“The fact that you have a naked woman in your room at all should be a red flag! Don’t you see how serious all this is?”
“I can’t f**king help what other people do.”
“You had your hands on her!”
“I was shoving her out of the room!”
I shook my head. We could argue this in circles all night.
“Ari, just listen to me.”
“I was stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I got played so perfectly.”
Grant ran his hands back through his hair and shook his head. “I’m not playing you. Ari, you’re the one that I want. Can’t you see that?”
“No!” I said, losing it completely. “All I see is a very confused person who has a lot of emotional baggage but no idea how to treat people he cares about. You went with Drift earlier without a thought for your friends. You humiliated me in front of a group of people. You just let me walk away, and you never came looking for me again. Then, I find you kissing someone else! That does not sound like someone who wants to be with me! That sounds like someone who is congratulating himself on taking my virginity and moving on!”
Grant openly glared at me. “Who the f**k do you think you are, talking to me like that? You think I would treat you like that?”
“I think you would say anything to get a girl into bed,” I said in my frustration. I wanted him to feel what was coursing through me in that moment. “You freaked the f**k out when you just thought that I’d been talking to my ex-boyfriend. You told Donovan that you’d f**king destroy him if he came near me. But where were you? Off with some other girl? There’s an insane double standard to everything happening right now, and you don’t even see it!”
“What do you want me to do? I’m trying. I’ve turned my world upside down for you!”
“What have you turned upside down?” I nearly screamed at him. “You’re still playing your guitar, boozing, smoking, hanging around groupies. The only thing that’s different is that you’re supposedly not sleeping around with everything that walks by.”
“You have no idea what’s changed in me…”
“That’s the point! I don’t know because you won’t tell me. You confided in me about your parents. You gave me these dog tags. But for what? So, you could take my virginity and then f**k someone else? Well, congratulations! That’s the only thing you’re getting out of this whole trip. You have absolutely nothing to offer me. You’re not educated, motivated, or ambitious,” I said, ticking off all the characteristics I’d thrown to the wind when I became enamored with Grant. “How could I ever want someone like that?”
Grant lost all semblance of control after that. I was feeding into his belief that he wasn’t good enough for me. I knew his inadequacies, and I was pushing his buttons in my anger.
“What? You think you’re perfect? You talk about your family like you’re picture-fucking-perfect, but they’re controlling. You live in a motherfucking bubble. You’ve never experienced anything because you’re too f**king scared of your shadow. You might be educated, motivated, and ambitious, Princess, but you have no common sense when it comes to the real world. Not to mention, you never f**king shut up, and you think you’re smarter than everyone else in the room.”
“I am smarter than everyone else in the room!” I screamed back in his face. I couldn’t control my temper at this point.
I’d given everything to Grant, and now, we were just digging our heels in. We were being mean on purpose. Every single thing he’d said felt like a knife wound to my chest.
“I can’t do this, Grant.”
He ground his teeth and took a deep breath. “Ari…I’m sorry.”
“No…” I said, backing up toward the closed door.
“We shouldn’t have said those things.”
“But you meant them. I meant them. That’s all that matters.”
“Ari, please,” he pleaded.
Too little, too late.
“I just need some space, some time to think,” I whispered, the tears hitting my eyes again.
“Don’t do this.”
I shook my head. “Just give me some time,” I said before grabbing the door handle and rushing out of Grant’s suite.
Chapter 39: Grant
Holy f**king shit!
What the f**k had just happened? What had I just said to her? The entire argument was a blur. It had been ugly, really f**king ugly. The tears in her eyes still stung, and all I wanted to do was run out of this godforsaken room and make things right. But I knew that wouldn’t help. Something deep down inside me told me that no matter what I said or did to try to fix this, it wouldn’t work.
I’d broken her—just like I’d feared that I would. And in doing that…she’d broken me.
I’d never felt this kind of hurt before. Pain, yes, pain I was used to. Pain and guilt and agonizing repressed memories and torture. But this…goddamn, this was like someone had taken a razor blade to my chest and started slicing through everything important.
How could I have been stupid enough to let Kristin into my place? I hadn’t been sober enough, or maybe I hadn’t cared enough to put the pieces together. I’d seen her on more than one occasion, and I’d just never given two shits who she was because she wasn’t Ari. Now, that was kicking me in the ass. She was the f**king chick who had told me that Ari was seeing her ex. She had been in The Drift’s backstage room. She had probably f**king slipped on the ice on purpose, just to get me to walk with her.
I was starting to feel like I had gotten played. I’d set my guitar down and shown her where the bathroom was. She’d gone in there, and I’d sat on the couch to wait her out. When she’d called my name, I hadn’t even thought she would put the moves on me. There simply wasn’t anyone but Ari anymore. Then, the chick had stepped out of the bathroom naked. And yeah, I’d looked. What the hell was I supposed to do? I’d just shaken my head and told her she needed to leave. Then, she’d literally forced herself on me. I wasn’t usually caught off guard, but I hadn’t been prepared for that.
It was my fault for letting her in, and I was paying for it. I wanted to throw something or put my fist through the wall, but that wouldn’t bring Ari back. Feeling defeated and even more f**king angry, I stormed out of the suite and down to the lodge.
“Hey, man. What took you so long?” Miller asked when he saw me approaching.