Zoey

When you have an out-of-body experience, how do you come back?

I don't know how long it's been since Adam stopped narrating, but I feel like I've been floating around my body since. Unable to enter it and take control.

The car has stopped moving, parked outside my house now. It's late at night and chilly outside. This could have been a very romantic setting.

Instead, I have to think about how he has hated me since he was fifteen. Twenty three years of hate. How many years of hate did it take for my father to kill my mother? The answer is much less.

I observe his face as we sit in silence. For once, he doesn't turn to meet my eyes. He looks out the windshield but his eyes aren't focused. He is definitely reliving the past in his mind.

"Your father lost my mother as much as I did," I say, after finding my voice. "It makes so much sense now." Every conversation I had with Abraham about my mother tasted bittersweet to me. I thought it was because he hated what my father did. But it was also because he hated my mother's actions just as much. She left him.

"He did." He finally looks at me. "And I lost him, even though he was right in front of me." So much bitterness and hostility mars his features, I feel the urge to shrink away from him.

"Michael mentioned something about revenge," I whisper. "Also that if I-"

"'If you only knew the lengths he went to to lure you back to this godforsaken town, you'd run away without looking back.'" He stares at me with an indecipherable expression, after repeating what Michael told me. Verbatim.

"You weren't there." I sound like a child but I don't give a fuck.

"I watched through the cameras."

"You have cameras.... inside your home?"

"Yes." Something screams at me to get the hell out of the car and away from him. I survived two serial killers in the last twenty four hours, and I feel like I've found myself in the path of another psychopath.

With the way his stare is blazing into my soul, it's hard to see the man I love. But I still need answers.

"You really did lure me back to this town, didn't you?" I laugh without humor. "You gave me that phony job so I'd be in your house and then you spied on me."

I really just connect the dots I have in the worst possible way, but his silence tells me it's all fucking true.

"What else have you done?"

He remains silent. I still can't read his expression but he looks like he's contemplating something.

"What. Else?"

"I kept tabs on you."

"I already know that. We wouldn't have run into each other that many times otherwise. Hell, you were at the bus stop the day I got here!" I look away and shake my head.

"I meant when you were in New York." I face him again. The exposed skin of my arms and face suddenly too cold despite the heater being on. "I hired someone to keep an eye on you.

"I got monthly reports on what you were up to. What plans you had for your future." He leans towards me slightly. "At first, I didn't exactly know what I was going to do with all that information. Just that I hated you. Keep your enemies closer, you see.

"But quickly the purpose of it all stopped mattering to me. You became my little obsession."

He leans back, like he wants to give me space to fully absorb what he just said. You became my little obsession. My years in New York were filled with mistakes. To know a fucking stranger had a front row seat to it all, makes a lump form in the back of my throat.

"My future plans held only one thing," I mutter. And that too I couldn't accomplish.

"Yes. You wanted to be an author."

I still do. But I don't focus on that. His suspiciously calm tone can only mean one thing. But I can't find the words to ask it. I don't have the heart to face this kind of betrayal. I need to know, though. If he was the one responsible for repeatedly making me feel like a failure-

"I made sure all your efforts went in vain," he interrupts my thoughts. I feel my heart splinter into a million pieces, each of which hurt a different part of my insides. His face mirrors the pain I feel, for some reason, before he looks away. "I orchestrated the rejections."

I used to think the publishing industry was fair, but I guess in the face of money and power, especially the kind he has, its impartiality failed.

Five years. That's how long I've been chasing my dream. And my pursuit only brought me shame and insecurities. Hate, too.

My vision gets blurry as I feel my eyes burn. Fuck, no. He does not get my tears. I bite my lip as memories of opening mails rejecting my work, nights drowned in alcohol and meaningless sex, and hating myself coming as easy as second nature, wash over me wave after wave. Still, he won't see me cry. I won't fucking let him.

I stay still till I taste blood in my mouth. I run my tongue over my lips, savoring it like a savage.

A part of me doesn't want to put up this facade. It wants to break down and ask him why the fuck would he destroy someone's life like that. I lost my entire family when I was fucking five years old. What strange justice was this?

But that part can die for all I care.

"What a lousy revenge plan," I finally say, all traces of heartbreak gone for now. "You're not telling me something."

He turns to face me, pain evident on his face. But there's something else too. An emotion I never thought I'd see in his eyes. Regret.

"That's all I did," he says in a low voice.

"Well then what have you not done, yet?" It's my turn to lean closer to him. "Surely this isn't my endgame."

When he remains silent, my anger rises. "You made me feel like shit, Adam," I yell. "Why the fuck did you want me back in Roses? What else was left for you to do. Tell me."

He flinches at my voice and extends a hand towards me that I promptly slap away. "All of it was before. It doesn't matter now. I love you-"

"TELL ME!"

"I was going to break you." I see so much shame and regret in his eyes, it momentarily distracts me from his words.

"Your mother took up all the space in my father's heart. I hated them both for how my mother suffered for it. But once she was gone, I would've been fine with her taking my mother's place," he goes on, facing me but not looking at me. "I had long accepted my father could only be happy if that happened. But you prevented that.

"She went back to her husband for your sake. And for what? To be murdered in cold blood."

Anger so hot pumps in my veins and rings in my ears, the sound of my palm meeting his cheek makes it register in my brain that I slapped him. His head stays tilted to the side, eyes closed. But when he opens them, I see no anger. Not even annoyance.

"My father could have kept her happy," he continues as if I didn't just strike him. "Kept you both happy and protected. He lost his heart when she walked away. And then his mind when..." He trails off.

"Why are you telling me all this? Justifying your actions?" I retort.

He shakes his head. "There is no justification. I know it's unfair."

"Then why?"

"I hated the world. But hating you was the only thing that kept me in it," he admits and I feel a chill run down my spine.

This man is many things, but suicidal isn't one of them. To know he wanted to end his life and his hate for me was the only thing that kept him going, makes me almost want to forgive him. Almost.

But in the face of his actions, his reasons don't measure up. He could have found another purpose in life. Fuck, he could have bonded with me over suffering because of the actions of our parents. But no. He chose to go ahead and paint me as the bad guy.

So I choose to not forgive that.

"I don't know when the hate turned to love. But I assure you, I really do love you, Zoey," he says so softly, it sounds like a lullaby.

"What about breaking me?" I ask calmly.

"I don't think I ever planned to go through with it. You took all my attention, then concern and finally my love. How could I afford to break something so dear to me?" He closes his eyes briefly as if the mere idea hurts him so much.

"It's a good thing then you couldn't have, even if you tried." I watch him closely, burning everything about this moment into my memory. Every anxious breath he takes. Every tick of his jaw. Every nervous swallow. This moment is what I'll hold onto for days to come. The only thing to comfort me with the knowledge I wasn't the one who broke. "Because I don't love you. Never have. Never will."

His reaction comes in parts. His eyes hear first, quickly glossing over, mirroring a dark sea of hurt. His lips are next, losing their tilt and I think I notice a slight tremble too. And then finally his hands join the party, both curling into fists so tight the knucklebones could break the skin.

He doesn't move, doesn't say a single thing as I slowly open my door. In a blank voice, I deliver my parting blow and get out, "Goodbye, Adam."