“I hate you for waiting until I was finally,finallyin a healthy relationship, the first one I had hope for in my entire life, at twenty-four fucking years old, for you to start thinking maybe you want me, too. For the way you acted. Making a move on me.” She tilts her head to one side, thinking it over. “Twice, actually. Making me doubt my feelings for him. Throwing a damn tantrum. Coming between him and I, and breaking us up. I never did that to you, no matter how badly I wanted you for myself. How much better I knew you and I would be together than any of the girls you dated or hooked up with. And I don’t know if I can ever take whatever feelings you claim to have seriously, when all it looks like from here is you throwing a fit for wanting what you can’t have.”
She stares off into the distance, her eyes unfocused, while she breathes deeply for a good half a minute, and all I can do is stare, transfixed at this girl I’ve loved more than anything for all this time—even when I was too stupid to realize it—who I’ve hurt possibly beyond repair. I stay silent, because the least I can do is respect her wishes after all the times I didn’t.
“And the way you treated me as something disposable, attacked my professionalism, my character, at the same time as my friendship, after all the sacrifices I’ve made across my life foryou…” Her voice wavers now, she’s blowing a breath out that I canhearthe tremble in, and if I had a razor in hand, I might cut my own heart out to try to give it to her if it would help. I couldn’t begin to name the sacrifices she’s made for me, but her skipping out on her entire youth, her college experience, her chosen career path to be by my side, are the first things that come to mind.
“I never had a problem with you, with us, being all I had going for me in my life. Until you turned that against me, used it like a weapon to attack me with. Made me feel so fucking weak and stupid for it.” She takes a second to regain the stability in her voice. “But I don’t think you realize how hard it is to have a life outside of you, kid. The lengths I’d go to to protect you. How I can’t let anyone in, let anyone get close, in case they’re using me to get to you. How demanding our schedule was, how little time I had for anything else, even my own family. There wasn’t exactly a lot of room for growth in other areas of my life. And I never minded, Stone. Not once. Because I thought we were all each other needed. And I don’t think I’ll ever forgive you for taking that away from me.”
The hot burn of shame travels up my throat, all the way up to the backs of my eyes, where it tingles, moisture gathering and pooling there.
However badly you hate me right now? I promise you, I hate me more.
“But it’s been a good few months for me.Spencerwas good for me.” It feels like a torpedo went through my stomach, tearing me open from the inside, leaving a hole the width of my entire body in its wake. Surely I can’t recover from a wound like this, but when I look down, I’m somehow whole, in tact. It’s a lie.
“I got to find out more about myself, without you. Who I am on my own. Had some fun. Had a couple jobs. Even made some friends, I think. It’s been healthy for me. Last Sunday,after you gave me a fuckingMercedesand left, which I still think is ridiculous, by the way, I finally launched my designs. Haven’t sold anything yet, I guess I have to figure out how to market them.” She gives a little shrug, almost self-deprecating, but I had no idea she’d launched a fucking business on her own. I’m so goddamn proud of her. I want to hear all about it, see her designs, but continue biting my tongue instead of begging for anything more she’ll give me. “But it’s kind of cool to have something going on for me, just my own for once. Something I love.
“So as sweet as it is that you got me a car, and are bringing me coffee and lunch, and reading my favorite books…what I’m saying is that I’mhurt, Stone. And I don’t think that can be undone. But I wanted you to know what you’re working with. I wanted to be up front with you about the extent of my feelings. For once. It’s time for that. Because it’s alongway to go to get anywhere close to where we were before, to say nothing of taking things further, assuming that’s what you still want. So if you’re not all in on this, if you don’t mean those things you said to me that day—” she gestures behind her, inside her townhouse, where I said what I did, “—with everything you’ve got…I need you to walk away now. Not get my hopes upagain, because I won’t recover from another round with you.”
A noise finally escapes my chest—some sort of strangled sob—and I think she can hear the terror in it, the pure fear, because her eyes meet mine, and I know she can feel the panic emanating from me. I bolt out of my chair and drop to my knees in front of her, ignoring the biting cold of the cement through my jeans, the way it ravages my knees, the twinge it causes in my bad one, and I wrap my arms around her, bury myself in her the way I’ve been desperate to since she started talking; since she shut me out long before that, really.
My head is sideways, pressed flat to her chest, and for once there’s nothing sexual going through my mind at the feel of her body against mine. My arms are squeezing her tighter than they probably should, but I don’t know if she wants me to speak yet, and even if she said I could…I’m not sure I actually can right now.
