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“Are you gonna try and push me again?” His tone is seething, consequential to my actions. And rightfully so.
“No, Jax. I’m not going to push you again.” I roll my eyes though I know I have no right to be sarcastic in any manner. He just made me so fucking angry that my first instinct was to shove him away.
Jax loosens his grip on my wrists but before letting me go completely, he leans into the back of my neck. I can feel his breath hit my ear as he lowers his head, his shadow closing me in.
“Don’t fucking do that again, Hollis.” His whisper sends shivers down my spine in a way that should not be felt. It’s teetering the edge of euphoria and sin, which may go hand in hand.
But the way he handled me mixed with the way his husky voice feathered over my skin, it left me compliant and very…turned on.
He lets me go, and I shake my hands trying to rid myself of his searing, addictive touch. His skin on mine is fucking dangerous and it doesn’t help that I practically melted when he threw me up against my own fucking house moments ago.
“What triggered that?” he asks, knowing damn well that he saw the flip in my eyes that I felt.
I can’t believe I let my fucking cards show in front of him like that. This is what I’m talking about, why I need him as far away from me as possible. He does something to me that shouldn’t be done, and I have no way to control it or even tell him that he infuriates me.
How do I tell a man whom I haven’t seen in a decade—someone who was my best friend before I made him the ghost of my past, the person who made me into a shell of a lost soul because he pushed me away when I felt courageous enough to be myself—that I can’t be near him because fighting my attraction for him makes me irate but I don’t want to feed into it because he didn’t even give me the chance to open up?
“Hollis, please.” Jaxon reaches out for me, but I step away again. I can’t let him touch me, not unless he’s willing to accept everything that he made me feel and do right by it.
But that’s too much to ask of someone who accepted the loss of me like I was nothing and now, wants to go back to beingjustfriends.
“Jaxon, I’m sorry I pushed you. That shouldn’t have happened. But I can’t talk to you about any of this anymore. I…” I look up into the sky as I feel the slightest bit of pooling start to blur my eyes. Tears threatening the waterline of my eyes. It’s not going to happen. I can’t do that to myself and he doesn’t deserve to see my pain.
Pain that I suppressed for years because it hurt too much.
“I really think it’s best that we let this go.” I wave my hand between the two of us. I need to walk away completely or be prone to the tornado of events that will happen if I allow myself to get too close to him.
I don’t want to risk another decade of heartbreak. I can’t do it.
“Hollis, that’s not fucking fair. I can tell I’ve fucked you up somehow. And I tried to think back to that one night that you mentioned. But when I think I have it figured out, I second guess myself because I don’t want to assume what I think you felt. I need to know why you felt the need to block me from your life and why you continue to try and push me away.” Jax’s tone is now dismal. I can hear the genuine care that he has for trying to break my silence.
But again, I’m too fucking stubborn to let that happen. And that’s the most toxic thing about me and I honestly fucking hate it.
Why can’t I just let it out? Why won’t I just fucking say it?
You broke my heart. And here’s why. Dot. Dot. Dot.
It shouldn’t be that fucking hard. I should tell him the truth and maybe it’ll make me feel better about everything.
My last therapist told me that I should forgive him and that maybe it’ll feel like a giant boulder being lifted off my back. But I can’t forgive someone who hasn’t apologized. And he can’t apologize if I don’t tell him what he did to hurt me in the first place. And I can’t tell him because that would mean that I’d be giving up the ounce of control that I have on the situation, which is to not forgive him.
So I run this circle of stubborn-fueled toxicity around in my head because it’s easier that way than for me to admit that one time in a stupid closet, my best friend rejected my stupid crush on him and left the state the next day and my entire stupid life felt worthless in that moment and every day after that just got harder and harder to navigate. Because how pathetic is it to admit that it fucked with me so badly that I almost felt like giving up?
“Hollis, please. I want to get to know you. This new you. I want the chance to possibly start over and maybe see where it takes us.” I know exactly how he feels. I feel that way too. He’ll never understand why I have to say no, so I need to make this easier for the both of us.
“That’s a lot to ask of me right now Jax,” I respond, trying to figure out a way to get him to back off completely.
“Well, I’m asking anyway,” he says. He sounds defeated but yet he still persists. And I know he won’t give up, but he has to.
I’ve bottled up too much emotional damage from this one person and letting it all unleash will be like letting the Devil into Heaven.
I don’t know if I’ll survive it.
I know, it might sound dramatic. But mental health runs in all different shapes and sizes and right now, my depression has been linked to that night for as long as I let it. Who’s to say one small little trigger won’t have it all flooding back in, leaving me weak to my past once again.
So I need to rip-cord anything with Jaxon Monroe as fast as I can.
“Well, I’m telling you that you need to leave me alone, Jaxon. I’m serious. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to work through it. And I don’t want to move on from it. I want you to drop it and walk away.” I raise my voice hoping that he’ll hear the graveness and sternness laced in my tone. My lip actually quivers as I look him in his eye for what seems like the first time in forever.
