Tattooed

Not Meant To Be

XXXV

"Who was that on the phone?" Zach asked, trying to think of the man's soft and deep voice, trying to calculate how old he might have been, trying to remember if he'd ever heard the voice before.

"Nobody you know."

He felt red hot anger right then.

"You know what?" he paused when she turned away. "No," he moved to her and turned her around. "Why don't you pretend for once, just this once, to care enough to tell me the truth about your past?"

Meenakshi's nostrils flared as she spoke. "I can't believe you. You're talking to me about caring enough to tell the truth! What the hell happened to that after you slept with your ex-fuck-buddy and didn't bother letting me in on that little secret?"

Zach didn't say anything. She just said fuck-buddy. That was the first time he heard the woman swear, even if it was a semi-swear word.

"I told you, Meena, I didn't want to sleep with her okay? She manipulated me into sleeping with her, and who knows if I even did? She's not going to tell me the truth about that night, so we're never going to know. Ever.

"I feel guilty that it happened. I can't begin to tell you how much I wished it didn't, but it did. It wasn't supposed to happen, it was a mistake. It's not going to happen again."

She stood still in his hands, the room quiet.

"You're changing the subject. We were talking about you. Who was that on the phone?" he asked again. She moved to the other side of the kitchen this time around. "I don't want your guilt," she spat out first. "I don't want your remorse. I don't want you to be guilty or angry over it. I want you to see this from my viewpoint. What would you do, if the roles were reversed? Think about it, Zach, why did that night happen in the first place? Why were you there, with that girl?"

He felt the muscles in his jaw clench tight. "To keep her away from you."

She inhaled, deep and loud. "You should've told me the truth. I knew you, I knew what I was getting into, even if you did lie about it, even if you tried to hide it."

"So why can't you be with me, now? What's changed that you can't even stand next to me?"

Zach had wanted the answer to that one for a long time now. Though it had been eating him up inside, all he'd really wanted the answer to that one question.

Why?

"Because," she sobbed, making Zach look at her. She was crying? "Because, this is something that's happened to me before, and I'm not a fool to go falling for the same thing a second time."

Zach stood on the opposite edge of the counter, knowing full well that if he dared to cross the invisible boundary Meenakshi had set up, there'd be no more talking. The wall would be breached, the insecurities would wall up again, and this time there'd be no getting through.

How could he ask her about this without killing his last and final chance?

"You think it's so easy, do you?" she asked, wiping her eyes with her hands, looking so sad and lonely on the other side that it made him want to cry. "You think it's so easy to get up one fine day and say 'Screw it, I'm done with drugs.' You think that's all it takes to be an ex-drug addict?

"I've seen hundreds of boys and girls your age give up and dry out under the effects of a drug, and not even something as lethal as crystal meth," she said the word like it was poison. It was. But the way she said it struck oddly somehow. "It'd be a common painkiller; maybe some smashed up meds... maybe even a large dose cough syrup, but they were all hooked and they needed to go back for more every single time.