So I show her with my body. I hold her, so fucking tight, my chest rattling as I attempt to take deep breaths, steadying myself against her with each shuddering inhale and eventual exhale. After a few rounds of those, she brings her arms up, out from under my grasp, and gingerly wraps them around my shoulders, holding me to her gently, but it calms me. This touch is the most honest thing I can offer her right now, and I hope she feels the sincerity in every beat of my heart as it’s pressed against her torso. Where I hope it stays for the rest of our lives. Because I’m never walking away from her again.
THIRTY
GEMMA
It felt better than I thought it would to get all of that off my chest. To tell Aaron everything I didn’t dream I could.
Not that it’s solved whatever the fuck is going on between us, but it’s certainly made me feel lighter—and I mean that physically. It’s like a literal load off my shoulders. The heaviness that has followed me around these past weeks and months, that’s only gotten worse as this rift between the two of us grew, it finally feels like it’s shrunk, significantly.
I’m not sure how long we stayed out there on my patio, him crying silently into my chest, holding me as tightly as I can ever remember him doing, me with my arms wrapped around him, my cheek pressed to the top of his head, my own soundless tears dripping into his soft brown hair.
Eventually, we both pulled back at the same time. It was like a catharsis, the two of us reconnecting physically after me coming clean on everything I’ve held back from him.
I know it wasn’t fun for him to hear those things, but it needed to be done. Needed to be said. Especially before I give in and hear whatever his side of things are—not that he’ll try to excuse his behavior, I don’t think he will after what I’ve seen from him lately, but when he shares whatever realizations he’shad… I’m not sure I’ll be strong enough to resist giving into him, if he really is jumping into this with both feet, as it seems like he is.
When he didn’t take me up on my offer to walk away, once and for all, my belief in him solidified. As much as I didn’t want to think that he’d truly become some callous creature, fueled only by jealousy and some temper tantrum of entitlement, I needed to know, without a doubt, that he is serious about this, about me, or us.
Between him respecting my wishes so wholeheartedly—showing up (respectfully) day after day, not badgering me for anything more than I’ve offered him these past weeks, leaving me my personal space, not coming into the house without permission, then his utter silence during my life story tonight…it tells me he’s matured. He’s seen how bad his behavior really was, and that he’s changed it.
Hopefully the thoughts in his head, whatever made that bullshit okay by his standards in the first place is fixed, too, but there’s only one way for me to find out.
I’m going to hear him out.
But before I do that, I want just a little bit of normalcy. Maybe just a smidge of what our lives were for so long. A few minutes where things aren’t so heavy between us.
So I invited Aaron inside, where we ordered some DoorDash and just shot the shit, catching up on life for the last forty-five minutes while we waited for our food to get here.
There’s a sense of ease between us, our conversation, that’s been missing for the last several months. It feelsrightagain, like it used to. Yes, we still have things to get out in the open, things to resolve, issues to tackle. But the foundation of our relationship has always been how well we get along, how we love to spend our time together, doing nothing, anything, everything together. And that’s what the last hour has been.
He’s filled me in on his parents, how they’ve been. I’ve never gone this long without seeing or talking to them myself, it’s been weird for me. Apparently they’ve got some news of their own. They’re trying to have another baby. They’re both around forty, and before it’s too late, they’ve decided they want to expand their family and are seeing a fertility specialist. The thought makes me happy. My parents had me when they were older in life, and with Aaron being born to teenage parents, I don’t think they ever really had the option to add to their family, they were too busy playing catch up, trying to stay on top of bills, and life, and growing up themselves while raising a child. Then, of course, their entire lives became supporting him and his dream. Moving to Atlanta, meetings, auditions, then prioritizing the jobs he landed, all around his school schedule. It was a full-time job for his mom, getting his career started. I hope she gets to live the life she wants now that most of her work with Aaron is done, she deserves it.
After some wheedling and begging on his part, I finally share my designs with him, showing him my Etsy storefront with my bookish clothing designs. He was more impressed than I think I deserve, but it was sweet. He offered to fund a hard launch of the company (marketing, PR, the works), asking first to just gift the funds, and when I turned that down, he asked to invest. I explained that I wanted to do something entirely on my own for once, but that I appreciated his support, and he told me I couldn’t stop him from buying some shirts. And thus I got my first sale. I thought he might get one or two shirts in his size, just to be supportive, but no. The jackass bought, like, fifty. He says he’s gonna bring ’em to the next bi-monthly romance book club at the library, which just confirms my worst fears that he could hear our discussions last week, and now I want to die.
It’s once the food has arrived and we’ve dug into our late dinners that I finally get the courage to ask him something that’sbeen eating away at me for the past two weeks he’s been hanging out at the library all day.
“Aren’t you supposed to be filming? Didn’tMidnight Empirego back into production?”
