Bad Romeo (Starcrossed #1)(101)
Author: Leisa Rayven

“Call me when you get home, okay?”

I study the back of the seat.

“Cassie, I’m serious. Look at me.”

My head is so heavy. It’s all too hard.

He cups my chin to help me lift it.

Somber eyes look into mine. “Promise you’ll call me when you get home, otherwise I’m coming with you.”

He stares until I nod.

A knot tightens in my throat as he kisses my forehead.

Why does he insist on making everything seem easy, when it’s clearly impossible?

He disappears, and the door slams. When we drive off and I know he’s not watching anymore, I crumble.

When I stumble into my apartment, Tristan’s there. He’s seen me like this before and knows what to do. He helps me into the bathroom and orders me to shower. Makes the water cold. Then he helps me into bed, brushes my hair away from my face, and whispers that everything’s going to be all right.

I must doze off at some point, because when I open my eyes again, he’s gone, but sitting on the nightstand are two Tylenol and some water. I take them and gulp the water down.

I feel dry inside.

Emotionally desolate.

I grab my laptop and open Holt’s e-mails, needing some part him. Feeling too full and inconsolably empty all at once.

I pour over every word. They’re filled with vague ramblings of regret, but there’s one thing he never said. One thing I needed to hear so much back then to reassure me that what I’d felt for him wasn’t completely one-sided.

I’m nearly asleep when my phone rings, and without looking at the screen, I know it’s him.

“Hey.” My throat is dry.

“You said you’d call.” His voice is hard. Worried.

“I’m sorry.”

“Dammit, Cassie, for all I knew that cab driver could have raped you, murdered you, dumped you in Central Park. What the fuck is going on?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry.” And I am, for so many things.

He sighs. “You just— You can’t do that to me. You have no idea how much I— I mean, I want to…”

He’s quiet for a second. “I’m sorry for snapping.” He sounds as tired as I feel. “I’m just worried about you. I’ve tried to give you space for the past few weeks. Distance so you can get a better perspective, or whatever. But you let that guy paw you tonight and I … Dammit, you had to know how I’d react.”

“I know.”

“I haven’t felt like that in a long time. I wanted to annihilate him.”

“But you didn’t.”

“I wanted to break his fucking fingers. Was that reaction you were after? To drive me insane? To hurt me?”

“I guess.”

“Yeah, well, mission accomplished.”

The admission doesn’t give me comfort. In fact, it makes me feel like crap.

I’m so tired of feeling this way, but I don’t know how else to be.

A long time ago, I thought that two people who cared for each other could work out any issue as long as they talked about it, but now I see it’s not that easy. Talking actually requires a person to have the courage to express what they’re feeling, and I’m all out of courage.

“Would you have gone home with him if I hadn’t been there tonight?” he asks.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” I struggle to find the words. “If I’d taken him home I’d…” I sigh, prickly and defensive. “I would have just pretended he was you, anyway, so what’s the freaking point?”

There’s a long pause. My heart is pounding erratically as I wait for him to respond.

“Have you done that before?”

“Yes.”

“How often?”

“All the time. Every time.”

He inhales. “What does that mean?”

He’s pushing, but despite my discomfort, some part of me wants to be pushed. I’m not going to be able to do this without him.

“Cassie?”

“After you left…” I swallow. “I missed you so much, I wanted them to be you, so I closed my eyes and tried to make them you. All of them. Even Connor. Especially Connor. It didn’t work. None of them even came close.”

My breathing seems obscenely loud in my quiet bedroom, and the tick from my clock fills the long seconds.

“Jesus … Cassie…”

So now he knows. For better or worse, he knows.

“I thought…” He stops, regroups. “When I found out about the men you’d been with after I left, I figured you did it to forget about me. Or punish me.”

“That was part of it. But not the main part.”

“And tonight?”

“I wanted to push you. See if you’d revert back to your old self. And, like you said, hurt you.”

Saying it makes me realize what a low blow it was. How far I’ve fallen. How poisonous I’ve become.

“I get that. I know you think I deserve some pain, considering what I did, but you don’t understand.” He takes a breath. “I know you suffered when I left, but I suffered, too. That European tour was the most miserable time of my life.”

My resentment flares. “Oh, yeah, I’m sure parading around all those exotic places with beautiful girls adoring you was really hard. Deciding which one to take home each night. It must have been like a freaking smorgasbord.”

“Is that honestly what you think happened? That I could do that? Jesus, Cassie, when we were together, I never so much as even looked at another girl. Do you think I could forget about you so easily?”

“After you gave up on us, I thought you were capable of anything.”

He laughs. “Yeah, well, the reality was a little different.”

“How different?”

I wish I could see his face. But all I have is his voice, low and resonant.

“In Europe, even though I was always surrounded by people, the time I spent apart from you was the loneliest I’ve ever been. At first I couldn’t handle it. I was drinking a lot, sometimes during the shows. I’d go to bars. Get into fights. Then, I’d go home and think about you. Google you. Dream about you. I missed you so much, it made me physically ill. Sometimes I considered taking someone home with me, so I could wake up beside another body. No sex. Just … company.”

I feel his pain. So similar to my own.

At least I’d found Tristan.

“So, yeah,” he says. “Other stuff happened that made me reassess everything about myself and what I needed to do to get you back, but that’s a story for another time. The point is, I wasn’t having a party while I was over there. I was completely miserable. And alone.”