Change of Heart - By S.E. Edwards Page 0,61

before. This time, they’re steady and resolute.

Rich still doesn’t move. “If we do this…”

“No ‘ifs,’” I purr, going on my toes to kiss him. My lips brush against his, gentle as silk rippling in the wind. His mouth parts slightly, as if he’s unsure of himself.

Then he grunts and shoves me away. “No.”

I stumble back and nearly fall. The moment between us shatters.

“What the fuck, Rich?” I demand, growing angry. “You can’t just—”

“You can’t,” he stresses. “You can’t do this. I will not let you get involved with me.”

“You fucking condescending bastard!” I yell at him. “Why do you always get to decide what’s best for me?” I feel humiliated, rejected as surely and cruelly as I had been just now. Livid words pour out of me. “Why do you get to decide what’s right for me? Huh, Rich? What makes you think you know best?”

“What do you know, Penny?” he rages back. “You’re no more than a child! If you had two proper thoughts in that brain of yours, you wouldn’t be anywhere near me right now!”

“A child?” My voice drips with scorn and anger. “Is that how you think of me? Take a look in the mirror, Richard! You may be smart enough to have gotten into Princeton, but you have all the emotional maturity of a five-year-old!”

He glares at me. “Put your sweater on,” he says coldly. He turns and stalks out the garage. “Once you’ve calmed yourself, you can come find me and talk.”

***

It takes me more than a few minutes to compose myself. Never before have I experienced such a slew of emotions so rapidly. I’m lost, uncertain, and angry. My temper threatens to boil over. I wait for it to simmer down.

When I emerge from the garage, the anger I feel is only a muted roar at the back of my mind. Only.

I find Rich in the living room. I wonder what he’s feeling. His hard eyes give away nothing as he watches me move across the room. It’s like nothing has happened.

Nobody can go through what we have and recover so quickly. It has to be an act. Well, I can act unaffected, too. But damn him for stirring all these feelings in me. Damn him for kindling all the emotions raging and then acting so aloof, so distant. Damn him for kissing me, and damn my body for reacting to him so resoundingly.

I reach under the coffee table and pull out the laptop I’d noticed there before.

“What are you doing?” Rich demands.

“Checking my email,” I say, giving him a bright and brittle smile. “You don’t think Amanda will mind, do you?”

“I—”

“You said so yourself,” I continue, booting up the computer with an angry jab. “You want to leave me here while you continue on. Fine. I need to check my mail and get in touch with certain people if I’m to go home.”

“That,” Rich says hesitatingly, “would be for the best.” He sounds distracted. My eyes dart to him then back to the screen. He’s staring off into the distance. “I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll be in the kitchen.”

I snort loudly as he stands up. That was it? That was how easily he’d accepted what I just said? The rush of air as he walks by threatens to stir the smoldering flames in me in to a full-out conflagration.

I fixate on the glowing Windows logo as the laptop starts up, and try to find my calm.

“I am sorry, you know,” Rich says from the doorway.

I ignore him.

“I know the way I’ve handled things with you has been shitty. But, a clean cut now? It’ll be for the best.”

I don’t dignify him with a response. I can feel his eyes digging into my shoulder blades. The tension builds for a long time. It only dissipates when he finally turns and leaves.

I exhale a breath I didn’t even know I had been holding. With Rich out of the room, I feel somehow more unsteady. Less certain of myself. My fingers tremble as I place them on the keyboard and use the mouse pad to open a web browser. I type “www.gmail.com” into the address bar and sit back, waiting for the slow connection to load.

The browser hits the page and logs in automatically. I’m so distracted I don’t even notice I’m in Amanda’s inbox until I mouse over the “Compose Mail” button.

Irritated, I move the cursor horizontally across the screen to log out, when the most recent message catches my eye. The