a joke, a stupid, foolish joke to get you back for all the times you’ve gotten me.”
“You don’t understand,” he grits. “I needed today to go well.”
“And I needed the first day I met you to go well, too! And look how that turned out! Everything isn’t about you, Roman. Why don’t you get your head out of your fucking ass and realize not everyone is here to serve you. The world doesn’t revolve around you, and news flash, people have feelings. We can’t all be uncaring fucking robots who don’t feel a damn thing. Like you!”
My heart is heavy by the time I’m finished, and I’m on the verge of bursting into a fit of sobs and, quite possibly, cardiac arrest. I’m so angry with him and myself that I can’t stand to be near him for another second. I whirl away, storming across the lawn toward my house.
His next words stop me in my tracks. Does he really believe I’m starved for attention? They’re a poisonous dart to the heart. It spreads slowly, tainting every vital part of me. His harsh words rip into me, and I flinch, internally, at every single one.
He doesn’t deserve my tears, and though that won’t stop them from coming, I refuse to let him see me cry.
I’ve shown him too much of my hand already.
I haul ass into the house, and a sudden indescribable pain in my chest makes it hard to breathe. Hard to do anything else other than collapse on the floor in my kitchen and try to suck in lungfuls of air. I clutch my hand to my chest and focus on my breathing. I try to focus on anything but the pain currently swirling through my chest. My eyes slam shut, and I force myself to think about the things that make me happy. The things in my life I can’t live without, the stuff that makes sense. Soon enough, the pain in my chest subsides. I unclasp my hand from my sternum, forcing myself to breathe normally. I stay there, sitting on the hard floor, for God knows how long, wondering how all this got so fucked up.
We should’ve never let the pranks get this far. I still don’t understand why he was so angry. It wasn’t permanent. It was a joke. And I didn’t know he was expecting company. I had no clue that this company he was keeping was someone important. When I close my eyes and play back just how angry he was, just the thought of him and that woman being together makes me feel ill. Physically ill. She’s obviously important to him. Important enough that he snapped on me the way he did.
And she just stood there, watching it all happen. I wonder if she’d just gotten off work? How does she feel about Roman living next to a woman whom he constantly pranks and allows her to prank him back? Does she know about the other woman he was fucking, not even a full week prior? I doubt she does.
It only makes my enmity where Rome is concerned grow to new heights.
Unlike my previous bouts of anger where he was concerned, this time, he deserves my wrath.
I am officially done with the pranks. Done with trying to be likeable. I am done with Roman Banks. I am washing my hands clean of him—the enigma I was sure I’d never figure out.
I hate my neighbor.
I just wish I didn’t have to keep reminding myself of that.
The second I slide the key out of the lock and step through the doors, the electric charge in the air gives me pause. When I don’t hear Max right away, I know something is off, and when I turn the corner and see her, I realize what it is.
It’s life, flipping me the finger, once again. I don’t know why I ever thought I’d be able to catch a single break. Of course, today wouldn’t work out in my favor. Good things like that don’t happen for people like me. That is just the sad truth.
I take in the walls of my living room, my hands curling into fists, as I try to restrain my outrage. I hear the social worker’s sharp intake of breath behind me, and I can guess what she’s thinking. How can she approve me and this house? How can she move in my little brother with me, if I have intruders defiling my property, and worse, doing it as a prank?