“I was trying to be nice.”
The hair on my arms begin to rise because, speaking of storm, I can feel something forming that I’m certain I’m not ready for when it comes tohim.
Not his ex.
Not my job or Principal Simpson.
I didn’t build myself up for that.
“Micah,” I begin, feeling my heart race faster. “I won’t be a burden?—”
“You already are,” he reprimands with a glare so unwarranted and cruel that I feel my body curl into itself. “You show up here, uninvited. I haven’t spoken to you in over a week, so I would’veassumed, with you being a teacher and all, that you knew how to read the room.”
My lips part in equal parts shock and the will to want to refute that fact, but he’s right.
Micah, technically, doesn’t owe me anything, and we wereneverin a relationship, just the beginning stages of one.
I just didn’t think he’d dothis.
I’m not one to keep going back and forth on something over and over again, nor do I beg for someone to be with me if I’m notgood enoughfor their time, but…this feels different.
“I thought you didn’t ghost,sweetheart,” I choke, wanting it to come out more forceful and confident. “You showup.”
But everything about thishurts.
Meanwhile, Micah’s nostrils flare, but one little tip of his chin and I know he’s not going to give me what I want.
And that’s a recant of everything he just said because he can’t let me go.
He doesn’twantto let me go.
“Don’t mock me,” he lightly chides. “Shit’s happened since then.”
“What kind of?—”
“Sienna,” he clips out, an indication that he’s losing his patience. “Please…leave, baby.”
Have some self-respect.
Leave, Sienna.
“Is that…your final answer?”
I can’t believe I’m asking the question, but I can’t seem to get myself off his porch.
And I also can’t seem to let this go.
“Yeah,” Micah drones. “It is. Happy?”
Happy.
Right.
Wow…I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. I thought he was different, and I convinced myself otherwise.
I’ve had shitty boyfriends in the past, but none that have been so damn blunt in their responses. They’d lead me on until I couldn’t ignore what was right in front of me.
Micah, however, knows what he’s willing to do and not do.
