‘Sophie calm the fuck down. Natasha NO, I DON’T!…Go home! Just everyone go the fuck away and let me take my girlfriend home.’ Arry is trying to haul my fighting body with him, struggling to hold me, breathing heavily in my ear as he tries to lift me from my feet and restrain me. I kick and lash out to reach her, but she just keeps sneering at me and making me a thousand times more murderous.
‘This is what you want? Some crazy uncontrollable brat, who makes you act the same? …. Really excellent choice huh? Good luck with having a normal life with her. You really downgraded from me, and your life is always going to be like this if you stay with her.’ She has lost the air of vulnerability, and it’s all becoming clear now; the way she can switch it on and off like a tap. She is manipulative as hell and I am only just seeing it. Years of pulling the wool over his eyes, getting in his head.
I lash out again, trying so hard to kick at her face, almost getting my leg that high, and heels missing her skull by a fraction, but Arrick literally wraps his arms around my shoulders, pinning my arms down and lifts me to the side away from her.
He’s really struggling to control me and sending me off the charts with restraining me. It’s one thing I have never been able to handle, as I fight him and wriggle, getting more and more panicked that I can’t get loose from his tight hold on my upper body. I turn my efforts on fighting him instead, all rage directed his way. Freaking out at having my arms pinned down, anxiety and black rage consuming me to get free.
‘I made my choice, now let me live with it. Just go away.’ Arrick yells at her and her face crumbles, tears pouring down her cheeks, but he no longer cares; he’s too busy trying to control me. He swears under his breath as I buck and twist, throw myself into him so that he’s knocked back a step, but still doesn’t let me go. Ignores my cursing and shouting at him.
‘Let me fucking go!’ I scream, using my legs to try and push against his, in a bid to hurt him enough to just let my arms loose, so I can stop.
He just grips tighter, almost disabling my ability to breathe and starts manoeuvring me to the main doors.
‘Sophie fucking stop it.’ He jerks me hard, shuddering my mouth to snap shut and I bite my own lip, flinching as pain shoots through my face. It stuns me into a moment of submission that sees him let me go, and I realise there’s a few feet between us all now, and Miranda starts waving and clapping her hands in sarcasm from far behind. I turn on him, slap him in the chest, shove and hit at him in sheer frustration, as he bats me off, and gets pissed as hell at me for the backlash.
‘Take her home to bed, like a good big brother, help tuck her into her cot. Hellish little fucking psycho.’ Miranda calls out and attracts all my venom away from his defensive manoeuvres instead. I pull off my shoe in a bid to throw it at her face, but Arrick grabs it and my wrist, twisting it out of my hand and yanking me with him, taking it from me.
‘Go fuck yourself.’ I scream at her, and him. I don’t even know anymore. So blinded by my inner thoughts and feelings, tears are once again pouring down my face and I have no idea when they even started. Chest caving in, heart aching so much I think I may die. I’m a sobbing mess of sniffing and tears and a torrent of verbal curse words.
‘For fucks sake. Will you just quit it!’ He hauls me after him, less than gently and ignores my tugging and twisting of his hand to get free. He’s hauling me by one arm, like a kid taking an epic freak out.
‘Let me go.’ I scream at him, tugging at his harsh biting grip on my wrist, seeing my skin turn red at where he is holding me, and digging my fingernails under his to claw loose.
‘Let me fucking go.’ I try to hop while I reach for my other shoe as a weapon, but he just disables that too, taking it from me as soon as I get it in my hand and holds both by the heels away from me, still pulling me along as I dig bare feet into the ground to try and stop him. Both my hands held in one of his now, as he literally drags me with him and doesn’t even falter. I just hate him with so much rage in this moment, I don’t want to be with him, I want him to let me go, leave me alone.
Stop fucking touching me.
As soon as we get outside he looks down at the pavement and then at my feet, turns and scoops me over his shoulder, igniting a second bout of rage and fight in me. I throw myself into a second bout of hurricane tornado violence and try like a psychopath to get away from him.
