PANIC

Chapter Sixteen - ROOK

My face is hot and it takes all my willpower to prevent the tears from coming out with the anger and frustration. Ford is weird. I need to stop this. Ronin was right, he’s got emotional issues. Or lack of emotion issues, I’m not quite sure. Either way, I think I’m done with Ford. I reach the Bronco and yank on the door handle to get in and realize it’s locked.

Of course it’s locked, you idiot. Your eight-thousand-dollar camera is in there.

I lean against the door and watch Ford walk towards me across the parking lot. When he reaches me he says nothing, just pushes his key into the lock and then opens the door.

I climb in as he goes around to his side and does the same.

He sinks back into his seat and I turn my head and watch the various groups of people bustling around the stadium.

“You ran.”

I shake my head. “I’m done here and I’d like for you to start the fucking truck and drop me off at Spencer’s.”

He lets out a sigh. “Too far, then?”

I look over at him now. His face is expressionless, just passive, like this isn’t some monumentally fucked-up moment in time for me. “So you’re fucking with me? Is that it, Ford? Your job here is to rip apart my brain and do what? Use me up and spit me out like the rest of your pets? Am I a pet to you? Your project? You know what’s fucking funny? You say Ronin’s the one with the hero complex, but from what I can tell, that’s you, Ford. Ronin doesn’t fuck with me like this, he just accepts me for what I am.”

He laughs. “Is that right? Do you have any idea what Ronin does in our little partnership?”

“I do not give one fancy fuck about Ronin’s part in what you guys do together.”

Ford looks away and sighs. “I’m sorry, then, OK?” He looks back over at me and waits a few seconds to see if I’ll respond. But I keep silent. “I didn’t realize it would affect you like that, OK? I’m sorry.”

I continue to stare out the window. “Whatever. You know exactly what you were doing, so save it. Just take me home.”

“Rook, I swear, it was a little harmless flirt, that’s all. I didn’t realize you’d get all…” He stops. “Well, I don’t really understand what happened, actually. Do you like me? Like that?”

Oh, my God. I am so completely fucking humiliated. “Just take me home.”

I catch him scrubbing his hand down his face from the corner of my eye, like I’m frustrating him. “OK, I’ll start then. How’s that? Because I really didn’t mean to have this conversation with you, like ever. But since I’ve unleashed it—maybe unconsciously, maybe not—I’ll just say it.”

Holy fucking shit, he’s gonna go there.

“I want you. I have it pretty bad, in fact. I knew the fucking moment I saw you come into Antoine’s office that day we went out to dinner. I went out of my way to make sure you were sitting next to me. And you, you… you just… there was just something about you that drew me in. I had no idea what it was. At least back then.” He stops and swallows and then looks over at me and stares hard, straight in my eyes. “But I do now. I know what it is that draws us together and I think you do too.”

“I’m not talking about this.”

He ignores me and continues. “I’d never make you cheat on Ronin, Rook. I’m not like that at all.”

“Take me home.”

“But you’d make my year if you admitted to me that you feel this too.”

“Oh. My. God! Shut the fuck up and take me home!” I shout it and I expect some reaction to this lapse in emotional control, but a laugh isn’t quite it. “Why are you laughing?”

“You do like me, don’t you? Enough to leave Ronin? Not that I’m asking,” he adds hurriedly. “I’m not asking you to do that, OK. I’m just—”

“You’re just playing with me, right? You think you’ve guessed something about my past and that gives you the right to mess with me? Play concerned friend, take me running and then flirt and make me uncomfortable. Get me to spill my guts and then stomp all over my feelings and rub it all in. That’s what you’re doing, right?”

“Rub all what in, Rook?” he asks, confused.

“The fact that you could dangle that teeny-tiny carrot in front of me and I’d jump.”

“Do you like me?”

“Of course I like you. Why else would I spend so much fucking time with you?”

“Do you want me?”

I take a second to think this through because this question is much harder to answer.

“Do you, Rook?”

“No, Ford. I don’t.” I look over at him and let my defenses drop a little. “You have this power over me, you make that rotten carrot look like spun sugar. And I’ve been there already. I know it’s an illusion. I’m not looking for that kind of relationship again, OK? But…” I’m not sure I want to say the rest, so I stop and chew on my nail as I watch the people in the parking lot.

