“Hi,” I say in almost a whisper, my head screaming at me to be cut it off. My heart wanting to fall into his embrace.
He bends his head and I should push him away before he kisses me, but I don’t. I close my eyes and kiss him, knowing it’ll be the last time.
“What have you been doing all day?” He lets me go and I close the door as he slides his hand into mine and pulls me into the house.
“Working,” I reply. “We’re starting a new project.” I slip my hand out of his when we get to the kitchen. “Do you want something to drink?” Why are you offering him something to drink when all you want is for him to get out of your space? my head screams at me.
“No,” he shakes his head, “but I think we need to talk.” The words feel like ice water thrown on me after I’ve been baking in the sun.
“I was thinking the same thing.” I stand on the opposite side of the island, making sure there is space between us. I’m not sure I will be able to go ahead with my plan if he touches me. “Listen, Knox,” I start, “I can’t do this.” The minute I say the words, the color leaves his face. And I know he was not expecting me to say that.
“What?” he asks, the confusion on his face and in his question.
“This thing.” I point to myself and then to him. “It’s just not?—”
“It’s not what?” He folds his arms over his chest.
I have never felt this before, the overwhelming fear I do right now. “This was supposed to be fun.” The words I played in my head over and over the last couple of days vanish and I try to find the words. “And well, now it’s just not.”
“Don’t do this.” He shakes his head and starts to move around the island, and I move in the opposite direction, making sure I keep away from his touch.
“It is what it is, Knox,” I tell him, trying to get this out and over with. “It’s just not going to work out between us.”
“Kylie,” he says my name and my heart feels like someone just took it in their hand and ripped it straight out of my chest. I have the sudden need to hold my hand to my chest to stop the ache, but he’ll know. He’ll know I feel more than I should, and I can’t let him. I refuse to fall in love with him. I refuse to be more heartbroken than I am going to be right now. The longer this goes on, the harder it will be. “That’s fucking bullshit, and you know it.”
The sting starts in my eyes and then moves down to my nose. “What I know is, I’m telling you I’m not interested in this,” I swallow down, “or in you.” His face goes from ashen white to devastated all in a split second. I can’t take this any longer. I need him gone. I need him out of my space. “And you have to let it go.”
His eyes bore into mine and I take them in, making sure I remember them forever. He shakes his head. “You’re lying to yourself.”
“I’m not.” I shrug one shoulder. “I’m sorry.” I feel my bottom lip start to tremble and I bite down on it so hard I’m surprised I don’t start bleeding.
“Me too,” he replies, pushing off the island and turning to walk out of the room. I gasp silently as I hear the front door open and then slam shut. I put my hand in front of my mouth and breathe in heavily as the tears pool in my eyes, making it hard to see.
It takes a full minute before I rush to my sink and throw up the water I drank not too long before he got here. I dry heave a couple of times before turning back and walking to the couch. I turn off the television and the lights before heading to the bathroom. I avoid looking into the mirror as I brush my teeth and go through the motions of my routine.
Sliding into bed, I let go in the darkness as the first sob rips through me. My hand goes to the middle of my chest, hoping to stop the pain. I rub it around in a circle, hoping to ease the sting of my choice. “You had to do this,” I tell myself, “before he made you fall in love with him and it changed you. Love isn’t for you.” I repeat the words I’ve been telling myself since I was thirteen and heard my best friend at the time tell her mother she loved her for no reason but to say it, and she answered her back, “Love you to the moon and back.” It was then I realized I was never told that, never loved just because. I was told I love you with strings attached to it. I got the ‘I love you’ after I did what was asked of me. I close my eyes and it’s a big mistake, because all I see is his face. Not the face I’ve grown to think of, but instead the face of devastation I created. My eyes flutter back open. “Love isn’t for you,” I chant over and over again, hoping I believe it.
thirty-one
Knox
I walk out of her apartment, slamming the door behind me. The anger soars through me as I press the elevator button once, twice, three times, until all I’m doing is pressing the fucking button. My eyes go down to my hand instead of turning to look at her door.
The elevator comes and I press the lobby button. The minute the doors close, it sounds like what prison doors sound like when they are sealed shut. I walk out of her apartment building and get into my car, my body feeling numb.
I don’t even know how I make it home. When I step into my bedroom and collapse on top of my bed, I look up at the ceiling. The pain I feel is something I don’t think I’ve ever felt before. When I found Josephine in bed with Jeremy I was pissed and hurt, but it didn’t feel like my world was shattered, or rather I thought it was shattered at the time. But now, now that I’m here, I am having a hard time even breathing, let alone being able to do anything. I thought I was brokenhearted before, but that was a lie.
I don’t think my body can move, it feels as if I went in the middle of the road and played chicken with a truck and lost. I just let him run me fucking over. I turn on my side and sigh as I hear her words play over in my head, over and over again. “What I know is, I’m telling you I’m not interested in this or in you, and you have to let it go.”
I replay every fucking memory I have of the two of us, from the first fucking time I met her until the last time I kissed her. I replay the whole trip and all I see is her smiling face and her holding my hand. I see her asleep beside me. I see her fucking everywhere. If I knew it was the last time I was going to kiss her, I would have kissed her longer. I would have savored it more. If I knew the last time I was in bed with her was our last, I would have held onto her tighter. I wouldn’t have let her go. All I keep thinking is this can’t be happening. This can’t be happening.
I don’t sleep a fucking wink and when the alarm rings the next day, I shut it off. Then I make the mistake of going to my texts to see if she texted me that she was wrong. But all that’s there is my last text to her.
Me:
Landing at four. Want to have dinner with me?
I get up and head to the bathroom, washing my face before walking down the stairs and heading out to the rink. We have a mandatory practice today and I can’t miss it. I feel like death, and I’m pretty sure I look even worse.