‘Sophie for the first time in my life, I will actually spank you. Will you stop fucking fighting?’ Arrick snaps at me, gripping me so harshly it makes me yelp in fright, and I fall quiet. The threat of being smacked sounds real, like he means it and I recoil inside my own head. It’s not being said in kinkiness or jest this time, and I wonder if he would. Silenced by the thought of him hitting me, knowing I should never fear that from him, but there’s a part of me who does. Memories of what it feels like to be kicked into a corner, punched and slapped repeatedly, until your fight and fire dies out and there’s nothing left but a sobbing broken little girl.
He puts up with so much and takes so much from me and never snaps, but maybe he could. Especially after tonight.
He finds a cab fast and practically tosses me in, taking a moment outside on the side walk to try and calm himself, so much aggression and fight in that strong body, bristling and simmering behind that set of cool eyes, before he gets in. He slides in beside me and moves closer, but I turn and use feet and hands to shove him away. Beyond pissed and needing space, still sobbing brokenly and hating him with every ounce of fire left in me. He glares at me and grits his teeth, but says nothing. Just moves away again, and slams the door shut before barking his address at the driver. He lifts a hand to his head and rubs his face in agitation, scrubbing it through his hair and looks away.
Feeling messed up, hysterical and just stupidly irrational; I shove at him with my foot again. Wanting a reaction, yet not knowing what kind I even need, playing with fire because he has me so messed up in the head. I can’t stand the crippling agony, fighting with the all-consuming rage inside of me and I know I should let this simmer and release some pressure, but I can’t help it.
‘Do you still love her?’ I cry, ‘Is that why you lied to me?’ It’s all falling out of my head uncensored, gibberish emotional mess, sniffing back tears, wiping the flood from my face and failing to stop it. He clenches his fists in his lap and snaps around to glare at me.
‘Don’t be fucking stupid. I didn’t lie…. You need to stop this shit right now, I’m warning you. I don’t know how to handle this right now. Just leave me be to just cool down and let me alone.’ He barks at me, glaring angrily, and there is not one hint of love in that expression. He looks like a stranger, detached and cold, nothing in that face I even recognise as my Arry.
‘Why did you say you made your choice and now you have to live with it? Didn’t sound like someone who is where he wants to be.’ I sob, taking bits and pieces from my head and trying to make sense of them, aching and messed up with all of this.
‘You’re hearing it out of context. Look…. Right now, I know I am drunk and this… US….. we need to just leave this alone until tomorrow, before it gets a whole lot worse. With you this way, and me like this… Just leave it alone, I’m begging you Soph’s. I’ll sleep in the spare room and we won’t fucking do this to each other again. No more booze, ever.’ He pushes my foot away from him harshly, cradling my shoes on his lap and looks away, his jaw tensing and every muscle twinging in his face as he grits his teeth.
‘Fuck you.’ I bite angrily. Hating his decision to blank me out like I am worthless, needing to just do something, anything, to alleviate the pressure inside of me that has me on the verge of all out explosion.
‘No Sophie. Fuck you! I am sick of trying to convince you that I want you, sick of dealing with this shit. Maybe I should just take you home and leave you there tonight instead; It will be better for both of us if we spent tonight apart.’ He snarls at me, pushing my foot away again as I attempt to childishly shove him once more, no clue why I am ‘poking the
bear’.
‘You know what, you are completely right. I should go home, away from you; while you go run after her and make sure she’s okay. Run after the girl you obviously still love, more than me.’ I bite sarcastically. Tears dripping onto my naked collar bones and making me shiver. I realise my coat is no longer on me or on him, we must have left it wherever it fell and only he is wearing his. I hadn’t even noticed in the drama and I’m left in a strapless dress and nothing else.
‘Hey? Can you take a left here buddy, change of venue?’ Arrick taps the driver, completely ignoring me, gives him my address when he nods, as we turn in the direction of my apartment. Making it clear he meant what he said about being separate tonight.
‘Pretty much admitting that’s what you’re going to do.’ I slap his shoulder, leaning forward to reach him, see him tense, but he doesn’t react, just grits his teeth and turns to me coolly.
