Falling for the Fire

Chapter 23

"You don't do relationships?" I repeated back to her, "yeah I had kind of gathered that."

I pulled my shirt on over my head as she gave me a questioning look.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She asked.

"It just means that I know you have a bit of a reputation," I said.

She quirked an eyebrow at me as she crossed her arms over her chest.

"For sleeping around a lot," I continued to explain, "so I just - I kind of figured that you weren't much for relationships."

She gave me a surprised look, and I felt my cheeks flush red in embarrassment.

"Did you just - fuck me...and then essentially tell me that you've heard that I'm a slut?" She asked.

She looked somewhat amused, but there was also a clear flicker of irritation in her eyes.

"What??" I asked as a horrified look came over my face, "no, that's not - I didn't mean it that way."

"That's sure as hell how it sounded," she said.

The amusement was gone, it was definitely just irritation now.

"No, I'm - I'm sorry Brooklyn," I stammered, "that came out completely wrong. I swear that's now how I meant for it to sound."

"What did you mean then?" She asked, a quiet intensity to her voice.

"Just the relationship thing," I told her as I did my best to recover, "I - I wasn't expecting you to want a relationship or anything, because of what I've heard."

"Why have you even - what the hell have you heard?"

Her confusion and the slight hurt in her voice was making me feel even worse.

"Look I shouldn't have even said anything," I responded, "when I told my friend about the first night we met, she just told me that she knew of you and that what happened with us was um - well that it was kind of a common occurrence for you."

She let out a humorless laugh as she shook her head.

"I should've known this was a bad idea," she said.

"No come on, don't say that just because I made some stupid comment," I pleaded.

She looked at me as she took a moment to consider, but she shook her head back and forth again.

"I think you should probably just leave," she said.

"Brooklyn -"

She quickly held her hand up to stop me and I felt a pit forming in my stomach. This couldn't be going much worse.

"Time to go," she said bluntly.

"God damn it," I mumbled to myself.

I pulled the door open and glanced back at her.

"I'm sorry," I said again, "I shouldn't have said anything, but I hope you know that I wasn't meaning anything bad by it."

She stared back blankly, not giving me any type of response. I sighed and walked out towards the front of her house, grabbing my purse as I left.

I got into my car and sat there for a moment, feeling like an absolute idiot.

"Fuck," I said loudly as I slammed my hand against my steering wheel.

I'd had so many hesitations about this, it finally happens, and then I do this. Why the hell did I have to open my mouth at all?

I drove home with my fingers tightly clenched around the wheel, still fuming at myself. I still didn't know what was truly going on between Brooklyn and I, and I had very clearly just made it even more complicated.

Once I got to my house, I took my phone out and immediately texted Avery.

"Just royally fucked up with Brooklyn...totally blaming you."

Almost immediately after I hit send, my phone was ringing.

"Hi Ave," I answered.

"What the hell did I do? What happened?" She asked frantically.

"So you remember how you told me that Brooklyn had quite the uh...reputation?" I asked.

"Yes..." she hesitantly responded.

"God I feel like such a fucking idiot I don't know if I can even tell you," I sighed.

"Oh come on Ari," she said, "it can't be that bad."

"You'd be surprised," I mumbled.

"Try me," she said.

"Fine," I conceded, "so we - I was at her house, and we slept together, and then she said something about how she doesn't do relationships, and I..."

I trailed off, still not wanting to repeat what happened.

"Ari...don't tell me that you brought up the shit I told you about her picking up women in bars all the time," Avery said.

I grimaced to myself, but I didn't say anything. I knew that my silence would be enough to confirm her suspicions.

"Shit," she sighed, "yeah that's - that's not great, especially after you just -"

"I know Avery!" I loudly cut in, "I don't - I have no idea what I was thinking, obviously I wasn't."

"So I'm assuming she was pretty pissed?" She asked me.

"Uh yeah, I mean she asked me if I just fucked her and then essentially called her a slut," I said, "and then asked me to leave...so yeah, I'd say so."

"It's not like I was the one saying that about her," I continued, "and I apologized and told her I didn't mean anything by it, but - yeah, I don't think it did much to help."

"Damn Ari," she said, "I'm honestly not sure what to tell you, I'm sorry...you're probably just going to have to give her some space."

"That's going to be kind of hard to do when I have to work directly with her every day," I responded.

"I know," she said, "but I mean maybe just don't bring it up at all for a while unless she does."

"Yeah," I sighed, "I guess that's probably not a bad idea. I just can't believe I messed up this badly already."

"Don't beat yourself up too much about it," Avery said to me, "remember how terrible she was to you not that long ago...you might have hurt her feelings but I'd hope that she would get over it eventually."

"I don't know Ave," I responded, "I feel like I just completely ruined any chance that I had with her, and now she's probably going to go back to being a bitch to me."

"Well it doesn't sound like there was really a chance for anything between you two anyway, was there? I mean because of what she said about relationships," she clarified.

"I - maybe not, but maybe we still could have...I don't know," I said.

"Don't tell me that you would've considered just sleeping with her and nothing else," Avery questioned, "that doesn't sound like you at all."

"No, I just - never mind," I said as I felt my frustration grow again, "it doesn't matter now."

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