Total pages in book: 235
Estimated words: 224334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1122(@200wpm)___ 897(@250wpm)___ 748(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 224334 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1122(@200wpm)___ 897(@250wpm)___ 748(@300wpm)
“So I had better ensure that I’m with you when you have a drink then, hadn’t I?”
Oh God, yes, she had. But it’s too late already. “I won’t be having a drink. When will you listen to me, woman?” I’m losing control now, too, the plan to try and make these words count failing terribly. “I don’t need a drink.” I fear I might tighten my grip too hard, so I release her, removing myself from her space and taking a walk across my office to try and gather some calming thoughts. It’s no good. Nothing will work. I jab my finger in her face. “I need you.” It’s quickly brushed aside.
“You need me to replace drink and screwing.”
Where the hell did she get that from? I need her to breathe, it’s simple.
“You manipulate me,” she yells.
“I don’t manipulate you,” I protest, but I know I really do. Constant contact, making unreasonable demands, and blowing her mind with our chemistry is a way for me to control her. Control my fear.
“Yes, you do,” she screeches. “With sex! Sense fucking, reminder fucking. It’s all manipulation. I need you, and you use it against me.” Her jaw twists, anger crashing in to join her shock and devastation.
“No.” I lash out, sending the poison that has brought me to this hideous place in my life crashing to my office floor. The loud smashing of bottles and glasses recedes, and I find myself holding her arms firmly again. “I need you to need me, Ava,” I pant, exhausted. If she’d only depend on me, not for everything, but just listen to me when I make my so-called unreasonable requests. “It doesn’t get any simpler than that. How many times have I got to tell you? As long as you need me, I look after myself. Simple.” Not so fucking simple at all.
She bursts, my stupid words, and I know they’re stupid, tipping her. “How is having yourself whipped looking after yourself?”
Fuck, I’m messing it up more with every word I say. “I don’t fucking know.” My hair takes a severe punishing when I yank at it violently. I have no answer to that. Desperation? Hopelessness? Desolation? Fear? There are four reasons, and I’m not finished yet.
“I do need you,” she says, calming a little. “But not like this.” Her defeatism worries me. I’m losing her. Talking, speaking, giving her words, is only making things worse.
I take her hands gently. “Look at me.”
She breathes in, gathering energy to obey my desperate order, and looks at me. There’s no denying, she’s the strong one right now. The more stable one of us.
“Tell me, how do I make you feel?” I ask. “I know how you make me feel.” And it shouldn’t be like this. “Yes, I’ve had a lot of women, but it was all just sex. Mindless sex. No feelings.” She has to believe that. “Ava, I need you,” I whisper, my voice breaking.
“How can you need me if I make you do this to yourself?” she asks. “You’re more self-destructive now than you were before me. I’ve made you need alcohol, not want it. I’ve made you into an unreasonable, crazy man, and I’m certainly not stable anymore. Don’t you see what we’re doing to each other?”
What? No, no, we’re amazing for each other. “Ava—”
“And for the record, I hate the fact that you’ve put it about.”
I take a deep breath. I hate that too. With a vengeance. How do I pull this around? Can I pull this around? I’m silently pondering that, digging deep, when Ava gasps, her eyes filling with dread. With realization. The sound, the sight, pumps fear straight into my veins and freezes them.
“When you disappeared for four days.” Her words catch in her throat, trepidation splashed all over her beautiful face.
Oh fuck, no. No, no, no, I am not prepared for this. But my time is up. This whole fucking mess is about to get messier. “They meant nothing,” I say clearly. “I love you. I need you.”
Her mouth widens. Like she’s asked but didn’t believe, but now I’ve confirmed it. “Oh God.” She folds to the floor, sobs spilling out of her. “You were fucking other women.”
I fall to my knees, taking a firm but gentle hold, shaking her a little, for what purpose I don’t know. “Ava, listen to me. They meant nothing. I was falling in love with you. I knew I would hurt you.” I hold on to her for dear life. “I didn’t want to hurt you,” I grate.
“You said you couldn’t do it to me. You forgot to add again. You should have said you couldn’t do it to me again.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you,” I murmur pathetically.
“So to remedy that, you fucked other women?” Her reasonable question leaves me without an answer. I ask myself the same thing every day, ten times a day, since that day I walked away from her outside her office and drowned myself in vodka. “How many?”