“That’s…wow.” He squeezes the back of his neck, and I track the movement, paying extra attention to the cuts and bruises along his knuckles.
“Does it hurt?”
“Huh?” he asks.
I nod toward his hand. “Does your hand hurt? That fight was…rough.”
“You watched my game?”
“Of course I did. I haven’t missed one yet, and I wasn’t about to start now.”
His lips twitch. It’s subtle, but it’s there, and my shoulders relax an inch or two.
I take another step. “Does it hurt?”
“A little.”
“Are you going to get in trouble for it?”
“There’s a good chance I’m looking at a suspension.”
Another step. He notices.
I pause, and he tips his head to the side.
“Did you find it? Whatever you were looking for there, did you find it?”
I tilt my left hand back and forth. “Sort of. She helped shed light on things I’ve been struggling with for a long time, feelings I kept thinking I had no right to have. She helped me realize it’s okay, realize I’m allowed to not know myself and to keep searching for her.”
“And is that what you plan to do? Keep searching?”
“Yes.”
His shoulders drop, and fuck it, I cross the rest of the way to him. I don’t stop until I’m standing right in front of him. I tuck my finger under his chin, his stubble tickling me as I force his gaze upward.
“But I don’t want to do it alone. Not anymore.”
He gulps. “You…don’t?”
I shake my head. “No, and the worst part is, I don’t think I ever wanted to. I just didn’t know how to tell you that.”
Suddenly, he sags against me, and I struggle to hold his full weight, but I accept it anyway, wrapping my arms around him. I don’t know how I know it, but I know he’s crying, and I hate that he is. But I get it. I’m on the verge of tears myself.
I can’t cry, though. Not now. This isn’t about me. Not really.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly, and when he pulls away from me, his eyes are redder than I’ve seen before, his cheeks wet. I want to kiss all the hurt away, and I plan to. But first, I have some things I need to say to him.
“I was wrong to apply to that internship without telling you, and I was wrong before that too. I should have told you how I was feeling. I should have let you in and let you help me. I shouldn’t have tried to bury it and pretend it wasn’t happening.”
“Why didn’t you, Clover? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to burden you with my problems. At first, it was because I felt like I was being silly. I had no real reason to feel the way I did. You treated me so well. You told me you loved me every chance you got. And you never, ever made me feel like I was less than. You were perfect.”
He shakes his head. “But I wasn’t. I wasn’t because I knew. I fuckingknew. I knew something was going on with you, knew you were slipping away. I knew you weren’t truly happy, but I let you pretend. I let you keep me at arm’s length because at least it meant I got to keep you. I was as scared to rock the boat as you were, which means I’m just as guilty.”
It breaks my heart that he thinks he has any blame in all of this, but maybe…maybe he’s right. A relationship is a two-way street, and we didn’t communicate what direction we were moving in, so we were never in the same lane. We fucked this up together, even if we were apart.
“I wish you had said something. I wishIhad said something too. I feel like we wasted so much time by just…not talking,” he says, and I couldn’t agree more.
