“Cole, I know you’re with other women. You don’t bother to hide it. But I can’t deal with that anymore. I can’t play the scorned woman in some elaborate f**k fantasy you have. This is destructive. It’s messed up. And it’s over.”
My heart thudded painfully. I calmly continued to rub her cheek.
“You don’t mean that, Viv. I know you,” I said, bowing my head down so I could kiss her lips. But she pulled back before I could.
“No, Cole, you don’t. You don’t know me at all. You’ve never bothered to know me,” she said fiercely.
I dropped my hand and took a step back.
“I ask you about your job. You tell me about stuff,” I supplied feebly.
Vivian crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me. “Then what’s my middle name?”
“Um. . .uh,” I stuttered. Crap!
“Okay, how many siblings do I have?”
“Wait! I know this,” I started but she kept going.
“How did I get this scar?” she asked, pulling her shirt down to reveal a thin, long sliver of puckered skin along her breast bone that I had licked a thousand times before. I had never thought to ask about it. It had never entered my mind.
I stayed quiet. What could I say? I had never cared to know those details about her life. That wasn’t what we were to each other. I wasn’t the guy to know about her family vacations or to go home with her at Thanksgiving. I had never pretended to be boyfriend material. So why was I being punished for it now?
I started to get mad. Really, really mad.
“I cut it on barbed wire when I was climbing a fence into a cow field when I was eleven. I had to have twelve stitches and a tetanus shot,” Vivian continued.
“That’s great, but. . .” I began but she just kept going.
“What’s my favorite food, Cole? How about the movie that makes me cry every time I watch it? No? Well, it’s Old Yeller. That damn dog gets to me. But you didn’t know that, did you? Let me try something else. Maybe something a little easier. What panties am I wearing right now?”
All right, this I could answer.
“Purple satin. The ones with the bows on the side,” I said without pausing. I grinned, proud of myself for getting something right.
Vivian sighed and started to close the door.
I pushed it open again.
“Wait, I got that one right!”
Vivian shook her head. “Yeah, you did. And you just proved my point.”
“Which is?” I prompted.
“That you don’t give a shit about who I am. You don’t care about the things I like or the stuff I’ve done. You don’t even really care about why I got upset earlier. You just care about the fact that I spread my legs whenever you want me to. You care about the color of my underwear and whether my skirt is short enough for you to get your hand up where you want it.” She placed her hand on her chest, palm flat.
“Who I am in here, doesn’t matter. I thought it didn’t bother me. But it does. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep pretending that I can have sex with you and be okay with you using me. Because I tried to convince myself that I was using you too. But that’s not true.”
My mouth was hanging open unattractively but I was knocked stupid.
“I have never used you. Because every time we’ve been together, it has meant something to me. And I can’t continue allowing this to happen when you have no intention of this becoming something deeper. You’ll never do that. And I can’t keep pretending that’s okay.”
“Vivian,”I started to say. I didn’t know what would come out of my mouth next. I had no idea whether it would be to tell her she was wrong or right. I didn’t know if I would let her walk away or fight for her to stay.
But she took the choice from me.
“Goodbye, Cole,” she said and firmly shut the door.
Not goodnight but goodbye.
Oh hell no!
I pounded on the closed door. “Vivian! Open the f**king door! We’re not done!” I yelled. There was nothing but silence. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed her number.
I heard it ringing in Gracie’s room but she never answered it. I started alternating between banging on her door and obsessively calling her.
“Fucking hell, Vivian! Just open the goddamn door!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, kicking the wall with my foot.
“Sir, you are being a disturbance. I need to ask you to leave this floor.” A pimply faced, middle-aged twat that I recognized from the front desk put his hand on my arm. I hadn’t noticed him come off the elevator.
“Get your f**king hands off me!” I roared, knocking his hand away as I started pounding on Vivian’s door again.
“Vivian!” I yelled.
Pimply-faced dude pulled out a walkie-talkie and started talking into it. I didn’t pay much attention; I was too focused on taking Vivian’s door down.
Then two guys Pimply dude said were hotel security were dragging me into the elevator.
I gave up fighting after that.
Garrett came down to the lobby to talk to the night manager on duty and took me back to his room, because according to him I couldn’t be trusted on my own.
“Just let it go, man. You’ll get us all kicked out,” Garrett warned, obviously pissed at being woken up in the middle of the night.
I tried calling Vivian again and when she didn’t answer, I threw my phone against the wall where it smashed into pieces.
“What the hell, Cole?” Garrett asked, looking as worked up as he ever had.
I shook my head and lay down on the couch in his room. I flung an arm over my eyes.
“It’s nothing. It’s done with,” I muttered, not wanting to talk about it anymore.
Fuck Vivian and her bullshit.
I didn’t need the head-trip.
And she said I was the mind f**k? Whatever!
There were plenty of girls to take her place. I’d make sure to find a couple after the show tomorrow night. Hell, I might not even wait that long.
I’d get over it and move on. Not that there was anything to move on from.
Vivian Baily didn’t mean shit to me.
I repeated that over and over again even as her face danced across closed eyelids.
And I swore I didn’t care even as I thought about the look in her eyes when she said we were done.
And I ignored the pang in my chest when I realized she was right.
12
I had done it. I had severed the proverbial cord. I had cut ties. I had put a fork in it, we were done. I was every crappy break up metaphor out there.