No.
No, he was not getting in there.
“You left me, Deacon, time and time again, left me empty, broken-hearted, lonely, and you did it for seven years,” I reminded him. “And you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Listen to it.”
“I’m not letting you do it again.”
“Listen to it.”
I shook my head. “You let me get used to you and clean gutters and someone to get me a beer and go grocery shopping with and sleep beside at night, and it’s easy, Deacon, so fucking easy to get used to that. But it’s hard, unbelievably fucking hard, to get used to losing it. Now I’m used to it so you need to go.”
I got in there. I knew because he winced.
I didn’t let that penetrate either.
“I’m sorry your wife is dead but clearly it’s fucked you up in a huge way and clearly I’m not the woman to sort that out.”
He dipped his face to mine. “Listen to it, Cassie,” he whispered.
But I was struck dumb by the look that had entered his eyes.
Eyes that were making me feel exactly what he wanted me to feel.
I struggled to fight it.
He kept talking before I could win.
“Listen to it, baby,” he kept whispering. “Then meet me upstairs.”
He said no more and didn’t let me say a word. He edged around me and took the stairs.
I turned stiltedly and watched him do it, willing my body to go to my cell and call the police. Then I begged my body to do it.
But instead, my head bent, my hand lifted, and my fingers opened.
The flash drive was silver.
The one I gave him was pink.
“Call the police, Cassidy,” my lips whispered.
My eyes went to the stairs.
Then my stupid feet took me to the office.
I shoved in the drive and just to be ornery (because that was me), I opened my desk drawer and nabbed my headphones, plugging them into the computer so when I listened, he couldn’t hear me doing it.
When I pulled up the drive, what I suspected was there. I didn’t understand the file name, but I knew that would be the extension.
BeautifulWar.mp3
I could listen then call the police.
Or I could listen, walk upstairs, and tell him he needed to go. He no longer meant anything to me. We were done. I was taking no more of his crap.
If he didn’t leave, then I’d call the police.