Free Uncontrollable by Shantel Tessier

of his
     black CTS coupe and slams the door shut in my face.
    I wait until he gets himself settled and the car is
     speeding down the interstate before I speak. “Why are you mad at me? It’s not
     like I went to talk to him. I came to find you, and he just happened to find
     me.”
    “I told you to stay home.” His voice is calm and
     even, but I see his hands tighten on the steering wheel.
    I roll my eyes. “When are you going to quit
     treating me like a fucking child?”
    “When you learn to listen like an adult,” he snaps,
     his calmness now gone.
    “Like an adult?” I spit out. “What the hell does
     that mean? You can’t tell me what to do, Slade.”
    He gives a rough laugh that holds no humor. “You’ve
     made that pretty fucking clear. You never listen to what I have to say. All you
     do is whatever the hell you want, and it’s getting old,” he snaps.
    Getting old? My temperature rises. “Oh. So
     the fact that I have a mind of my own is getting old? I’m not some bitch you
     can control,” I exclaim.
    “I’m not trying to control you,” he yells back,
     slamming his hand down onto the steering wheel. “Quit looking at it that way,”
     he snaps.
    How else am I supposed to look at it?
    I want to yell at him some more, when Jax’s words
     come back to me. That’s what I loved about you. You were weak and anyone who
     looked at you could see how broken you were.
    Slade doesn’t say anything else, thankfully, and I
     decide to remain silent as he continues to drive us home. He pulls into the
     garage and gets out slamming the car door. I find myself walking very slowly. I
     have no desire to run into the house and slam doors. They say love is blind.
     Maybe I’ve been blinded all this time. No matter what Slade says, he has been
     controlling my life. And why am I just now realizing this? How many fights have
     we had where he tells me not to do something, and I do it anyway? More than
     I can count.
    I numbly walk into the house and down the hallway.
     I find myself standing in the doorway of his office staring at him as he sits
     behind his desk working on his computer.
    I reach up and knock on the doorframe. “What?” he
     growls not even looking up from his work.
    “I won’t be that person, Slade,” I whisper.
    His head snaps up to mine, and his lips are thin,
     baby blue eyes are hard. “What are you talking about?” he huffs out, annoyed by
     my presence.
    I swallow and then square my shoulders. “I won’t
     allow you to treat me like someone who can’t have an opinion or a mind of her
     own. If that’s why you picked me, because you thought I was weak, you were
     wrong.” He could have had any woman he wanted. Hell, they still want him even
     though they know he’s with me.
    He tilts his head to the side, and his heated look
     turns to confusion.
    I continue, “I was that person when you met me but
     things change. I’ve changed. If you can’t accept that, then we have a bigger
     problem than Jax being back in town.” I won’t allow that fucker to show up and
     make me doubt myself. If Slade doubts me, that’s a different story. Maybe I did
     this to us. I sold my car for him. I moved in with him. I quit my job for him.
     What else have I altered for him?
    I shake my head to myself and turn around to walk
     away. I hear the movement of his chair and then I feel his hand softly grab my
     arm. Slade slowly turns me around. “No,” he says softly. “Don’t let him win,
     Angel. This is what he wants.” He hangs his head and takes in a deep breath
     before he looks back up to me.
    “I heard what he said to you. He wanted to get
     under your skin and have you second guessing yourself and me.”
    “I won’t allow him to do that. I know who I am now,
     Slade. I know what I want in life. I no longer feel alone. But I’m also not
     stupid.” He frowns. “I know him being back is going to cause problems between
     us, and the way you spoke of having me proves