𝐕𝐈𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐂 ❶

𝟒𝟕. ✭ 𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐄𝐘 ✭

Before she can make it two steps away I quickly stand and grab ahold of her arm. "All the other things around that, that I've never given you? Are you fucking serious?" I went from feeling murderous then turned on to pissed off in a matter of five minutes. "What we have isn't just skin-deep or superficial bullshit, Dani. Just because I haven't been given the opportunity to show you my feelings other than in a sexual manner doesn't mean I don't have them. I haven't had the proper chance."

"Let me go, Torey." For some reason those words sink in an uncomfortable manner. It's like she's actually telling me to let her go not just in the physical sense.

"Never. You want me to give you up? You want me to stop loving you? If that's what you really want then you're going to have to put a bullet in my fucking skull, Dani." She turns toward me slowly, cautiously. "If there is anything I am it's observant. I see how you feel about me every single time you look at me. I see how much you want me. I see how you respond to me and not just my touch but to me. You can't tell me that you don't think I can give you what you want. Because you know I can but you won't fucking let me."

"How am I supposed to let you?" She shakes her head at me and pulls her arm out of my grasp. "Since you've came back into my life you've tried to own me, been a complete dick to Brooks, and been as arrogant as ever. You're not the one to hold me when I cry, when I'm upset." No, that has been Brooks' responsibility not out of any choice of my own.

"You know now that I had a job to do. Stop making me feel bad for it."

"I'm not trying to make you feel bad, Torey. I am just giving you the facts. Brooks has been there. You haven't."

"Okay, so if you want to put it like then where were you?" Her brows scrunch together. "Who was I supposed to have after you left New York? Who was there for me? No one. That's who. No one was there for me but me." I point to my own chest. "I had me. That's it. I had to live with all of the fucked up shit I had to do in here," I point to my head, "all of the time. Every. Single. Night. You were my fucking lifeline, Dani. I was able to be myself with you. We weren't just fucking. It was never just fucking to me." I reach out and caress the side of her face. "Yes, we'd have rough sex but you would pull the softer side out of me, the one I had to hide from everyone. Where do you think that part of me went when you left? It fucking died. My humanity, me...just died." I blink back the emotion that had started to wash over me as I sit back down on the couch.

"No, Torey, no it didn't. It's still there."

"You just said it yourself." I throw my arm out offhandedly. "All I am is just an arrogant, violent dickhead who fucks good, right?" She shakes her head and takes a step toward me but I hold a hand up. "Don't. I've had enough rejection for a lifetime from you. I don't want any more. You say shit like I can't be there for you, like I can't be that guy. The truth of the matter is, is that you won't let me. You fucking reject me over and over and choose to let someone else do that for you. Just because he's been in the position to be able to provide those things for you doesn't mean that I do not possess the capability." I spear a hand through my hair and then laugh to myself as I say what I'm thinking, "hell, maybe I don't anymore. Maybe I'm as hollow and shallow as you think I am at this point, as everyone thinks I am."

"You're not hollow but tonight, for instance, you're out there doing drugs and putting yourself in dangerous positions, for what? If something happens to you it's no good for anyone. It will hurt your family, me, our son." That last part stung because I'd already been disappointed in myself when I'd thought about him at the club.

I grit my jaw and hold her eyes with my own. "It's how I've learned to cope over the past couple of years." Her features fall. "Getting myself completely wasted, chock-full of drugs, and sex. That is how I learned to keep the bad shit that I've had to do out of my fucking skull, from completely taking me over. So, excuse me, but you can fuck right off with that judgmental tone and trying to make me feel worse than I already do about it. Must be nice to have someone you can rely on, someone who is there for you when shit gets hard. I know I may have an exterior that is ice cold but I do feel things, Dani, and not all of them are fucking pleasant."