Page 155 of Make Me Mean It

I look at Connor, and my chest aches so badly I can barely breathe around it.

“You were mine,” I say.

It comes out softer than everything else, some part of me still believing it.

Connor’s face crumples, and I hate that I still want to fix that too.

My throat burns.

“And you were fucking worth it.” I swallow hard, holding his gaze even when mine starts to blur. “All of it.”

My gaze drops because looking at Connor feels like it might split me open completely. He’s too close, his face still carrying that fucking look that makes some stupid part of me want to believe this hurts him as much as it hurts me.

He steps forward, and my hand comes up, pressing flat against his chest to stop him. His warmth seeps into my palm, his heart beating hard beneath it, and I have to lock my elbow to keep the distance there when everything in me wants to do the opposite.

“Don’t do this, Theo,” he says, his voice wavering, panic threading through it now.

I shake my head slowly, swallowing against the ache lodged in my throat. “The worst part is,” I manage, forcing the words through it, “you were never even mine. Not really.”

Fuck, that hurts.

It fucking hurts because somewhere along the way, I’d started thinking he was. Maybe not in any way Connor would ever admit to, but in all those moments nobody else got to see.

I’d taken all of it and made him mine in my head.

“You were too busy trying to be perfect,” I continue, the words coming faster now that I’ve started, everything I’ve been swallowing for weeks finally forcing its way out. “Too busy making sure you fit exactly where you were supposed to, that you didn’t even realise I never asked for that.”

My breath catches, chest pulling tight enough that I have to stop for a second.

Connor’s expression shifts, but I don’t let myself look at it too closely.

“I never wanted you to be perfect, Connor.” The anger bleeds out of my voice as I say it, leaving something rawer behind, something I can’t hide beneath a smirk or a shitty joke. “I just wanted you to be mine."

It hangs between us, heavy and exposed, and I can feel every part of me that wants to snatch it back before Connor can do anything with it.

I look away instead, fixing my gaze somewhere over his shoulder because I can’t hold his anymore.

“I might not be worth much,” I say, somehow managing to keep my voice steadier than the rest of me, “but I’m worth more than this.”

I let my hand fall from his chest and start to step back, but Connor’s fingers close around my wrist before I can get anywhere.

My head snaps up.

For one second, the softness in his face nearly fucking ruins me. My chest pulls toward it before the rest of me can catch up, that same pathetic instinct telling me to let him drag me back in. To take whatever he gives me and stop asking for the one thing he keeps telling me he can’t.

I harden before I can.

“Don’t,” I grit out, wrenching my wrist from his grip.

His fingers stay suspended between us for a second, curling slightly like he’s fighting the urge to reach for me again.

“Just stay away from me.”

My voice shakes on the words and I fucking hate it. Hate how badly I want to take them back the second they’re out. Every part of me is pulling toward him, screaming at me to close the space again, to grab him, kiss him, tell him I didn’t mean it.

But I did.

I do.