‘If that’s what that crazy fucked up head of yours tells you I’m going to do, then we should just end this here…………Pull over at the building with the red door.’ Arry leans forwards as my building comes into view quickly, we were only seconds away, and I let loose.
‘Don’t say that to me… Don’t call me that.’ I barely wait for the car to stop before I yank open the door, blinded by tears, complete heartbreak and jump out without any awareness of my own safety. Dragging ass across the road at speed, even with bare feet on harsh tarmac and almost get hit by a car in the process. The honk of horn doesn’t even phase me, so blinded by rage and sadness that I am not paying attention.
‘Sophie for fucks sake.’ Arrick is hot on my heels and pulls me back as a second car narrowly misses me, grabbing me by the arm and then pulling me against his body. Turning me to him with another pull, and yanking me the last gap to the sidewalk outside my house. He motions two minutes to the driver across the road, making it clear he has no intention of sticking around.
‘I hate you.’ I lash out at him, but he dodges and just shoves my shoes in my chest so that I automatically grip them. He hands me his spare key to my apartment too, because I never brought any with me tonight, and I just sob some more. Insides turning to chaos and I can no longer think straight, all I can see is that he’s leaving me alone …again. After everything, all his promises, all he said to me. How many times he swore he would never do this.
He’s doing it again.
‘Here. Go to sleep. We’re drunk and I’m not doing this now.’ He lets me go, makes to move away with a complete lack of anything in his demeanour. The dead pan, emotionless dick head who hurt me so many times before. My lungs can barely inflate, pain in my chest stabbing through me at unbearable levels and I just want to hurt him even an ounce of how he hurts me.
I throw my shoes back at him, getting him in the jaw with one and following with another ‘Sophie crazy lash out’, hating him in that moment. I just see red and want to wound him like he wounds me, so many scars on this heart at his hands and I just can’t take it anymore. Lashing out and aiming slaps at his face in uncontrolled hysterics. It’s like I’m possessed by some inner venomous psycho and I can’t control myself.
I feel my hand collide with flesh, stinging my skin, biting on my own lip as I put my full fury into an attack; gasping when he grabs me by the wrists and pins me to the brick wall of my stair, panting and angry in my face, gripping me so tight he hurts me in a way he never has and I let out a little whimper of fear, gasping at the bite of his grip. The realisation hits me that I finally pushed him this far and start cowering away, regretting the impulsive fight in me to always hurt, and now faced with the consequences of doing it. I feel my blood drain as my body runs cold and shocks me to instant silence and surrender, eyes wide as I stare at him in complete terror.
It’s like a bulb goes off and his face drops suddenly. His grip on my wrists instantly loosen and his body and face lose that terrifying ferociousness in a second of clarity.
‘What are we doing? Look at us.’ He lets go off my wrists and moves away from me gawping in horror at me, lifting his hands, looking at them as though they are alien to him and then back at the red finger prints on my arms that are clearly visible in the light. He looks instantly disgusted at himself, and I just feel nauseous; that I could push him to hurt me, even if it was only in a grip.
I pushed him, I am always pushing him.
‘This isn’t us…this isn’t me.’ He seems shocked that he could, even if he only restrained me and I break my heart at the expression on his face.
‘Maybe she’s right? Maybe we are toxic for each other?’ He says numbly, mildly shocked, softly to himself, more so than at me and no longer bristling with anger. He moves further back, and I feel that part of me that tries to shield me from pain finally, claw up and rear her bitchy head.
‘So go back to her then. You’re perfect little domestic housewife. You clearly had a much easier life with her.’ I spit through tears and racking breaths, rubbing my wrists to remove the burning feel of where he hurt me and hating that I’m doing this. Saying what I don’t mean, wounding, biting out at him. .
‘You know what? I did… So much fucking easier than this.’ He glares at me, no care as to whether his words hurt me anymore, no hint of my Arry left inside. I have pushed him to the brink and he is looking at me like he could never love me anymore. It rips me apart inside, so that I feel a part of me die.
