“I’m someone that loves you!”
He laughs. He actually laughs, head thrown back, and it’s the saddest most bitter sound I’ve ever heard. “Love? You don’t fucking love me.”
Tears are springing to my eyes. I shake my head slowly, that quicksand pulling me under. “Please, please, just listen to yourself. I love you.”
“If you did love me, I’d feel nothing but pity for you.”
“Don’t do this, please let’s not go down this road.”
“I would pity you for loving a sad sack of shit like me. Get some fucking respect, huh?”
“You’re not making sense.”
“I’m making perfect sense. You’re just some stupid girl who came all the way over here because she thought she was falling in love. I bet it hurts to fall out of.”
I can’t breathe. I just can’t. I feel like someone has filled me with water, quickly freezing over, and every organ inside is halted in this one horrible moment.
“You need help,” I manage to say and the words float in the air between us. “You need help, Lachlan. This isn’t you.”
Another vile chuckle. “This is me. Wake the fuck up. I warned you. I warned you what I was like. It’s not my fault you’re a fucking idiot.”
My stomach twists in so much pain that I have to close my eyes. My fists ball at my sides. I try to take a steady breath in, to calm the hurt, but I can’t.
“I knew I shouldn’t have come here,” I whisper to myself.
“No one to blame but yourself, darling.”
My eyes flash open, bile rising up my throat. “How dare you speak to me like that?”
I’m begging, pleading, praying that something in his eyes will change, that he’ll realize what he’s saying, that he’ll realize who he’s yelling at. What I am to him. It happens in the movies. When the drunken hero sees the error of his ways and he sobers up and he snaps out of it, feeling nothing but remorse for the woman he’s wronged. I’d take that if I could get it, if he could just see what he’s doing to me.
But this isn’t a movie. In real life, in this real life, he doesn’t soften. His eyes are still mean, dark, full of so much hate that you can feel it in every inch of your soul.
I should have asked Brigs to stay. I should have been prepared. I should have known it could be this bad, he could be this bad.
But I didn’t. I’m a fucking idiot after all.
“Well?” Lachlan says. “Finally speechless? Nothing else important to add?” He squints at me as he finishes the rest of his beer. “No protest about this beer, huh?”
I try one last attempt. One last hope in hell.
“Lachlan,” I say, my voice trembling. “I love you. No matter what you say or what you believe, I do. And I swear you believed me, you felt it, up until hours ago. Please, don’t forget that. I don’t regret coming here, no matter what’s going on with you. But you have to work with me, please. You have to understand that you’re drunk.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
“You’re drunk,” I repeat loudly, trying not to scream until he gets it, until he sees. “You have a problem and it’s nothing to be ashamed of but it is going to kill us, kill you, if you don’t stop. Please. If you can’t help yourself, please let me help you.”
He watches me for a few beats then cocks a brow. “Is that all?”
“No,” I say, the frustration choking me. “No. It’s not all. It’s everything.” I pause, closing my eyes because I’m afraid to see the truth. “Don’t you love me?”
Time is stretched thin. Too many moments pass and my heart is thudding so loudly that I’m afraid I couldn’t hear his answer anyway.
Finally he says, quiet and gruff, “How could I ever love anyone who could love me?”
Fuck.
That does it.
My eyes snap open, the anger hitting me all at once. “You know what?” I snap at him. “I’m getting really sick and tired of your woe is me bullshit!”
But he just shrugs at that, looking away. “You know where the door is.”