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I don’t know what made me more upset, the fact that she seemed more resigned than upset about everything or that she was ending it. Neither felt good, but I was grasping for a target for my own anger. “I took you out, I thought we understood each other.”
“I did too,” she flashed another of those not quite a smile, smile and leaned back against the wall, determined to keep her distance. “But then you took me as far away as you could without leaving Texas, to avoid anyone seeing us together. That’s when it clicked. That’s when I knew that you hadn’t changed your mind at all, you just found a way to get exactly what you wanted without giving up anything.”
“Hey, I never made you any promises.” My anger now had a target and I aimed a finger in her direction, warning her not to paint me as the bad guy.
“You never did, no.”
Damn, that was totally unsatisfying. “So what did I do wrong?”
“Nothing. I wanted you Ben, all of you, even if it would’ve made working together messy. I would have risked it. For you. But you don’t feel the same way and I can’t pretend not to see it. I can’t let your constant subtle rejection break me. I won’t.”
“I’m not rejecting you, Joss. I’m protecting us both.”
“I never asked for your protection. What I want you won’t give, so let’s just not do this part. We had a good time together and I don’t think we should end this on a nasty note.”
“You knew you would do this when I showed up, didn’t you?” She nodded and I felt…gutted for some reason. “So why did you sleep with me? To drive the knife deeper when you told me to get lost?”
Joss’ head fell forward, her blond hair covering her expression but not the heavy sigh she let out before her blue gaze met mine. “Because I love you, Ben. I can’t resist you and we both know that. I had to have you one last time.”
One last time. It sounded so final and I hated that. “You can’t resist me but you’re kicking me out?”
“I have to protect myself. I can’t give you just the part of me that you want, it doesn’t work that way.” She looked away and swiped at a tear, a move that felt like a roundhouse kick to the gut. “But don’t worry, I won’t make things awkward at work. I promise.”
“I’m not-,” I was about to tell her I wasn’t worried about that, but it was a lie and the sad smile that crossed her face said she knew it. “I appreciate that, Joss, but I didn’t think you would.”
“Now you have a guarantee. Life can go back to normal.” She pushed off the wall and finally closed the distance between us, dropping a chaste goodbye kiss on my cheek and giving my shoulder a squeeze before she disappeared into her bedroom, closing the door with a gentle click that felt like a boom.
I wanted to go to her, to argue that she was wrong about everything but the tears in her eyes let me know it was pointless. I’d hurt her and she was done with me.
For good.
I got dressed and left, feeling like I’d just lost out on something really great but I didn’t know what.
Joss
I did the right thing. For both of us. I knew it to be true, well my head knew it to be true but my heart just wasn’t sure. So whenever those nasty little thoughts started to work their way to the foreground and distract me from work or chores, or anything really, I told myself that. I did the right thing.
The problem was that forty-eight hours after the fact, Ben Rutherford was all I could think about. It was inevitable because we worked together, and seeing him every day wasn’t easy, but I knew it wouldn’t be. I had fallen in love with a man who would never return my feelings, and worse, was perfectly happy to keep me in limbo until he was ready to venture out into the world and find his very own happily ever after.
That sounds bitter. It did, I could acknowledge that, but I felt no shame in that face because I was bitter but not angry. I was bitter because things had played out exactly as Mara had predicted but it was my fault for succumbing to the same thought patterns that led millions of women to think that they were special, that they would defy the odds. That they wouldn’t become part of the statistic. It wasn’t Ben’s fault and as much as that made this whole situation ironic, I refused to be the angry ex.
Even though I wasn’t, technically, his ex-anything.
But I had managed two full days of maximum avoidance, only catching glimpses of Ben throughout the school day, and I considered that a win. A big one, since I managed to make it to the end of soccer practice without another glimpse of him, which meant I hadn’t seen him since lunchtime. A big damn victory.