‘Then what’s stopping you? … I clearly am not…Go! .. Fucking go!’ I sob through panting breaths, as anxiety starts to cripple my lungs, but I don’t want to show him my weakness. Venom in place of angst, scowls in place of sorrow. Self-defensive; protecting myself from the pain he can and will inflict.
‘Why do you always choose her?’ I blurt out almost an afterthought, head a train wreck and no longer able to formulate any logic. He just scowls so hard his eyebrows almost adhere to his lashes.
‘Sophie! I always choose YOU, I’m sick of this bullshit over her. How can you even say that to me? All I do is show you that I love you.’ He growls at me, clenching fists in mid-air, snapping so suddenly that he just makes me jump in fright, nervy and edgy and afraid of his unpredictability.
‘Why won’t you just cut all ties then?’ I sob, pleading, wanting him to just give me that one thing and needing it more than ever. It’s what I need more than air, no matter how many times I try and fight it, try to reason with myself and convince myself that I am being immature. I will never let this go.
‘I’ve been trying. You know I have, I don’t know how else to do it without being a complete asshole. You can’t just fucking attack people like that. You physically attacked her Sophie.’ He scrubs his face with his palms and paces in a circle before coming back to face me, keeping his distance, still looking at me like he wants to throttle me and no longer knows me.
‘She deserved it!’ I yell in his face, refusing to back down when she’s the subject, still hating him for lying to me, for keeping secrets. Head chaotic and gripping my hair in complete frustration. He makes me so crazy, like I can’t think straight, or breathe, or stop this aching consuming pain inside of me.
‘You need help. You’re not right in the head.’ He leans into me, snarling it in my face in a manner that I would never associate with him, venom in every word and I just recoil as though he has slapped me in the face.
‘Fuck you…fuck you….. I fucking hate you. How can you even say that to me?’ I wail, a return to violent racking sobbing and he just doesn’t seem to care.
‘Because you’re fucking crazy.’ He shrugs, so coldly, so hatefully. I just see rage and fly for him, aiming a slap at that smug face that seems to spear me with a glaring scowl. He catches my hand mid hit and throws it aside, deflecting me with fast reflexes and just looks at me like I am nothing to him at all. I completely break.
‘I don’t ever want to see you again. I don’t need you. I never fucking needed you. I won’t care if you go back to her. I want you to go back to her…GO! FUCKING GO!!!’ I turn into a blubbering mass of
hysterical sobbing, pushed over the edge with one cruel sentence from him. Killing every single ounce of my heart in one fell swoop and pushing him away with the force of a tsunami.
‘I’m leaving anyway. Maybe this was something we should have never started.’ He shrugs coldly, devoid of every emotion. A stranger before me who turns his back on me and steps off the sidewalk onto the road without a backwards glance.
Arrick starts to walk away and I feel myself crumble, heart dissolving when faced with the reality that this is really over. Panic coursing through me, even through the fog of crushing pain and tears. He’s leaving me, for real. Not a fight or a cool down. He’s leaving me; for what I have done, what I said. My Arry, my heart and soul, my haven; the love of my life. He’s had enough and he’s walking away from me, after all that he said he would never do. My heart stops, my anger crashes and all that is left is that desolate pain of a little girl who always needed him.
‘I didn’t mean it. Arry? … I didn’t mean it. I’m sorry…I do need you.’ I sob and gasp, unable to control my breathing as panic hits me hard in the chest. I follow him as he starts to move across the road, a whimpering pathetic version of myself, reaching out to him. He just keeps walking steadily, without looking back at me.
‘Sometimes walking away is better for everyone. Go inside… I need breathing space, we both do. I need time to think.’ He sounds cold and detached, yet I still follow him, reaching out, scared that I know he means it, that this isn’t just a fight. Fingers catching his jacket as he moves towards the cab. Suddenly back to childlike and afraid, vulnerable and in pain and reaching for the one person who I need to save me. He always saved me, I need him to do it now.
The Carrero Heart - The Journey: Arrick and Sophie (The Carrero Series Book 5) Page 38