“Realistic about what, Spook? That it was good? That it was always fucking good. Clear aside all the crap that other people were responsible for, and we work, Spook. We do. We absolutely do. I love you. And we love the same things. If you’re going to tell me that you don’t feel the same…”
“I’m sorry.” He blinked tears from his eyes. Sniffed, and failed to clear the tingles there. Maybe the coward’s way had merit after all. “There’s so much—”
“Don’t do this. Don’t end it. Please.”
“Alle… I can’t give you what you want. I’m barely functional, and there’s too much…too much trauma. Too much baggage.” It weighed him down, and while he’d moved beyond absolute breaking point and was slowly, slowly rebuilding the pieces of his life, there wasn’t enough left in him to stomach another repeat. He couldn’t put himself in a position where that was even a possibility. He needed simple. Simple, with no strings.
“Spook, please.” Her breathing caught. He heard it rattle in her chest. “I didn’t know, about what happened. I swear, I had no idea that Flynn—”
“It’s not just about that.” He didn’t want to talk about that. Didn’t even want to touch on the subject. “I’m not what anyone needs in their life right now. Alle, I’m not… I’m not who I was. I can’t be the person you want me to be. I can’t handle the weight of anyone’s expectations.” He couldn’t handle the weight of his own.
“I can wait. No pressure. I promise.”
That was… It was a bad idea. She was impatient, pushy. There was no way she’d let things lie.
“Spook, I’ve missed you every fucking day. I’ve thought about you every fucking day. It’s so unfair. All we got were moments.” She was holding her voice steady, but he knew she was crying. Her pain, it dug claws into his chest, made his lungs feel like lead weights, and his guts knot. But pretending they could ever make it work, that would only be setting them both up for more pain. Wouldn’t it? The rational, sensible thing to do was to cut her free. Let her go. Give her the chance to live and find happiness with someone else. It’d be utterly selfish and cruel not to do so. And he’d been mean enough already, cutting her out without so much as a farewell.
“Alle, I’m sorry. I truly am. You deserve so much more. And I want you to be happy. I want you to have all the things, feel all the things. I can’t… I can’t give that to you.”
“Maybe not now, you can’t.” She sniffed loudly. “Time heals. I can help, Spook. Why not let me be there for you? Let me be your friend, a shoulder, anything. We don’t have to be official. I don’t have to be your girlfriend, if that’s not what you want, or if you don’t feel ready for that. I do understand that you can’t force a relationship on somebody, and I’m really sorry that I’ve always come on so strong. I should have respected your boundaries more. I will henceforth. I absolutely will.”
God help him. “I like pushy women.” He also liked that she knew when to back down. Her fire, her stubbornness, her determination to fight for what she wanted relentlessly were things he admired about her. Sure, they caused him inordinate amounts of stress, but no one without those traits ever stood a chance of levering off his armour.
She’d woken him up. Made him confront the fact that he was dying a slow pointless death.
And he did still want her.
That desire still existed, despite the baggage, and the trauma, and the fear. That and he’d be lying if he didn’t admit the fact that she still wanted him after he’d doubted and abandoned her didn’t make his heart melt. There weren’t many people who showed such loyalty and devotion.
“Do you know what the thing I miss most about us is?” she asked.
Spook shook his head. He wasn’t certain he was ready to hear it.
“Remember how we used to talk and text all the time? It’s that. I miss that. I’ve missed being with you, and seeing you, but the hardest thing has been how silent my phone’s been without all those text alerts. I know sometimes we didn’t really say anything at all, or it’d all be dumb emojis, but—”
“I miss that too.” He’d liked having someone he could reach out to night or day.
“Yeah?”
He pressed his ear closer to the phone to better hear the smile in her voice. “Yeah.”
“So, it’d be okay if I inundated you with daft messages again?”
“Friend messages. No commitments. No expectations.”
She was silent a moment. So quiet he could hear the buzz of the fridge, and something four-legged padding through the yard outside.
“Absolutely to the first two. I can’t swear to the latter.”
At least she was being honest with him.
“I’ll try to keep them in check. Make sure they’re not too weighty for you to handle. Would that be acceptable?”
“I-I guess.” Even though his uncertainty was abjectly apparent, she still gave a whoop of delight, before dissolving into a cough. “You okay?” he asked.
She cleared her throat. “Fine. I’ve picked up some crud, that’s all. I’ll live. I have cough sweets.”
“Well, I hope there’s someone there to look after you.”
