pointing to my gash.
I don’t know where to start.
“I swear to god Mari, if you’re still going to defend him, I will have no choice but to kick the crap out of him. I don’t give a shit who he is. He’s a fucked up guy, and you really picked a bad one this time.” Anger flashes across his eyes. I wish I hadn’t come here. I wish I’d gone to someone else, but the number of people I can rely on these days I can count on three fingers.
I start to tell him what happened, about how I started reading Ward’s manuscript even though he’d warned me plenty of times not to. I tell him that I only did so because I saw my name scribbled on a sheet of paper.
“Your name?” Jamie asks, with disdain. I tell him how I read one page, and hadn’t intended to read any more, but I got sucked into the story, and then I had the bright idea to take a picture for him.
“For me?” Jamie puts away the damp flannel and jug on the coffee table.
“You and I haven’t been getting on and I thought you might like it. You asked me to once. Do you remember? I never thought he’d catch me. I was hoping to take the pics for you, because you asked me before—”
“Don’t go blaming me for this,” he says, getting up, his face turning red.
“I’m not.” I rush to reassure him. “I’m trying to explain why I did it. I thought I could make it up to you.” I stare up at him sheepishly. “Anyway, I didn’t do it. I didn’t. I stopped because I knew it was wrong but he walked in just then and I guess he got mad and then he must have thought I was taking photos.”
“You took a stupid crazy risk, even for someone like you.”
I stare at the floor.
“He hit you because you read his manuscript?”
“He didn’t hit me. I banged my head.”
He laughs, a cruel, disbelieving laugh.
“He didn’t hit me,” I insist. “We … I …” I don’t want to think about that moment because it scares me. He held me in place and I tried to get away but he shoved me, and I can’t bear to think about that. What it means is too horrific for me to deal with. I slo decide it’s better not to tell Jamie this. “I slipped and my head hit the mantelpiece.”
“You just slipped? Next you’ll be telling me that his floor is an ice-rink.”
“I swear, I slipped.”
“I don’t know what to believe. You’re hiding something, defending him because you can’t face up to what he is. Just like you took a risk getting involved with him.” Jamie glares at me, and it’s the first time he’s addressed it, that Ward and I were together.
I can’t look at him. I can’t meet his eyes. He’s judging me worse than ever. He won’t understand how I found a part of Ward that I could tame, a part that was hurting and that I could kiss better. He won’t understand that I found him attractive and sexy and I needed him. “He went mad when he saw me.”
“That doesn’t surprise me,” he says, scrubbing his hand over his face as if he’s trying to make sense out of it. “How stupid can you be?”
The way he says it makes me want to leave. Aside from Jamie, I have no one. My mom is in no position to help me.
My mom. I need to find a way to contact her and the nursing home and to give them a new contact number, probably Jamie’s numbers. I tell Jamie about Ward throwing my phone against the wall and breaking it, and then how he burned his manuscript.
“He set fire to it?” he asks, shocked.
“He scooped up all the papers and threw them into the fire. He’s been working on that for months.”
Jamie mutters something under his breath, something that sounds like a swear word. “The guy is a nutcase.”
I bite my lip. Examining Ward’s behavior, I see that Jamie isn’t far wrong. “I quit,” I tell him.
“You what?”
“He told me to get out. He was so angry, Jamie. You should have seen him.”
He is quiet, then looks away. I feel uncomfortable. I’ve imposed myself on him, and I’ve messed things up. He is dressed up and he definitely looks like he had other plans. “I shouldn’t have come here,” I say, getting up. I should