“What?” Her eyes probe mine. “You can’t be serious?”
I bark out a bitter laugh. “Do I look like I’m fucking joking, Stevie?”
She scrambles off my lap. “What he did is terrible and very wrong, but he didn’t really mean it.”
Another bitter laugh rumbles from my chest. “Don’t be naïve, Stevie. Of course, he meant it.” I stand and pace the floor. “Everything he has done this past month shows his friendship pact is a load of bull. He’s trying to win you back. It’s obvious to everyone but you!”
“Don’t you dare raise your voice to me, Beck.” She rises to her feet, leveling me with a sharp look. “And you can’t make demands of me.”
“Why the hell not?” I roar, losing the tenuous hold on my control. “He makes them all the damn time, and you drop everything to comply.”
“You know why!”
“He is emotionally blackmailing you, Stevie, and I’m not okay with it. I cannot stand by and watch this happen anymore. I cannot be the one to pick up the pieces when you fall apart because he’s said something cruel or lashed out at you again.”
“He’s not like that all the time, and he can’t help it.”
“Of course, you’d defend him. He can do or say what he wants, and you will always forgive him. I can’t fucking win.” I drag my nails through my hair as a wave of defeat crashes into me. “I can’t do this anymore, Stevie. I can’t share you with him. It’s killing me and destroying our relationship.”
Panic flares in her eyes. “What exactly are you saying, Beck?”
The words linger at the back of my throat, and I stop for a second to consider if it’s right to let them loose, deciding it is. I think Law was right after all, and this is the only way. “You need to choose. It’s him or me.”
She stumbles, tipping back onto the couch with tears in her eyes. “What? No! Please, Beck. Don’t make me do this.”
“I don’t have a choice anymore, Stevie, and I’m doing this for you.” All the anger and fight has left me. I walk to the couch, sitting at the opposite end to my girlfriend. “This is the best way I can protect myself, and you, and our relationship. If we continue like this, we’ll ruin everything.” Tears stream down her face, and I hate seeing them, knowing I’m the reason for them this time. My arms twitch with a craving to comfort her, but I don’t act on the feeling. I’m enabling this behavior, and the best thing I can do for Stevie is to force the issue. Otherwise, this will continue, and she can’t see it, but Garrick is fucking with her head and her sanity. I can’t hold her together any longer. Not when I’m losing it too.
“Please don’t do this, Beck. I’m begging you.”
“It’s for your own good, Stevie.”
“I can’t abandon him,” she whispers. “What if he dies?”
“It’s been over two months, and the prognosis is good. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
“You don’t know that. If I abandon him, it could set his recovery back, or he might do something rash. How could I live with myself if I walked away and something happened to him?”
“What about me?” I snap. “What about what this is doing to me, or don’t I matter at all now your first love is back?”
Shock splays across her face, quickly transforming into anger. “I can’t believe you just said that. I have been brutally honest with you, Beck, because you asked me to tell you everything. I am doing the best I can! I am trying to make time for both of you, and it’s like being pulled in two vastly different directions, and it’s fucking killing me!”
“Do you love me?” I calmly ask.
“You know I do! I love you more than I can say, and I don’t want to lose you.”
“I’m sorry to do this, honey. I really am, but I need you to do this for us. I need you to chooseme.”
She scoots down beside me and takes my hands, pinning me with pleading eyes. “Please, Beck, don’t make me do this. I love you, and I know this has been difficult for you. Just give me a few more months until he’s stronger, and then I’ll walk away.”
Sadness washes over me. “That won’t happen, and we both know it. In a few months, there will be some other excuse, and I can’t live like this watching you drop everything for him. It hurts me, Stevie.” I wrench my hand back and thump a fist over my heart. “It hurts so much.”
“I’m sorry.” She buries her face in her hands, and that urge to comfort her rides me hard, but I fight it.
A strange numb feeling flows through my veins, and I don’t even sound like myself when I speak. “I’m doing this for both of us. This is destroying you. I can’t watch you go through this anymore. Tell him you can’t see him again, and let’s go to France for a couple of months.”
“I’ve got a job,” she feebly protests.
“A job you’re going to get fired from if you keep taking time off and calling in sick every time he says he needs you.”
