Come To Me (Owned Book 3) Read Free

from her eyes and I wanted to soothe her, but I’d learned over the years that sometimes I couldn’t do that. I’d learned that sometimes there was absolutely nothing I could do.
    Fuck .
    How do you soothe someone when the ache comes from their own mind? It was almost impossible to know when I should wrap her up in blankets and when I should leave her the fuck alone. Maybe that was the problem with us, because lately I’d just been leaving her the fuck alone. All. The. Time.
    I took my cue this time and reached down to comfort her.
    Lenny slapped my hand away. “I’m not about to give you an entire list of symptoms like I’m freaking Web MD, but maybe you should look it up, Vic, before saying something as ignorant as ‘take your meds.’ For someone as smart as you are, you sound like a real ass. I mean, if I had a type of cancer, would you look that up?”
    “I thought you weren’t going to get mad,” I pointed out, folding my arms again.
    Lenny stood up and faced me. “Well I’m bipolar, right? So it’s what I do.” I geared myself up for another fight, because it was what we did. It was what Lenny and I always did. We were like ancient warriors, fucking and fighting. Instead she turned away from me and faced the ocean.
    “I think I should stay at Lissie and Zoe’s for a while.” Her voice was barely above a whisper, syllables caught in the wind
     

     
    T he drive to Lissie and Zoe’s was silent and pressure filled. Not the good kind of pressure, either. Not the tension that wrapped around my cock, telling me to take her then or explode with unmet need. It was bad strain. It was cloying and suffocating.
    “How long will you be here?” It was as if I was watching a movie I’d already seen. I knew the ending, I knew the bad parts, but I still wished I could change it.
    “I don’t know Vic…” Lenny opened her door, all previous fire gone. I wished she would slam the door. I wished she would do something . At least then it meant she was fighting. Now…nothing. “I’m tired, Vic. I’m tired of us. I just need a break.”
    Lenny’s fingers lightly caressed the metal of the door as her eyes traveled over to the porch. A lone lamp cast dusky yellow light on the stoop. She turned back, still refusing to meet my eyes. “Can you leave the apartment for a few hours?”
    “What?” I turned off the car, chest tight. “Why?”
    “Lissie said she’d help me get my stuff. It will be too difficult with you there…” The thing about Lenny was that she always ripped it out of me. From the beginning, she’d ripped out my emotions. Maybe that meant we fought more than most, but it also meant she was able to do what most couldn’t: she ripped out my love. But now, with only one arm on the car and the rest of her poised to leave, it meant I was an open wound, bleeding.
    “How fucking long will you be gone?” I demanded. I thought back to the night, trying to think on the differences. Had anything been different? Why was this fight different than the others? Why this fight?
    “I don’t know!” Her eyes shot to mine, dark and pain filled. It hit me then that this was for real. We’d been fighting for months. She’d been threatening to leave for months. But this, right then, was real. She was really leaving.
    I should’ve fought.
    I should’ve yanked her by the wrist and dragged her back inside the car.
    Instead I said, “Yeah, whatever.”
    I watched her ascend the stairs to Lissie and Zoe’s new house: white stucco, orange tiled roof, green lawn. It was pretty average, but then there was nothing wrong with that. I imagined it would be nice to have an average life. Wake up, make coffee, go to work, come home, and just hang out with the person you love. No murder. No subterfuge. Just…life.
    Lissie answered the door and I drove away before Lenny went inside. When Lenny and I had gotten together, I’d thought her mood was a quirk. She was fiery and passionate, and that was what drew me to her.