“Not this.”
It was a gut punch.
I finally moved off the couch, needing some distance, though I couldn’t bring myself to move farther than a few steps from where she was. Where had this all gone so wrong?
There were a million things I wanted to say. I wanted to tell her that I also wanted those things. That this was what had kept me from starting anything serious since I’d started acting. That I also had no idea how it would work, but that didn’t stop me from wanting to be with her.
“I’m sorry,” Audrey said, still seated, her head hanging down as she focused on her lap. “I’m not explaining myself right.”
Releasing a heavy breath, I took a seat on the coffee table so I could face her, but I didn’t reach out, and neither did she. We were going around in circles. Or speaking two different languages. It was exhausting. “No, you’re not.” I sounded as flat as I felt.
“Can we just … Maybe we need to take a break.” She gave me a pleading look and caught her bottom lip with her teeth. Seeing her like this was almost as painful as the idea of letting her walk away.
“No. That isn’t what I want. I want to work this out. I love you.”
Her whole face fell at those words. “Stop saying that.”
A pit opened in my stomach, and I realized I’d been an idiot. She didn’t feel the same, and I’d just thrown my heart out to be crushed.
“Do you love me?” Because I needed to hear her say it. Because if what she felt for me was anything close to what I felt for her, we could work this out.
In the seconds before she answered, I was hyper-aware of the space between us. She hadn’t shifted away from me, and I found myself leaning toward her to close the gap.
Her voice was quiet. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
I thought hearing no would be the worst answer, but I was wrong. This was.
“Ok …” I stalled, trying to wrap my head around this situation. It was frustrating to be without words, so used to being full of them, even when they were someone else’s.
The bottom was dropping out of my world, and there was nothing I could do about it.
She winced. “Jace, I …”
I tried to ignore the sharp pinch in my chest at her apologetic tone. I knew what it sounded like, but I didn’t really want to believe it. I couldn’t. There was no way there wasn’t love there. I knew that. But for some reason, Audrey couldn’t acknowledge it. Or maybe she refused to.
“You say it like it’s so easy,” she said.
The moment stretched out, and I focused on the feeling of her soft skin, her hand in mine. When had she reached out for my hand?
Everything felt wrong. All I wanted was to gather her up in my arms, tell her everything was ok. That we’d be ok.
“It is easy. I know exactly how I feel.” The implication was that she didn’t.
She pulled her hand, hard, out of my grip. “That’s not fair. I know how I feel. But this is … a lot, Jackson. Don’t you get that?”
“Of course, I do. You think that I don’t understand that?”
“You don’t understand. You can’t. It doesn’t matter how I feel if I don’t feel like myself. I want this to be real,”
I cut in, my fraying nerves not allowing me to sit silent. “It is real.”
“You think so, but it isn’t. You don’t know what a real relationship is. You’ve never been in one.”
White-hot anger flashed under my skin, and I was shocked by the intensity of it. But more than anger, it was fear. I could feel everything between us slipping away, trapped under our feet as we barked and bit at each other like this.
Insults seeped into my mind, words I knew would hit their target and hurt her just as acutely as she’d hurt me. A small part of me wanted to retaliate, wanted to cut into her the same way.
Maybe the most messed up part was that I agreed with her. I hadn’t been in a relationship before. That wasn’t to say she was right, but … she had a point. It was something I’d worried about and thought I had done a pretty good job of hiding from her. Clearly, I was wrong.
