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He’d stay if I asked him to…if I told him how badly I need him…
It’s the one thing I know with certainty, even if he can’t believe that I could ever want him in the way he wants me. Feel for him the way he feels for me.
And it would be for all the wrong reasons, if he stayed…
“I need time,” he says quietly. “Space. I don’t—I can’t wait until I leave in the summer for…for things to change. I need out now.”
Rolling my lips together, I nod. “So…no texting? Calling?”
He’s shaking his head. “Nothing. I…I need to move on. And I can’t exactly do that when every time I see your name appear on my screen, I’m pulled right back into your orbit.” He pauses. “I won’t be coming back to Shiloh?—”
“Ever?” I cut in, panic hitching my words. I already figured we wouldn’t be seeing each other in person for a while. But I guess I hoped we could still somehow…keep in touch, here and there.
But the idea of him never coming back here…
Of him never letting us see each other again—because really, that’s what I’m asking here.
It blinds me with fear. Desperation. All the things that make me spiral, and give into those vicious impulses. The ones that lead to stupid, unforgivable mistakes.
He straightens, his eyes widening at my harshly blurted interruption—at whatever he must see playing out across my face—but then they harden over with something akin to determination. Like he’s steeling himself.
“Not for a while,” he tells me firmly. “However long it takes. It’s not just Izzy haunting every inch of this place anymore, Mase. Or even the bad memories from when I was a kid. It’s…it’s you. Us. Everything we’ve been through over the years. Everything that has made it impossible to move on while simultaneously keeping you in my life, even at arm’s length.”
Tears once more burn at the back of my eyes, slowly, surely obscuring my vision.
“I need to know what it’s like to live without you. Just as I think you need to know what it’s like to live without me.” He takes a deep breath. “It’s the only way.”
Chewing my lip ring, I nod. “To save our friendship. To not lose each other completely.”
“Yeah.”
And staring into his glassy, amber eyes, open in a way I’ve never really seen them, but also carrying a fierce, driven quality to them that, well, reminds me of his sister…
I get it.
Why this is our only option.
“We’ve been going around in circles for months now, longer even, and all this spinning and spinning around…” His voice trails off on a whisper. “It’ll only end in disaster if we keep this up.”
Spinning…
Spinning.
A melody fills my head, clashing with the thundering of my heart.
“If there is any chance for us to find our way back to each other—as friends—and not as who we were, because those versions of us are gone. But to…form something new. Healthy…” He nods. “We gotta get off this ride. Reset.”
“I’ve gotta lose you,” I say with a near-unbearable thickness. It’s a wonder he even understands me at all.
He smiles, making his eyes squint, and he nods. “Yeah, you do.”
“But not forever. I refuse to let this be forever,” I rush out quickly. “Even if…even if you’re on the other side of the globe. I get that you need space right now, but?—”
“We’ll play it by ear. See where these next few months take me…us. But you have to wait until I’m ready. You have to give me this.”
Swallowing hard, I nod. “Okay,” I whisper. “Of course. Anything.”
Whatever it takes, I vow to myself.
