My hand throbs, and I look down at it again. Blood has soaked through my jeans where I pressed my fist, and all I can think is that I have a shift on Friday and I can’t pour drinks with a bandaged hand.
Vero has finally gone quiet. I look up, and he is staring at me, waiting. I know this feeling. It’s one I have known my whole life: the moment where you arestanding in the middle of a mess someone else caused, but everyone is waiting to see what you do with it.
Every time before this one, I have made the wrong choice. Stayed too long. Absorbed too much. Or told myself it was not that bad—he didn’t mean it. Made excuses for a man.
Vero is not him; I know that. I can tell the difference between a man who hurts you because he wants to and a man who loves you but can’t always find the right way to show it. I know the difference in my bones, but it doesn’t change what just happened.
Rogue says my name as her hand settles between my shoulder blades.
“Fuck, Kayla,” Vero starts. “He was watching you. I saw the reflection... I know how that sounds, but I saw it.”
I believe him, and that is the worst part. I believe him completely.
“Get out,” I say, trying to keep my composure and not break in front of him.
His face reflects something I will think about for a long time after tonight. Raw panic. The way his hands come up to where his hair used to be, yet find nothing, followed by the instinctive sound of hurt he makes.
“Please,” he begs. “I . . .”
Running my gaze over them all, the expressions I find on Clay, Ares, and Brawley’s faces are ones I have seen many times in the past. It’s only Vero who doesn’t look like himself.
I said I would never want him to leave, and I meant it when I spoke those words. I mean what I say now, too, and both things can be true. This is the only thing I am capable of giving him tonight.
“All of you.” My voice doesn’t break. I won’t let it. “Get the fuck out.”
Vero’s mouth opens and closes.
Brawley reaches for him and he pulls away, but Clay gets a grip on him while Vero thrashes around and says things I swear I will not carry with me, leaving them in this room when I walk out.
Rogue keeps her hand on my back, and I keep my eyes on the door.
Then they stop, but I don’t know why at first, until I follow their gaze down to my hand. Blood leaks from my fist and drops to the floor at my feet.
Vero pulls free and walks toward me, falling to his knees in front of me on the broken glass.
But I don’t tell him to get up because I don’t have anything left. “I’m sorry,” I whisper instead. And I am so sorry for all of it, for what he is carrying and for what I can’t give him tonight. “But get the fuck out of my life.”
He doesn’t move.
I look down at him, and he is staring at my hand and then up at my face. As I watch him understand what he has done, I want to reach for him, but I don’t.
Brawley finally comes and puts his hand on the back of Vero’s neck, and Vero lets him pull him to his feet.
I look away because I can’t watch. I refuse to cry, so I hold my tears back.
Rogue says nothing, instead gently taking my hand and turning it over to look at the cut. She makes a concerned sound. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s sort your hand out.”
I follow her, and I don’t look back at the door or let myself think about his face. I think about anything except the fact that the last thing I said to someone I can see myself loving wasget the fuck out of my life.
Rogue sits me down on a crate in the back room and opens the first aid kit.
“You want to talk about it?” she asks.
“No,” I say.
She nods. “Okay.”
She cleans the cut as I look at the ceiling, breathing deep so I don’t cry. If I start, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop, and there are still three hours left of my shift.