Ford stays silent for a while, but there’s no way I’m getting out of this now, so when he pushes I’m not surprised. “But what? Just tell me, Rook. If you want me to keep it from Ronin, I will. I won’t tell him any of this.”

I continue my silence, my mind racing with what Ford is asking me to admit. I’m not sure I’m ready to do that, in fact, I might never be ready to do that. But I need to tell him something. I swallow down my fear and turn to look at him. “If you were to ask me to leave with you. To just walk away from all of it. The show, Ronin, school… all of it.”

He raises his eyebrows in surprise.

“I’d go. Because you’re right, there’s a part of me that finds that dominance shit attractive and you control everything. Every encounter we have, you are always in charge. So that draws me in, and I’d go if you asked because you… you know how to make me want to do what you ask. And giving in to what I was is so much easier than taking control and becoming something else.”

Ford huffs out a laugh and turns in his seat to stare out the front window.

“But if I actually did that, you would ruin my life.”

He looks back, any pleasure he got from my revelation instantly gone.

“You’d ruin my life because there’s a huge difference between you and Ronin, and regardless of whatever insecurities you have about your looks, that’s not what’s different, Ford. You’re plenty good-looking. You practically sweat sex, and there is something very frightening, yet compelling about you that makes me want to… to give in to you—to submit.” I throw up my hands. “There, was that what you were waiting for? That word? Fine, you can have it, consider it a gift. It changes nothing for me, because the difference between you and Ronin is that you’re looking for the girl I was and he’s looking for the girl I want to be.”

I wait for him to respond but he’s the one who looks away now.

“Yes, you have it in you to compel me to do a lot of things, Ford, simply because you know the right way to ask for it, you know how to manipulate my emotions because of the way I was tr… tr…” I search for another word because that one just won’t come out of my mouth. “You know how to manipulate me because of how I was treated in the past. But if you did decide you wanted me, you’d get that other Rook and you’d be stuck with her forever, because regardless of what you think, I did save myself back in Chicago. I did it once, but I’m not sure I could do it again. And I’m not saying you’re anything like Jon. Maybe you treat that pet of yours nicely. Maybe she even loves you and maybe I would too, but I’d never have it in me to walk out again. Being with you would be a total surrender for me. You would ruin me.”

He thinks about my words for several seconds and then looks over to me. “I’m so sorry.”

“For what?”

“For what I said and did earlier. I was just having some fun with you back there. It really was just a flirt. I never expected it to make you feel like this. I do like you and if you wanted to be with me, I’d be in for that. I would. But I don’t want that other Rook.” He stops to sigh and look out the window for a few seconds before continuing. “I want nothing to do with that Rook and I’d never be able to live with myself if I dragged you backwards and made you surrender. I’m into your potential, I love your strength, and I’m in awe of your struggle to overcome these things in your past and be a new person.”

“I’d rather die than go back to being that other girl, Ford. I’d rather die. I need Ronin’s gentle hand and I need to make these mistakes because I had all my choices taken away from me back in Illinois. I had no free will at all. So to answer your question about why I refuse to accept Ronin’s good advice, it’s because he gives me the choice to refuse. He lets me be me. And he stands by me, even if he’s unhappy with what I’m doing. I need that so badly right now. I need all this freedom but I also need to know someone will set me straight when I stumble. And that someone is Ronin.”

We sit in the silence for a while, his eyes darting back and forth as he takes his turn watching people in the parking lot. And then he abruptly shoves the key into the ignition and starts the engine. “Would you like to go see the math building at your little college so you know where to meet your tutor tomorrow night?”

I huff out a breath. “Yeah, sure.”

“And then we can take a drive down to Boulder and look at the university, it’s not that far. I’ll show you the new building they have for film studies. It’s a great facility.”

Fucking Ford. “Sounds like a plan, let’s go.”

“Well, first we have to get breakfast bagels.” I release the built-up tension as a laugh and look over at him. He’s smiling at me. “Because this stupid fucking CSU stadium has no open concession stands for its early-morning trainees.” He pulls the Bronco out of the parking lot and looks over at me. “We miss Coors Field already, don’t we?”

“Yeah, we do.” I pick my camera up from the floor and turn it on, recording some B-roll of the drive as Ford talks about application deadlines for CU Boulder and summer internships.

Ford and I have a lot in common and one of those things is denial.

We do denial well.

In fact, we’re exceptionally good at denial when we do it together.

I like that about Ford and I have a feeling he likes that about me too.