He doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink. And it tells me all I need to know—he kept it on purpose. I close my eyes, all my worst fears slamming into me at once.
This is it, I say to myself.We’re over.
“I wasn’t going to use it.”
I pry my eyes open and look up at him. “What?”
He crosses back toward me and sits on the coffee table. His long legs barely fit between us, his knees pressed firmly against mine, but I don’t care. I’m still reeling from what he just said.
He…wasn’t going to use it?Relief rushes through me, but it doesn’t quell all the chaos still happening inside me.
“I wasn’t going to use it, Clover. I swear I wasn’t.”
“Then why did you keep it?”
“Why did you leave?” He counters my question so effortlessly, and it makes sense. I’m sure those words have been sitting on the edge of his lips for years, begging to be set free.
They’re free now.
“You said before that it wasn’t my fault you left.” He scratches at the stubble lining his face. “Then why did you leave?”
“Because I needed to.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t get it. You’re going to have to spell it out for me a little more than that.”
I sigh, trying to sort out where to even begin. For the millionth time, I wish there were an easy answer to what led to the decision, but there isn’t. It’s as complicated as all the feelings I have swirling within me.
“What happened to us?” he says, his voice breaking on the last word, and I can feel my eyes begin to sting. I blink it away, refusing to cry. “Where did everything go wrong?”
“I don’t know. I think it might have been broken from the start. I thinkIwasbroken.”
His jaw slackens, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing, then he shakes his head. “But you’re not. Don’t you get that? You’re not broken. You’re just…” He sighs. “Fuck, Clover, you’re just mine.”
I smile softly, picking at an invisible piece of lint on my leggings. “You never could pick out any of my faults.”
“That’s because to me, you don’t have any.”
“But how is that healthy, Callum?” I ask, looking at him. “How can you say there isn’t anything about me that you don’t like?”
“Is that what you want me to do? You want me to pick you apart? Want me to tell you you’re not good enough? Confirm all your worst fears?” He scoffs, shaking his head. “I’m not doing that. I’llneverdo that because it’s not true. None of it is true. All those voices you hear in your head saying you’re not good enough? They’re fucking lying. Youaregood enough. You don’t need to change yourself. You don’t need to ‘be better,’ whatever the hell that means. And you really don’t have to doanythingyou don’t want to. Not for me and sure as hell not for anyone else.”
He doesn’t have to clarify that he’s talking about my parents deciding my future for me all those years ago. I hear him loud and clear.
“So, no, I’m not going to sit here and let you tell me all the things I’m not supposed to love about you because those things don’t exist, not to me.”
“But they exist tome, Callum. Just because you tell me you love me doesn’t mean I automatically love myself. Just becauseyou say I’m smart, it doesn’t mean I don’t feel like the dumbest person in every room I walk into, because I know how hard I had to struggle to keep up in school. It doesn’t mean I don’t know I’ll never be as clever as my parents, and just because you say I’m beautiful, it doesn’t mean I’m not aware of what other people say about me when they see someone like meon your arm.”
His eyes flare at the reminder of the words uttered about me so long ago, the ones I’ve never forgotten, not for a single second.
His knuckles turn white as he grips the table. “Fuck, I wish I could bash that guy’s face in.”
“I know. I know you do, and you have no idea how much I love it. When you stuck up for me back then, I should never have been mad at you for losing the game. I should have thrown my arms around your neck and told you right then that I loved you. But I didn’t. I was so damn embarrassed and scared, and all I wanted was to be worthy of you. To be worthy of my parents. To beenough.”
His face crumples, and he slides off the table, dropping to his knees and pushing between my own. He cups my face, wiping at the tears I feel rolling down my cheeks.
“Is that what drove you away? Not feeling like you’re good enough?”
“Yes. No. I’m not sure.” I take a deep breath. “All I know is that I felt…I felt stifled. I felt like I was looking through a glass window, watching my life pass by. I was living it, but I wasn’t really in it. And that would have been such an easier pill to swallow if you weren’t so amazing.”
