Chapter 80: Chapter 80
Linlin stalked back to her booth to her friends and swiped up her coat, no longer wanting to be here. Her throat aching and her heart pulsating with pain after witnessing ZhengLi cuddling up with some bimbo across the club. She had come here tonight to forget him. Tears close as they pricked her eyes and yet she refused to break down and make an idiot of herself. She had decided to let him go and cut him loose after a long week of thinking this over. He was too unpredictable, too good at messing with her head and making her feel like she never knew where she stood, and she couldn’t deny it anymore.
ZhengLi had gotten under her skin and into her heart without any effort and her crazy reactions and jealousy over him were proof that she was falling hard for the worst kind of playboy. He brought out her insecurity and craziness and made her chase after him and beg for his time and attention like she wasn’t worthy. She had never been in this situation before, never wanted one man to be exclusively hers and yet somehow it happened. Never had to plead to be the center of someone’s attention and she hated how it made her act.
“Linnyboo? Wait up.” She was heading for the door after making excuses for abandoning her friends, saying she felt unwell when he caught up with her in the corridor to the exit. Catching her by the elbow and pulling her aside to let people pass. “You not going to say hello?” ZhengLi leaned down to her smaller frame trying to look her in the eye, but she dodged him. Wriggling her arm out of his grip and remaining cut off and blank. Putting up an invisible barrier between them that was so obvious he let her go and gave her space.
“You seemed busy so….. enjoy your night.” Linlin’s tone was deflated, hoarse as her emotions spiked and she wanted him to go away before he saw her cry. Her heart crumbling at seeing him again and hearing him use his pet name for her broke her in two. Knowing he couldn’t spare her time lately but would happily make out with some other woman in a club had told her everything she needed to know. She knew she should leave and forget him.
“She’s just someone I know. Nothing was happening. I came to see you. YuZhi told me you would be here.” ZhengLi had a weird sensation in his gut, a mild panic sweeping up, making him nervous. Throwing his usual playful banter aside because he was getting strong vibes this was not the time for it and diving into serious explanation. Linlin was being off and weirdly distant, and he didn’t like it.
“Yeah, looked like it. I need to go.” She slid out from beside him and pulled her jacket on over her dress, but ZhengLi followed, a sense of utter fear overtaking him.
“Are you mad at me? Linlin, stop. Talk to me.” His tone dropped to serious, his cute name abandoned because he felt like he was losing her, and genuine concern etched all over him. Mr. Suave and in-control fizzing away to reveal the ZhengLi that only YuZhi ever got to see. Who he could be when it was needed.
“Why would I be mad? I’m nothing to you. You don’t even have time or inclination to reply to me or call and it’s not like we see each other anymore. You weren’t even attracted enough to sleep with me, so….” She tried to hide the bitterness in her tone, but it leeched out anyway. ZhengLi swallowed hard, regretting not making more effort if he knew this was really how she felt. He had assumed it was all another push-pull game of them driving one another crazy and Linlin being dramatic. Punishing him. He never thought for a second she was cutting him loose for real.
ZhengLi was momentarily at a loss for words, having never been in this situation before. His stomach churning up and a very real uptight tension growing out of control in his heart at the thought of not seeing her anymore.
“Look, you’ve got this all wrong. I’ve been working crazy hours. I thought you didn’t want me to call. I haven’t tried to sleep with you because ….” He really didn’t know. At first it seemed fun to make her want him more by not caving. Building the sexual tension between them. He figured they would last longer if sex was delayed and then….. something always held him back from taking the step and he never examined it. “Don’t go. I really did come to see you. I miss you. I’m sorry I haven’t been around and haven’t been in touch. I’ll make it up to you, I won’t do it again. Come on, why are you being this way?” He was floundering, not knowing what to say as he had never had to persuade a girl in his life to give him a chance. This was all new. He had never cared enough to want a girl to give him a second chance or to stick around. He was normally the one to end things. He could tell this wasn’t a trick or a game to manipulate a response either, he could feel her seriousness in pushing him away.
“I thought you liked me, but …… I don’t really feel like you do. I’m just a toy when you’re bored. Some plaything to pick up and drop when there’s nothing else.” The sentence broke her willpower to hold back her pain and her eyes misted up with tears. Hating how pathetic he made her when she had literally done the same thing to men for years and had intended to do it to him.
“You’re not a toy and I do like you. More than the average woman. Come on, weren’t we having fun and keeping things casual? What is this now?” ZhengLi was genuinely confused backtracking in his head if he ever missed signs. Pleading with her and fighting the urge to grab her and hold on.
“It’s not fun. It’s hell. You mess with my head and make me second guess myself constantly. I feel invisible around you sometimes and I’m scared to check your WeChat for fear of seeing you out having fun with other girls and feeling like shit over it. I know I have no right, that we’re not a thing but you completely knocked me over and now I can’t handle how this feels. I’m doing this for my own sanity.” Linlin had drunk enough to let her inner thoughts freely spew out. The vulnerable caring side of her that she reserved for only TangShi in the rarest of moments. The soft way of speaking, the hints of truth and real emotion. Things she would never have admitted or said to him sober, and the tears came with the confessions.
“What are you saying?” ZhengLi’s chest tightened, an impulse to wipe away the droplets on her tiny face, his own heart throbbing with a new inner pain for him. She was talking about him messing with her head, completely unaware of how much she screwed him up and stayed on his mind when she wasn’t in his life. Like, right now, being this way and he felt like he was having a mental breakdown with how to fix it. Genuinely afraid of letting her walk away.
“Nothing. I’m going home. I don’t want to see you anymore.” Linlin couldn’t do this. She knew she couldn’t hope for anything and being this close to him was unbearable. ZhengLi had wormed his way into her soul and for the first time in her life Linlin had real feelings for a guy. She didn’t want to compete or cling on and become some needy jealous psycho who spent her life pushing other women off him.
“Don’t go….., Linlin, please…. Let’s date if that’s what you mean… properly. I’ll do better, I’ll be different. It’ll be different. No more games.” ZhengLi’s blurted words came out in an impulsive rush as she moved to walk away, his panic overtaking and his heart racing. His palms instantly clammy as nerves suffocated him. He had no idea what he was doing, other than stopping her from leaving him.