He stared at me for a long moment. “What’s going on?”
My chest grew tight again, making it almost impossible to untangle the mess in my head and sort through the swirling thoughts that were banging around loudly.
Where the hell was I supposed to start?
“Terran, this...” My throat grew tight. “I don’t want us to be casual anymore.”
The flicker of hurt that crossed his face was like a punch to the gut, sharp and unrelenting. Shattering me.
His eyes widened, his voice soft and hesitant. “What?”
I couldn’t meet his gaze. The weight of what I was about to say was too much, the vulnerability too raw. My gaze dropped to the floor, focusing on the worn edge of the laminate hidden underneath the lip of the cabinet instead.
“I’ve been trying to ignore it. Trying to tell myself that what we have doesn’t need to be more than what it currently is. But that’s a lie. It’s been a lie since the first time I let you stay over.”
“Wait—”
I held up my hand to cut him off, using it to run through my hair while I let out a shaky breath. “You’ve turned my lifeupside down. You’ve... made me question everything I thought I knew about myself. You’ve made mewant. And that’s terrifying. I don’t know what to do anymore. But I can’t keep doingthis.”
“Silas.”
“You’ve wrecked me.Ruinedme?—”
“Silas.” His voice was firmer this time, more insistent. “Look at me.”
I couldn’t. I was too much of a coward to face the rejection, to see the confusion in his eyes that would soon blossom to disgust once he realized what I was confessing to.
Who could want someone like this?
I didn’t know how to love properly, how to open myself up and let the dangers of emotion in.
What could I possibly offer him other than someone who frequently stumbled over their own inadequacies?
I was a fool to think any of this would make sense. That keeping Terran wouldn’t be at the detriment of him and his own growth. He was still young and had a whole world to experience outside the confines of Ellington Heights and whatever it had to offer him.
He was made for bigger things.
Betterones.
A pair of hands rested against my cheeks, pulling my head up until I had no choice but to look at him. His touch was tentative, as was the curiosity reflecting back at me. They held no sign of the judgment or revulsion I’d convinced myself I’d find.
How could there be when he was such a goddamn bleeding heart.
“What are you trying to tell me?”
“I...” My words faltered, sticking in my throat.
His hands didn’t move, his thumbs brushed faintly against my cheeks and steadying me.
“I have feelings for you,” I said, the words tumbling out before I could second-guess them.
For a moment, he stopped, growing still. His eyes searched my face, probing for the cracks in the armor, the flicker of humor, the budding of the joke he seemed so sure was coming. The kind of deflection typically leaned on like a crutch to steer conversations away from uncomfortable truths.
But there was none of that for him now. I had no sarcastic biting comments to offer, no quick-witted remarks to relieve the tension now thickening the air between us. Nothing to ease the pressure that had landed squarely on his shoulders to respond to what I’d just confessed.
It would be so easy to backtrack. To tell him none of this was serious, that I was just testing him to gauge his reaction and let him off the hook. We could laugh it off, pretend this moment never happened and keep things exactly as they were.
Safe.
