killed me to see her looking like that.

“What is a chillo?”

“A lover.”

“Oh.” What a retro word. But it said so much more than boyfriend. It seemed weighted down with passion and intensity, and I realized I kind of liked that. What we had shared, it was beyond just crushing on each other, and it was part of the reason I was standing there agonized.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I was annoyed to see it was Davis, wanting to meet up with me.

Seeing Robin here, in this normal house, made me wonder if she was right—if we weren’t good for each other. How could she ever tell her parents I was a convicted felon? How could I ever fit in to her life? And how could I ever be the support she needed when the thought of her drinking just pissed me off?

She was definitely right about one thing—we both needed space. I couldn’t stand here waiting for a scrap of attention, a sign of any sort of emotional attachment.

It was f**king pathetic, and I wasn’t doing it.

“I guess I’ll head back,” I said. “Unless you need anything.”

“I’m okay.” She finally looked at me. Really, truly looked at me. “I’ll call you in a few days.”

In a few days? She was dismissing me? Telling me to go away?

Fuck that.

“You can’t just snap your fingers and make me disappear,” I said. “We need to talk about stuff, not ignore it.”

“You said you would never throw it in my face, but you did.” Tears welled in her eyes.

“I said I’d never throw what you did with Nathan in your face, but I have a right to be upset about the drinking.” I was using a low voice, conscious of her family nearby. “And you threw my anger in my face, too, so I’d say we’re even.”

“It’s not a contest. Just give me a few days, please, just some space.”

“You can’t hide every time something bad happens. You can’t shut down.” Didn’t she see that’s what she did? She retreated and withdrew.

A tear trailed down her cheek. “And you can’t hurt me every time you’re scared. You promised to hold up the sky for me, Phoenix.”

That cut me as deeply as a bowie knife. Most of my life I’d been a failure in one way or another. I sucked at school. I sucked at friendship. I sucked at being a good son.

But I had wanted more than anything to be a good boyfriend to Robin. To have the outside action match the love I felt on the inside.

To hear that I had f**ked that up, too, well, I couldn’t handle it.

“That’s not f**king fair,” I told her. “I’ve always had your back. This wasn’t something little. I found you unconscious! I’m not trying to hurt you, I’m trying to get you to see how messed up last night was.”

“I am very much aware of how messed up I am. Thanks for reminding me.”

“Now you’re purposefully misunderstanding me.”

“Just leave. Please.”

Damn. That was rough. It must have showed on my face because she winced. “I’m sorry, that didn’t sound right. I didn’t mean to be hurtful.”

But I shook my head. It was too ingrained in me to be strong, to hide my feelings. I had spent a lifetime pretending my mother didn’t hurt me. I wasn’t about to admit that Robin had and could. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I said. “You can’t hurt me.”

Without saying another word, because I knew I would lose it, say something really ugly, I turned and left.

It wasn’t until I got out onto the main road heading for the highway that I allowed myself to shout in the empty car in pure frustration.

“Damn it!” I pounded the steering wheel and wondered why the hell I had to meet Robin if I wasn’t going to get to be with her.

Because the right thing to do would be to walk out of her life for good and let her become the person she was supposed to be, a graphic designer with an accountant husband and a house in the suburbs. Not saddled with a loser who had a record and no money.

But when I got back to her place to drop her car off and walk home, I went inside for some sick, masochistic reason. I headed straight toward the oil paintings she had been working on. Flipping through them one at a time, I saw the dark emotions she had clearly been pushing out through her art.

I lay on the bed—our bed—and stared at the ceiling, remembering the way she had looked at me on my birthday and the first time we’d had sex, her eyes all soft and warm.

Then I stole a picture of us smiling for the camera that she had printed and tucked into the mirror on the door and I left.

***

Four days. Four whole days went by and I didn’t hear a single word from her.

I didn’t text or call her either, but I was just doing what she asked me to do. Giving her space.

Space sucked.

It sucked hard.

I was going crazy, the days endless, the nights worse. I slept on my cousins’ couch, or pretended to sleep. Mostly I lay there, thoughts turning in a whirlpool in my mind, wondering what I was supposed to do. Wondering whose idea of a joke this bullshit was. Hadn’t I been handed enough crap in life? Now I had to love someone only to have her fade out of my life?