I will my feet to take me inside and close the door behind me. “Hi,” I let out, my voice uneven.
My heart clutches when he doesn’t answer. He’s supposed to say “Hi” back. It’s our thing.Come on, Andy. Fix the mess.
“We need to talk,” I bravely say.
“I have to leave in ten minutes for a dinner meeting.” His icy tone is hard to bear, but I can work with this. He’ll forgive me for how I reacted, just like I’m forgiving him.
“It’s a longer talk, but we can start it now and get back to it whenever you’re ready?” I propose. He hesitates, his impregnable expression cracking for an instant to reveal doubt.
“I have things I need to prepare for it.”
Fuck… He doesn’t want me here. Lex being so reluctant isn’t something I expected. What am I supposed to do? Force it on him? Tie him up and make him listen to me?
Finally moving away from the door, I take a few steps toward him. “Lex, I just… I’m sorry. I overreacted a little, and I think we should talk because I can’t—”
He interrupts me with a raised hand and stands from his chair. “I’m going to stop you right here. We both got carried away, and I am as much to blame if not more.” A faint, distant glimmer of hope makes its way into my mind. “I told you from the start I wasn’t cut out for relationships, and I somehow forgot that fact along the way.”
What? No. This isn’t what I want. He can’t be putting the entire thing in the balance.
“You knew as much as I did that I would eventually hurt you. The unavoidable happened, and I think we should leave it at that, Andrea,” he says, his face as neutral as ever.
Leave it at that? Is he breaking up with me? Shit, how can words hurt so much? Whatever’s left of my confidence crumbles into tiny shards.
“Lex, no… We both got hurt, but we can grow past it and keep what we have,” I insist, my voice trembling slightly. I’m slowly losing it, already about to tear up.
“And then what? What happens the next time I hurt you? When we’re even further down the path?”
“You don’t have to hurt me. We don’t have to hurt each other.”
“I don’t know how to do that. I can’t be the man you want me to be.”
“But I don’t want you to be another man. I want you as you are.”
He lets out a small sigh as if irritated by my insistence. What the fuck is happening? Why doesn’t he want to fix things?
“I’m not built for this. I can’t do the whole romance, and dates, and flowers…”
“What we have is different from your other relationships,” I protest.
“Why?”
Because we’re in love.
“You knowwhy, Lex.”
He tenses all over, his brows knitted together. “I should have ended this sooner, but I warned you it would end this way, Andrea—with you hurt.”
“The fuck kind of answer is that?!”
“What do you want me to say?”
He sounds annoyed, almost angry at me. “I don’t fucking know, Lex! Say you want to be with me. Say you love me.”
Instead of answering, he clenches his jaw, looking down at me with determination. The obstinate asshole won’t say it. Anger rises from inside of me as I want to curse his stubbornness. He’s holding his ground, refusing to open up and admit I’m right.
“I’m sorry you got so involved in this,” he says coldly.
I’m about to protest again, but then an unwelcome thought claws its way into my mind. What if I’m wrong? What if he never loved me?
