AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Of course I have. I let myself pretend we were something real to each other more than I acknowledged the truth. He made it so easy to.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “We can’t do this, Theo. We don’t know how.”
But more than that, I’m so tired of being the one left behind. Physically, emotionally, mentally. There are lots of ways to walk away from someone. I wonder if it was an easy choice for my father to make, to put his wants before my mother’s. Before mine. If it was easy for Ben to put me on the back burner when someone better came along, knowing on some unconscious level that I’d take any scrap he offered me as gold.
I don’t want to hurt Theo the same way I’ve been hurt. But I want to save myself from the pain of loving and losing him more than I want to protect him from the pain of losing me now.
“This is what you meant the other day.” He’s looking at me with a sudden, horrifying realization. “When you said trust had nothing to do with this. You didn’t mean that you don’t trust me. You don’t trust us.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I tell him. “You’ve been everything to me, Theo. So much more than I deserve. I just can’t give you what you want.”
“You’re what I want,” he says, steadfast, breaking me all over again. “I trust you. I have real feelings for you. I’m not expecting anything more from you than what you’ve already given me. Despite how we started and everything you might think now, what we have has been more than just sex, more than casual, more than ‘no expectations’ for a long time now. It has been for me at least. And you can’t convince me you don’t feel the same.”
We’re at an impasse, because while he might be right, I know in my bones we can’t have a real relationship. I rise from my seat and race into the dark, searching for the exit through muscle memory. Theo calls my name from behind me, but I don’t turn around. I find the side entrance and push open the glass, running out into the empty parking lot.
I stop once I reach Theo’s car. A moment later, the library door crashes open. Theo’s long legs eat up the space as his eyes spot me across the lot. He slows his pace, but his chest is rising and falling fast.
“I thought you were running,” he says as he approaches, shoulders slumped in relief.
“I was.” He bypasses the driver’s side and comes straight to me. I take a step back from him, and he halts immediately.
Those blue eyes turn keen as he searches my face, assessing. He takes a careful step forward, and when I don’t move he takes another. I’m prevented from turning away when his hands cup my cheeks, locking me in place. My stomach flips, heart racing so fast I start to feel faint.
“What are you so scared of?” he asks finally, voice so low I barely hear it.
I close my eyes with a sigh. My hands come up to his wrists, gently prying his from my face. “I’m sorry, Theo,” I finally say, because it’s all I can. “Can you take me home?”
He doesn’t respond for the longest time. Finally, he lets out a shaky breath and says, “This isn’t how I saw the night going.”
I look away from him, guilt burning through me for all sorts of reasons.
“Marcela—”
“Can we just go home, please?” I turn away, place my hand on the door handle. The last thing I want to do is talk. I know I’ll have to face him eventually, but not now. Not when my emotions are churning a million different ways.
The car ride is tense with our silence—in his stubborn desire to break it, and my stubborn attempt to keep it. His eyes shift from me to the windshield every few seconds, assessing my mood for any changes. I force my attention away from him, out the passenger window. When we arrive at my apartment, I resist immediately running out of the car like I want to.
That proves to be a mistake when I raise my hand to open the door and Theo locks the doors with a whoosh. I glance over at him, stunned. His face is unreadable, as if he locked a part of himself away in addition to the car doors.
“We can’t end the night like this,” he tells me, scrubbing his face with a large hand. “Talk to me. What is it that’s really holding you back?” He reaches for my hand but hesitates to take it. Just hovers in the space between us, as if testing the air.
“We don’t have half a chance if we still have feelings for other people,” I say, and even though it’s true, it’s not quite the right answer to his question.
“I know.” He nods slowly. “We also don’t have a chance if we can’t trust each other.”
“I don’t know how to get there.” My voice is a whisper, an admission of failure. “And I don’t expect you to get over Alice completely, and especially not this quickly. Not when you’ve spent most of your life in love with her. And I… I’m still confused. About everything.” I shake my head. I’m admitting more of the truth than I want to. “It was different when it was just about sex and stopping each other from breaking up an impending marriage. When there weren’t all these… emotions between us.”
“What emotions, exactly?” he asks, expression opening just enough to let hope through again. I keep my mouth shut, and he blows out a frustrated breath. “You know, I almost ended this.” My head snaps up to look at him. “Before the double date. I didn’t want to lie about how we started anymore, and I definitely didn’t want to sit through an entire dinner with Ben and Alice. I wanted to end it the moment I’d made up my mind, but you didn’t answer your phone. I even passed by your apartment before I came to your work. I thought I might lose my nerve if I waited any longer.”
I knew it.
All week, he’d been dodging my messages and I knew it had to be for a reason. I was right that he’d almost walked away from this. When that cryptic message lit up my lock screen, can we talk, I’d sensed it.
“Maybe you should’ve,” I say. “That’s what I thought you were there for. I tried so hard not to be mad at you for ignoring me, and then you showed up out of the blue to dump me on a night I worked so hard to plan.” That’s when I caught myself falling for him, despite knowing better. I almost let myself believe we could be something real before he reminded me how dangerous thoughts like that were. Told myself that trusting him would only lead to more heartache, more abandonment issues on top of the ones I already live with.
“Instead, you strong-armed me into acting out a scene in front of all those teenagers.” His mouth turns up at the corner, lips forming a sad smile.
“It was the only punishment I could think of on the spot.” I shrug. “Except, I think you enjoyed it too much.”
