Bad Impressions (Revive Me #1) (12 page)

“No, Brad. Come on.”

“We’re not discussing it.”

She didn’t listen to me. “Eric Guildford is a trumped up pipsqueak of a man. The only way he could have done so much damage to you was if you’d allowed him to. You didn’t fight back, Brad.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I ground out.

“You’re not your father!”

I spun around. “Mom, stop!” I dragged hard on my smoke, like it was my only lifeline. She was pulling me down into a place where I couldn’t bear to be. “I can’t do this with you. You know that!”

Her expression was pained as she took me in. “You need to, sweetheart. It’s eating you up inside and harming every aspect of your life. It’s preventing you from moving forward. It’s why you let Eric hurt you. It’s also why you’ve never allowed yourself to get too close. I saw you earlier in my office. You’re even hesitating with Sophie—the girl you’ve always wanted. She’s finally yours now and you’re holding back. You’re afraid you’ll hurt her like your father hurt me; that it’s in your blood, or something. But I know you better than you know yourself.” She moved closer. “
You
, my boy, are not your father. Do you hear me?”

I stepped back hastily, dropping my smoke at my feet and stubbing it out with my boot. “I almost
killed
him that day, Mom. Right there!” I pointed to the porch steps. “You were there! You saw what I did! If that doesn’t make me
him
, what the hell does?”

“What you did came from a place of love, Brad.”

“What are you talking about? Come on, Mom.”

“No! Listen to me!” she snapped. She closed the distance between us and gripped my arms tightly, shaking me to
force
me to listen to her. “You did what you did to protect me. That’s where it came from that day, Brad. Nowhere else. Not from the place where violence always came from with your father. For him, it was always about power—holding it over those weaker than him.
You
don’t have that in you. You’ve lumped yourself in with him, because you didn’t understand it. Well, I’m telling you now, okay? You saved my life that day.”

“He was going to kill you,” I said, running my fingers through my hair as I tried to bite back the powerful wave of emotion threatening to overpower me.

“I know, sweetheart.”

“It wasn’t just him, Mom. Soph’s ex…I wanted to hurt
him
. Bad. It was my first reaction when she told me what he did to her.”

Her brow furrowed. “He abused her?”

“Yeah. Hit her and pushed her around. She showed me the bruises and swore me to secrecy.”

“It’s your protective instinct again.”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I am. So, what did you do about Sophie’s situation?”

“I taught her how to defend herself.”

She smiled.

“What?”

“That was very sweet and understanding of you.”

“It was?”

“Yeah. After going through something like that you feel a complete loss of power. An awful helplessness. Teaching her what you did would have been a big help to her self-esteem.”

“You think that’s how she was feeling?”

“That’s how
I
felt.”

“You never said.”

“I didn’t want to admit it. It was bad enough admitting it to myself.”

And that was when the other shoe dropped.

That was why Soph had come back here. That asshole ex of hers had knocked the proverbial wind out of her. She’d lost some of her confidence.

So she’d come back home where it was safe, where she knew she’d be surrounded by protective, overbearing pricks like me and Ollie who would never let anything happen to her.

“Come inside now,” my mom said, grabbing my hand.

I nodded and let her lead me back inside the house.

Chapter 17

~Sophie~

It had been almost a week since I’d seen Brad. Apparently, he was staying with his mom. It made no sense to me, because I’d always thought he hated it up there due to all the crap that’d happened there with his dad.

We’d been texting, but that’d been the extent of our communication. We hadn’t even spoken on the phone, which just lent more weight to my concern that he was trying to distance himself from me.

But I hadn’t pushed it. I’d tried to tell myself that I was just overreacting, because of the poisonous thoughts my brother had unwittingly planted in my head. I didn’t want to be one of those crazy girls who freaked out so easily, because of their own insecurities. The thing was, I wasn’t an insecure person in that way. I never had been. But Brad was such a consuming force that he was always there on my mind. I had to force myself to put him out of my mind when I was at work, or I’d lose my concentration. It was what he did to me. Things were intense between us. At least, I hoped that was the case on his end too.

Sure, it was a bit of a coincidence that we’d just reached our one-week relationship mark and he’d pretty much disappeared, but I knew I’d felt it from him…that there was something powerful between us. Something deep and real.

Besides, after we’d fooled around,
he’d
been the one to initiate a date, not me. He’d made the move to take things between us beyond sex.

Although, he
had
been pulling away sexually. I hadn’t overlooked that. And that was never a good sign in any relationship.

Stop it! Stop it right now!

Urgh.
I needed to get a grip. I had to focus on my own life, not just my boyfriend. What the hell was wrong with me? I was acting like one of those women who I despised; the kind whose entire life revolved solely around the man they were with.

Well, screw that. I was not gonna be that girl. I was gonna focus on anything else, but him. My work. My friends. Enjoying being back home. Yeah, I could do that.

Besides, I had a mission.

It was something I’d been putting off for far too long, because of all the drama with the last guy I’d been with—asshole Jake. I wasn’t about to let myself fall back into that miserable trap again.

No, today I was going to do it—or at least try to do it.

Write.

I’d graduated with an English Literature degree for that purpose. I wanted to be a writer. It was a pipe dream. That’s exactly what Jake had made me
realize
. Through all of his indoctrination, I’d forgotten for so long how much I loved to write…how much I needed it.

