Excerpt From Nothing: You’re Incorrigible

“I don’t chase people.  I’m not a dog or a child.  You want me or you don’t.  I’ve got enough value in myself to know that I don’t need you if you don’t want me.”

She knew she was standing on thin ice.  The question she was asking herself was if he knew as well.

She did want him and she always had wanted him, but for once she was going to stand her ground.  None of his bullshit games were going to get into her head.  They were entering new territory now though and the games have seemed to level up.  Instead of him waiting for her to come find him he was acting as if she was the one doing the avoiding.

“It seems you’ve made up your mind then.”

He never said more than he had to.  There was a power in succinctness that she could never grasp.  Her words ran off of her lips like a teleprompter for any passerby to hear.  She said too much all the time and it was something she desperately tried to work on.  It almost brought her physical pain on occasion.

She gritted her teeth, having to be consciously aware to tell herself not to respond unless something he said needed to be responded to.

“Is that what you think?”  She tried to be vague like him.  Stoic.  Unemotional.  She wanted to best him at his own game.

“It doesn’t seem to matter what I think.”

She groaned and every bit of hard work she had been holding it let go like floodgates and the words came rushing out from the pressure.

“Oh my god!  It does matter!  Of course it matters.  I wouldn’t be here talking with you if it didn’t.  I wouldn’t answer your texts as soon as I see them if it didn’t.  Stop playing things like you’re some kind of victim.  You wanted this.  You want to be pursued and fawned over.  I did that and it got me nowhere but sitting at home on a Saturday night checking my phone every five minutes in case I missed a call from you.  Now I’m not doing that again.  I’m done.  You come to me.  Do you want me?  Do you?!”

He stared at her with a look as if he were thinking.  She couldn’t believe that he had to think about it.

“It’s something you should just know!”  Her arm flung in his direction and she turned her back to try and keep herself from crying.

He cleared his throat and his voice broke slightly as he began to talk.  He spoke softly and his words sounded as if he were looking down at his feet.  There was a vulnerability to him she had never experienced before.  She turned halfway to hear him clearly.

“I don’t know though.  I’ve never known what it is I want,” there were pauses that broke up every few sentences.  The thoughts were there and he was finally speaking them but they were coming out slowly as if he was proof reading every one first.

“All I knew was that I wanted to be the one in control.  If you were coming to me then I would have it.  I didn’t know how to work any other way.  Whenever I didn’t have it I felt as if I were upside down and out of sorts.  I’d get a feeling of being off balance and I’d pull back to reset myself.”

“Well, you didn’t have to.  You could have leaned on me,” she turned around and faced him.  His head picked up and their eyes met.

“Old habits aren’t easily forgotten.”

“I know.  New ones are even harder to remember,” she tried to stay firm and not soften.  He was giving in and she didn’t know if this was him finally dropping his guard or if it was another game he was playing.  Show her a little and then revert back to his old ways.  Leave her thinking there was more to come if she gave back.

She wasn’t going to be done in so easily.  There was a way she wanted to be treated and a way she was going to act.  This man that had driven her crazy for months was going to know who she is now.  He was either going to like it or leave, either way it was on her terms.