Falling For Casual

Chapter 20

A party to distract myself from all the things that were beginning to eat away at my soul. Though how was my apartment full of people supposed to really get my mind off of Texas and his insecurities when I'd invited him also was a mystery to me. Ironic even.

   Peering up from the chopping I was doing in my kitchen, I eyed Texas sitting across from me, legs spread wide as if he needed more than my three-person couch to fit him. It was moments like this where I wished my kitchen was separate and my apartment was much bigger than it was. The kitchen I was in, facing the living room in front of me, did little to nothing to keep my mind at bay. I was plagued with thoughts of him and I, wondering why he was so silent while he sat there. His turned face only enhanced my overthinking. Our eyes barely caught the other's since he'd walked into my place forty minutes ago.

   "What's wrong?" I tried. I cleared the neediness from my throat and spoke again. "Something bothering you?"

   He hesitated for a moment, his gaze still set on the window until he slowly turned his face to look at me.

   "Hm?" he questioned, as if he couldn't be bothered to pay attention. As if he wasn't in my house and I didn't have the nerve to kick him out for filling the air with unnecessary tension.

   "Nothing." If he wasn't going to address what was going on here than neither was I. We've had many days like this where he would become silent for no reason and I had to all but skin him open to figure out what was wrong. Last week as I laid on his bed, he randomly shut down and, no matter how many times I pried and poked trying to figure out what in the hell could be wrong now, he gave me nothing until moments later when I had all but given up, he pulled me into his lap and questioned why I wasn't giving him attention. It took everything out of me not to slap some sense into him because clearly he had none.

   Not too long before that he'd ignored me, pretending to watch a show while I tried to have a conversation with him. And when I matched the toxic energy he was smothering me with, he looked into my eyes, a sympathetic look on his face that had my mind twisted in confusion, and asked me what was wrong, as if I'd started this.

   Every time I was put in this position of wonder and disorientation, he would turn the tables before I could completely be done with him and have me coddle him. And every moment that became like that, I wondered if he was more similar to my mother than I thought or if he was worse. A narcissist he was, a manipulator for sure, but worse than the woman who made me question every little thing about myself? The same one who made me believe love existed but only for those who earned it, as if it was some sort of transaction that I'd never have enough for? Was that him?

   Slamming the knife in my hand down, I'd decided right then and there, enough is enough. This party would be what I wanted it to be, and I wasn't going to let him or anyone else ruin it.

   I snatched my phone from the counter and pulled up my texts with Delaney, who claimed she was on her way, though I knew that wasn't true. Yes, we were friends now. Sort of. But that didn't mean she wanted to be within a five-yard radius of Texas and me.

   'He's here sulking on the couch.' I sent five minutes ago when I'd tried to get him to tell me what was wrong before. When I was met with the same silent treatment I was receiving now, I knew I needed to text someone to get me out of my head and stop myself from driving that knife straight through his neck.

   'What's even the point of him coming over? Just to make you feel bad?' she sent back, and I hated how right she was. What was the point?

   "What are we doing?" His voice cut through the strained air. I didn't bother to pick my head up from my phone as I typed back to Delaney, ignoring him the way he did so many times to me.