𝐅𝐢𝐥𝐭𝐡𝐲 𝐇𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐭𝐬

thirty-eight

I barely remember it happening, but I dug my teeth into my bottom lip as I reached the porch and the squad car drove off.

I let Casey kiss me after I gave him my number.

I barely remember it happening because of how quick it was.

And because of how it seized to truly feel like anything.

If it weren't for the lack of sleep, I might even dwell on the fact that this would be my future. Years of kisses that evoked nothing inside me.

As I reached for the handle, it opens on its own.

My reflexes slow, and I can barely process the shock when I realize it's Anaca.

Still in those sweats from before with fury in his eyes.

"You went home with him?"

I gruff, walking past. "You scared me. What are you doing over here?"

"I was looking for Tigger," he snaps, slamming the front door.

I pause, turning as I stare at the door. "Why aren't you on the other side of that?"

"You haven't answered me."

"I don't owe you an answer," I gawk.

"That's why you didn't come home with me?" he takes a step toward me. "Because you were going home with that officer that hangs outside the Dark Room all night looking for chicks?"

"He isn't looking for chicks," I resist the urge to roll my eyes. "And even if he was, that's none of your business."

His nostrils flare.

"Where do you get off right now?" I'm too tired to do this. I should shut up and just go to bed, but I can't stop myself. "Who or what I do doesn't concern you. You came and got your girlfriend. She is all you were responsible for."

"I want an answer, Woody."

"Why?"

"I want you to say it."

"Say what?" I could scream. "What is it you think you're entitled to know? You think I chose him over you?"

He doesn't speak, but his eyes said everything.

His own insecurity in bold.

"You're joking?" I snort. "You can't be serious right now."

"Woody—"

"You chose. You didn't want me. You don't love me. Live with it," I demand. "You are not an option which means neither am I—"

"You honest to God think any of this was a choice for me?" he glares at me with an ice-cold chill in his voice. "That I had any conscious choice to make? It was never my choice. I never had a say."

"What are you even—"

He scoffs, shaking his head. "You think if I had a choice, I would have chosen you?" he mutters, cruel but true. "That as a grown man, I would choose the teenager next door? You're delusional if you think that's a choice I would ever willingly make," each of his revelations feels like another stab.

He almost laughs, darkly and villainous. "But that's the caveat to life. You get to make all these decisions for yourself, but never do you get a say in who you fall in love with. My life could be relived hundreds and hundreds of times, becoming millions of different versions but there is no doubt in my mind that I would fall in love with the same person every... single... time."

My heart skips in my chest.

"I never had a say, Woody," his voice strained from his outburst. "And I fought as much as I could for as long as I could. I told you to go because I didn't have it in me to fight it anymore and when I caved and saw you for your birthday..."

His hands ball at his sides.

"After all this time," I feel my eyes begin to water. "You have chosen to be without me. That was your choice, Anay. You chose for us to both be absolutely miserable. You choose to be crippled with this idea that you did something so unforgiveable—"

"It is unforgivable, and you needed to grow up without my influence," he retorts. "You needed to be able to make that decision as an adult. I could not live with myself if I let it go on. I knew one day would come when you would realize the magnitude of what I let happen and I couldn't... I couldn't allow myself to continue to harm you in anyway."

"You're the one that is delusional," I stop him. "I," I hit my chest with a fist. "Me. I never had a choice. You think I enjoyed spending the wrath of my hormonal years, lusting after the one guy I couldn't have? That it wasn't completely torturous to watch you, to be with you and I couldn't even tell you what I truly felt? That I couldn't touch you how I wanted too? That you could barely hug me? You rejected me at every turn until my birthday and after we both took what we both needed, you treated me like a mistake. I told you I loved you and you called me a liar. I know what it would have looked like and that—"

"That wasn't a risk I was willing to take."

"Neither was I," I clarify. "I was going to wait. I wanted to graduate and come home and... I was eighteen that night, Anaca," I plead.

He shakes his head. "I have to live with that for the rest of my life. That I touched you when you were underage—"

"You didn't take anything I wasn't willing to give," I hiss. "I wasn't underage! It was well after midnight."

"It doesn't matter. It's a fucking technicality."

"Get over yourself," I ridicule. "I can't stand it that you are playing the victim card here. Neither of us are victims here. You talk about how this has all been so hard for you when you clearly moved on and moved in another woman."

I tie his hands with that statement.

"And now I try to do the same and you are harassing me about a date? How is that fair, Anaca?"

"So it was a date?"

I could seethe. "You have Auden," I repeat. "You are choosing to be with her and not me. Are you the only one who gets to be happy? Are you the only one who gets what he wants?"

He straightens his shoulders as he closes the remaining distance between us, his eyes cast down on me like a storm cloud.

"I can't stand it," he says so quietly and dark I nearly miss it. "I can't stand the thought of it. And I know it's unfair, but I don't give a shit. I wanted to rip his lips from his face when I saw him kiss you."

"Too bad," I deadpan. "How do you think I feel when I see you kiss her? You don't get to have her and the parts of me that you deem acceptable. So what if you can't stand the thought of me with someone else? You'll learn to just like I have."

"So what?" he husks.

Our eyes bore into one another.

Neither willing to give.

That magnetism between us yanking and yanking.

Our heat, building and building.

I itched for that fury to cross the line.

Only this time I would take more.

It would be impossible to stop.

Stop myself from taking what I've needed for so long.

No amount of guilt could keep me from doing it.

And I know that makes me horrible.

Disgusted even, that he still has this kind of power over me.

"Have you forgotten what I said to you in the hotel room?"

The darkness behind his words almost rocks me.

"It's mine."

I shake my head, feeling his breathes hit my skin.

"You're mine."

My eyes shut at the prospect.

"You'll always be mine."

"Prove it."