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I nod, because I know.
In all the years I’ve known him, Jeremy’s not once cracked himself open for me like this. I mean, sure he’s confided in me before, but there’s something…different about this time. It’s like I can finally see through that wall he keeps around himself. The one I’ve gotten so used to being there, that at some point over the years, I stopped wondering what hides behind it.
And it makes me wonder…
How long? How fucking long have I been such a clueless idiot? How did I not see this?
Moments flash behind my eyes.
All the times I’ve crawled into his bed, seeking comfort in his arms. His orbit…
Us dancing at prom…the promises I made him.
Him visiting me in the hospital when I overdosed…
“Did you even, for one fucking second, think about what this would do to me?”
“I can’t lose you too…”
The way he kissed me back…like he was starved. I remember that now. I remember his desperation. I remember mine.
And then outside the diner…
How he shoved me and screamed at me.
“You called me by her name!”
“It’s always about her…Mason and Izzy…”
“I’m so fucking sick of being in the middle of it. I didn’t ask for this!”
Bile races up my throat.
Oh God.
What have I done?
“And you’re probably wondering why now, today of all days, and here of all places, and…and I guess it’s because I realized that, I can only move forward—from Izzy—heal…if I let you go too. Set you free.”
My breath hitches painfully, tears flooding my eyes. I clamp down on my molars to keep from letting out so much as a whimper.
“I don’t wanna lose you forever, but I don’t know how to keep you right now. In any capacity. I can’t just be friends. Not anymore, not after?—”
“I kissed you,” I whisper, the words wrenching out of me, broken and raw.
His expression tightens, and he nods.
Heart pounding, I don’t think. I just speak. “Maybe…maybe we?—”
“Don’t.”
I frown. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.”
He huffs a soft, bitter laugh. “You forget how well I know you, Mason. But this is something that’s beyond your fixing. I know you’ve been…confused. I know everything’s gotten all twisted up between us—hell, sometimes even I wonder if this truly is love I feel for you, or if I am just clinging to the past.”
Sucking in my cheeks, I lower my gaze to some spot on his chest. The urge to tell him he’s wrong is there, sitting right on my tongue. But…
Is he wrong?
