Ian
Present
Iopen the garage door and pull my bike out.
“You let me go.”
Her voice almost gives me a stroke, making me nearly drop the bike to the ground.
She’s sitting on the pavement in front of my house. Her hair flows freely over her shoulders, tousled and she’s taken off her shoes, her feet bare on the concrete.
I go to her and extend my hand to her to help her stand up but she refuses, turning the other way.
“That night, at your house.”
“God, Riley…”
“You touched me, you kissed me and then you didn’t want me. You really threw me a curve ball.”
I take a deep breath, ready to tell her the truth about all these years and my silence, my presence, that night and my insane fear. About what I know I shouldn’t have known.
But then what I see in her eyes makes me understand quite instantly that no, I can’t risk losing her, not before having given it my best effort. Not before laying myself bare before her. Not before I give her the best I have to offer.
“These years of friendship, being close, moments we’ve spent together…They were consuming me, Ian. I couldn’t even think about anything that wasn’t you.”
I swallow hard.
“I was ready to let you into my life, to let you dig your hands into my past and become part of me.”
In her voice, I hear anger, resentment and a lot of bitterness – the same bitterness that burns my stomach now.
“And you told me you couldn’t give me anything. That I was a problem you didn’t want to have anything to do with. And that’s exactly what I expected from you.”
She looks at me again and I feel like I’m burning alive in the flames of hell.
“What I felt for you was so intense and terrifying and if I had let myself feel it, if I’d let my feelings show, all the rest of it would have followed it, don’t you get it?”
I nod. My legs are shaking.
“I was confused, scared, but I knew what I wanted. I really wanted it. Despite everything. But you destroyed what was left of my heart, instead.”
Fucking idiot.
“After that night, I couldn’t feel anything other than my immense loneliness. I was ready to be swallowed up into nothingness. I cancelled everything, I cancelled myself too and thought that I would sit in that emptiness forever. And then I saw you. Just a few minutes at the hospital was enough for me. Just to hear your voice was enough for me to set foot in your house again, and I thought that maybe all wasn’t lost, that we might be able to try again…” she whispers weakly, and I realise what a genuine bastard I’ve been, that I didn’t consider for a moment what she might have been thinking in that situation, about her internal struggle.
“And when we were together…I panicked. I felt crushed, I didn’t have enough air. It was so…it was too much. You wanted everything and you wanted it right that minute because that’s how you are. You’re a taker, Ian. You demand things.”
“It’s not like that. I’m not that man, Riley, not anymore. I could never be that man with you.”
“You left me,” she cuts me off.
“What?” I asked confused.
She gets up and gathers her shoes from the floor.
“You said you wouldn’t have done it.”
I look at her intensely because I don’t know what she’s talking about.