But something had shifted in me lately, taking me back to that place where I’d been before. The place where I’d been dying to write again.

Hell, I knew exactly what it was. It was Brad.

There was no doubt about it.

Being around him always reminded me of exactly who I really was. He’d always had that effect on me.

So, even if our relationship was about to go down the frigging toilet, at least I’d managed to get something out of it. As pissed as I was at him, I really hoped he’d managed to get something out of it too. He’d been through a lot and he deserved some happiness.

Enough of that. Focus.

I crossed to one of the many benches in the town square and hauled my bag onto the table top. I pulled out my notebook and pen and then reached inside for my phone and earphones so I could drown out everything around me with my music. I liked to be outside when I wrote, for inspiration, but I didn’t like the noise that went along with it.

I’d just placed one of my earbuds into my ear, when a conversation caught my attention.

“Marsh, yeah.”

“That’s why he’s been MIA for the last few days then? That boy is usually everywhere. Poor kid.”

“Well, what do you expect after he messed around with another man’s wife? Even if it was Crazy Claire—snooty woman. I heard she’s been stalking Brad for months now.”

“Hmm, so he ignored her and then she told her husband about them? Vindictive.”

“I’m surprised Eric didn’t have a scratch on him. After that thing with his dad a way’s back, we all know what a fighter Brad is.”

“Who knows? But I bet you that this whole situation is exactly why Brad has been off the market for a good long while.”

“It must be. That boy had a healthy appetite; that’s for damn sure.”

“Gloria! Healthy appetite?”

“I was trying not to be so blunt.”

Oh my God!
I turned my head towards the voices and saw two of the town gossips, old biddies, Doris and Gloria, chatting away. They were caught up in a fit of laughter at the
healthy appetite
comment.

That was it for me.

I scrolled to Brad’s number and texted:
Where are you, asshole?

He responded quickly:
Asshole?

I wasn’t going to get into it via text so I just returned:
Where?

My phone pinged again with:
Just pulled up outside my place. Why?

I couldn’t even dignify that one with a response, so I just stowed my phone back inside my bag, along with everything else, and hightailed it out of the town square.

***

I pounded on his door like a crazed maniac as I shouted his name. I was in a haze of anger and I was only vaguely aware that my little freak out could be alerting the neighbors and possibly firing up some rumors. But I was too engrossed in the immediate situation to lend it much thought.

Brad came to the door. His eyes were wide with disbelief when he saw how worked up I was. He glanced down the street briefly, before grabbing my arm and quickly pulling me inside.

He kicked the door shut behind him and then yelled, “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“Me?”

“Yeah, you. You just made one hell of a scene out there. People are gonna know, Soph. Fuck!”

“This is
your
fault.”

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the wall. I could see the tick of his jaw. The heated look in his narrowed eyes. He was pissed, but trying his hardest to hold it in. “Go ahead,” he gritted out with noticeable effort.

“You disappeared on me!”

“Disappeared? We’ve been communicating.”

“Via text. That’s all. I might as well be having a relationship with your phone, instead of you!”

“I told you I was sick.”

I shrugged my bag off my shoulder and took an angry step towards him. “You weren’t sick! You cut me out! Pushed me away!”

He tried to hide it, but I saw it; the guilt there. He’d just unwittingly confirmed that he’d been lying. “How do you—?”

“How do I know? It’s all over town. You slept with Crazy Claire and her husband kicked your ass. I
know
, you idiot!”

He pushed off the wall and tugged roughly at his hair in distress. “Fuck. That crazy bitch just can’t keep her mouth shut.”

“I can’t do this, Brad.”

His gaze snapped to mine. “What?”

“I can’t be shut out and pushed away.”

He reached for my arm, but I stepped back.

I looked away and tried to catch my breath.

As soon as the words had left my mouth, I’d realized how true they were; what they meant for us. I’d tried to kid myself into believing that I could be casual about things between us. But that wasn’t me. I needed him to be all in. It was all or nothing. I didn’t need the drama and bullshit stress of not knowing what the hell was going on. He was so closed off.

I couldn’t manage to meet his gaze as I grabbed my bag and walked to the door. “Bye, Brad.”

“Soph, no!”

I spun around, holding up my hand to discourage him from touching me as he approached. “No, it’s okay. I was expecting too much and it’s not fair. I guess, it’s cuz we’ve known each other for so long, so it wasn’t like we were starting at the beginning, you know? But I was wrong. You’re too closed off. I never know what’s going on with you. You’re here one minute and gone the next—physically and emotionally. Some women will be fine with that, but that’s not me. It’s been fun while it lasted, but I guess my two weeks are up.”

“Your two weeks?”

“Yeah, Ollie told me a week or two is your cut-off point for the women you date.”

“He doesn’t know shit, Soph. Please, just listen to me.”

“I don’t need your apologies. No hard feelings, I swear.”

I reached for the doorknob.

“I
love
you!” he yelled.

Chapter 18

~Brad~

She froze, her hand still on the doorknob. I could see it trembling as she sucked in a sharp breath. She seemed to be in some kind of shock. I wasn’t surprised. I’d shocked myself with that unplanned revelation. I hadn’t planned on telling her so soon. I’d thought it was way too early and I hadn’t figured out exactly where
she
stood.