"I stayed away because it never should have happened at all!"
His anger, usually, is deep and contained; something he can work through with an afternoon of training at Black Elm or Il Bastone, a thing he can try to outpace with every thud of his sneakers against the pavement on a six-mile run. Other times, the answer is work, or study, or--when nothing else has helped--his grandfather's patented solution of cask-strength scotch and plenty of ice. If he must give voice to his fury, it's always controlled, always measured, always as polite a thing as he can manage.
In the face of what Alex throws at him, the way she twists the situation to fit her own narrative, he's none of that at all.
"We were drunk, and we were stupid, and we gave in to whatever that was on New Year's, and I knew it was only going to last for the night, and I tried to be fine with that, Alex." He can hear the way he's shouting, his voice loud and hard and angrier than he's ever heard it, and he doesn't know that he could stop even if he wanted to. "I tried to stay away, because that's not what this is. That's not what we are. For fuck's sake, I run away to Spain to get away from you back home. Nothing like this was ever supposed to happen."
He sets his glass down on the counter, the base of it rattling on the Formica with the way his hand is shaking. "But it did. And I wanted it. More fool me."
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His anger, usually, is deep and contained; something he can work through with an afternoon of training at Black Elm or Il Bastone, a thing he can try to outpace with every thud of his sneakers against the pavement on a six-mile run. Other times, the answer is work, or study, or--when nothing else has helped--his grandfather's patented solution of cask-strength scotch and plenty of ice. If he must give voice to his fury, it's always controlled, always measured, always as polite a thing as he can manage.
In the face of what Alex throws at him, the way she twists the situation to fit her own narrative, he's none of that at all.
"We were drunk, and we were stupid, and we gave in to whatever that was on New Year's, and I knew it was only going to last for the night, and I tried to be fine with that, Alex." He can hear the way he's shouting, his voice loud and hard and angrier than he's ever heard it, and he doesn't know that he could stop even if he wanted to. "I tried to stay away, because that's not what this is. That's not what we are. For fuck's sake, I run away to Spain to get away from you back home. Nothing like this was ever supposed to happen."
He sets his glass down on the counter, the base of it rattling on the Formica with the way his hand is shaking. "But it did. And I wanted it. More fool me."