“No, it’s what’s best for you.”
“You don’t know what’s best for me.”
“I’m not what’s best for anyone. Especially not you. You deserve more than this. You deserve to have everything I can never give you.”
“Fuck you, Lex. What if I don’t want more? What if I don’t want whatever you can’t give me?” she argues. “You can’t decide for me what I want and need… It’s my decision.Mylife.”
“And it’s mine, too. You might think you know who I am, Andrea, but you don’t.”
“That’s because you don’t tell me anything! I learned more in fifteen minutes with your sister than I did in weeks with you! And in spite of that, I know plenty. I know you can be cold, and I know you can be so fucking arrogant at times. You hate being around people, and crowds make you uncomfortable. You love being right, which you almost always are, and you hate having to argue to prove your point. I know you’re loving and caring, even though you pretend to be so detached all the time. And you’ll sit with me for a three-hour movie because it makes me happy. Oh, and you will let me believe you enjoy disco music for the same reasons.”
Every crack in her voice is a tear in my resolve. The way she looks at me, with so much hurt and pain, is unbearable. It was hard enough to stay away from her when she thought I didn’t want her. But now…
“I know a lot of the bad, Lex,” she continues, with a small, broken voice. “But the good always outweighed it ten times over.”
“But it won’t last, Andrea. As much as I want to, I can’t change. I’ve been trying for over twenty years. It’s in my fucking brain, it’s the way Iam, and I won’t let it hurt you again,” I explain, confessing my greatest, deepest shame—the painful reality of my divergent brain.
“You hurt me more when you rejected me over and over, Lex. That’s life. We get hurt, and we move on. But we learn from it, and we do better.”
“I have too many flaws, too many issues, too many problems. It’s better if you get over me now, when it’s still easy.”
“But it isn’t easy. Getting over you has been the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
Fuck…I don’t know what to say to that. My heart aches for her because I know exactly what she means. I’ve been living through the same pain.
“Do you want me out of your life forever?” she asks.
“It’s what’s best for you.”
“That’s not my question, Alexander. What doyouwant?” She steps closer, pulling me a little deeper under her spell.
“What I want doesn’t matter.”
“So, if what I want doesn’t matter, and what you want doesn’t matter… Then what does?”
“That you’re okay, and safe, and happy.”
Her pleading eyes grow shiny with tears, and while I command my feet to take me a couple of steps back, my body won’t obey.
“I’ve never been happier in my life than when I was with you,” she confesses, a single tear rolling down her freckled cheek. “And I’ve never been more miserable than without you.”
She wipes the tear away with her palm, squares her shoulders, and meets my eyes with a newly found determination. “So, you tell me, Lex. Tell me you don’t want me in your life, and I’ll respect that. You’ll never see me again after today.”
No, that wasn’t the deal. Casting her out of my life was never an option. I can’t live with that. My lack of answer has her anger rising from its ashes.
“You’re such a fucking coward,” she angrily mutters, shoving my chest with flat hands. “Say it!” she demands, slamming her hands onto me harder. “You say it, Alexander!” Another tear topples over with her next shove. “I’m not letting you take the easy way out. You need to say it!”
My hands act before I can stop them, grabbing her wrists to hold them out of harm’s way. “You think any of this is easy?!” I roar, all my contained emotions releasing at once. “It’s takingeverything! But I can’t let my feelings take over and ruin you!”
“Then fucking say it!” she fights back, her wrists still trapped by my iron grip. “Say you want me out of your life forever, and I’ll fucking go!”
“I can’t!”
“Why?!”
“Because I fucking love you!” I blurt out, pushed to the precipice by her stubbornness. Her eyes widen with surprise at the words, her lashes fluttering. I should never have said that, and I shouldn’t say more, but it’s as though she tore down the dam that kept everything in. “I should tell you to go, I shouldbegyou to, but I can’t because I’m a fucking coward! And I wish I could make you leave and never look back. But what the fuck do I have to look forward to, then? My life has no meaning unless you’re in it, even from afar, even—”
She tugs at her hands with strength, forcing me down several inches since I’m still holding her wrists, and in the same motion, she rises to her toes. I’m not ready for it when her lips crash with mine. But then, when have I ever been ready with this woman?
