“You heard what I said, Tori. You’re a liar.”
I flinched, as if that word had actually touched me, slapping me in the face. “Avery, what the he—”
“Science and algorithms.”
My shoulders slumped, and tightness gripped my chest and throat as it clicked for me what he was talking about. He knew. I held up my hands. “Avery, please, if you—”
“You were never gonna say anything, were you?”
“Can you let me—”
“Were you?” he repeated, slightly raising his voice.
I managed to look away from him as tears pooled behind my eyes. “No.”
With my lip pulled between my teeth, I glanced at him out of the corner of my eyes, not daring to look directly at him. He looked angry enough — disgusted enough — in my peripheral.
He sucked in a deep breath before he began to speak, with his voice low and controlled. Too controlled. “All of this time, Tori. Over, and over, and over, you claimed that us not being a match was the reason we couldn’t explore something further. You clung to that shit as if it was your motto. Hell, all I had to say was ‘science and algorithms’ and you knew exactly what I was talking about. But now, I know, it’s a lie.”
“I never actually said that, Avery. You said it, and I … let it stand.” I was grasping at straws and I knew it.
Avery obviously knew it too, because he laughed, but there was nothing joyful about it. “Semantics, Tori? That’s what you want to do right now? Okay. How’s this? You intentionally participated in a distortion of the truth, to manipulate me into doing what you wanted me to do.”
“No. It wasn’t about manipulating you!”
“Then what was it about? Huh? We’ve established you’re a liar, and we actually are a compatible match, so can I please know the truth? Can you stop bullshitting me?”
My eyes darted around the room, looking for an escape, but he closed the distance between us, then cupped my chin with just enough force that I didn’t want to look away, even though I certainly could. “I just… need a minute, Avery.”
“No you don’t. Just say what’s on your mind, you don’t need a minute for that.”
“But, I—”
He shook his head. “But nothing. Just tell me the truth, right now. You don’t have to rehearse it, it doesn’t have to be eloquent… I want the damned truth. Can you give me that?”
No. I couldn’t. My brain wouldn’t work, and my mouth wouldn’t work, because he was mad at me, and I’d done exactly what I didn’t want to do, which was hurt him, and I… I couldn’t think. Therefore, I couldn’t respond, and no, I couldn’t just tell him the truth.
Avery’s eyes were cold when he dropped my chin, looking away from me with what was, to me, barely constrained contempt. He didn’t say another word as he stalked back out with the same quiet anger he’d worn when he came in.
No.
I was after him, as fast as my feet would take me, through the door, across the porch, down the steps, and then… on the ground, after sliding in my bare feet in the pouring rain.
Gotta get up, gotta—
I hadn’t made the first step toward picking myself when I felt Avery’s arms under my shoulders, pulling me upright, and then at my back and behind my knees to pick me up, cradling me against his chest to carry inside. He sat me down on the island in my kitchen, then retrieved the towel I had thrown at him earlier, running it over my face and hair before draping it around me.
“Where’s your band-aids and stuff?”