The Millionaire's Bet [BOOK ONE][#Wattys2015][#SYTYCW15][#CarinaPress]

part seven

ANDREW

When I finally managed to pull myself from Ben's apartment at half four this morning, I had no intention of being friendly towards Alyssa, I had every intention of coming to her apartment to tell her that I didn't need her help and I just wanted her to keep the hell out of my life. I didn't need another Lopez fucking with me for their own amusement.

I was pissed when I heard Ben telling her about the fact I would rather be dead than be alive, I wanted to move from the bed and punch him in the face, simply so that he would shut the hell up. I didn't need everyone knowing my business, and I certainly didn't want a Lopez to know that the last four years of my life had consisted of suicide attempts and being admitted to seven different psychiatric units; all of which I escaped from without too many problems and had then refused to come out of hiding until people were actually going to listen to me.

Ben tells me that he only wants what is best for me, but then he never listens to me when I need him to listen to me, he only judges me and tells me that I need help which he can't give me. Not even Robert, who was the closest thing to a friend I actually had, bothered to stop my brother on any of the occasions where he had me admitted; it would seem Robert agreed with him that I needed help and some mental home was the best place for me to get that help. All I really needed though was for the two of them to listen to me and for them to be there for me without judgement.

But, the moment Alyssa woke up and realised I was in her room, I realised that I was never going to go through with the plan I had in mind. I couldn't bring myself to tell her that she needed to keep her nose out of my business. Not when Ben had already told her just how fucked up I truly was and, in his own fucked up way, I knew that he was actually trying to help me this time; it's just a shame Alyssa Lopez had to be the person he asked for help.

She had actually agreed to give me a chance, which was going to prove stupid because I wasn't going to treat her any differently to how I had done yesterday, I didn't have time to make new friends and I certainly didn't want to be friends with the sister of the woman who had broken my heart and was the reason for the demons I am now fighting on a daily basis.

Though, in the hour and a half that I spent watching her sleep, it hit me just how peaceful a person can look when they're not in the land of the living. I even briefly wondered if I looked anything like she did when I slept, wondered if all my troubles simply melted away in the night and my anger dissolved into nothing but a bad memory, or if I just looked like someone you would want to talk to rather than kill.

"Well? What do you want to know?" Alyssa faced the mirror as she spoke, but she didn't understand how much those words actually meant to me. Rebecca would never had said something like that, she would have argued the matter and refused to talk, but then her sister had never really been one for talking about anything other than herself, but that was the moment where I realised I had judged her far too quickly. I didn't even give her the chance to prove herself, I just assumed that she was going to be the same as her sister, and I was an ass for doing that, but that's all I really knew how to do and I didn't see that changing in a hurry.

"Why do you tell people you're married? It's obvious, just from looking around this place, that you live alone," I knew that was a personal question and that she may not even want to tell me the reason for it, but when she knew what she did about me, it only seemed like a fair question to ask. It may have been a massive secret which she didn't want to share with anyone, but so was the information Ben shared with her about me last night, and that didn't stop him from tell her my life story.

"Bad experience with a guy. Next," I could hear the reluctance in her tone and I could tell that it wasn't something she really wanted to speak about, but that didn't mean I wasn't going to push her for an answer, it wouldn't be acceptable for me to just back down and accept that she didn't want to tell me.