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This wasn’t okay. He wasn’t free. He belonged to someone else.
“Bliss,” he began, and I shook my head no. He didn’t need to say anything.
“That was wrong,” I told him. He already knew it and maybe that had been what he was going to say. But I needed to be the one to say it. Hearing him confess that this kiss had been a mistake wasn’t something I could handle at the moment. My heart was taking a serious beating because reality had suddenly set in.
“Nothing about that was wrong,” he argued, taking a step toward me. I took a step back.
“Stop. Don’t. Yes, it was,” I said. Although I didn’t agree with him, those words soothed me as much as they pained me. He wasn’t saying he’d made a mistake. I was thankful for that, even if it was selfish.
“Bliss, look at me,” he pleaded. I didn’t think that was a good idea. If I saw those eyes and those lips of his I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t throw myself at him. He wasn’t mine to touch. To enjoy. He wasn’t mine to laugh with and kiss. He wasn’t mine to hold. He was someone else’s and I’d kissed him.
The worst thing about it was I didn’t regret it. I should feel ashamed. Terrible. I was an awful human being but I did not care. I wouldn’t give that kiss up for anything. I’d just live with my crime. My character flaw. Who was I kidding, I had a lot of flaws, but now I knew I had a really major defect. I’d become “the other woman.”
“You should go,” I said, still looking down.
He sighed and I heard him let out a frustrated growl. “I can’t, this isn’t . . . fuck!” He wasn’t making complete thoughts but I understood every word. I felt it too. Even the curse word at the end. “There’s something there. Something between us. Always has been, since the first time I saw you. But that something is scary as hell. What I have now . . . it’s easy.” His last word trailed off like he had admitted something he was ashamed of.
My heart was already broken but it was shattering as we stood there. We did have something. A connection that drew me to him. Made me want to be close to him. He made my world brighter. I’d thought that was because of my limited experience with guys but he felt it too. It wasn’t just me.
That didn’t change anything though. He wanted easy. I wasn’t easy. Was it because I had been sick? I wasn’t sick anymore. Again, with people seeing me as the sick girl. I hated that. I didn’t want to be labeled that by anyone especially Nate.
“I’m not sick . . . I am clear of any cancer,” I said the words lifting my eyes to meet his. “I have been for almost four years. “
He frowned and studied me a moment. Like he didn’t understand anything I’d just said.
The door behind me opened. I turned to see Eli. “You good?”
He was worried. We’d been out here longer than I expected. Eli had probably been pacing in front of the door waiting on me to return. He was good like that. He hadn’t once treated me like the sick girl. Even when I had no hair and spent my days too sick to keep down food.
“We’re fine,” I assured him.
He didn’t look convinced but he waited a second then reluctantly closed the door. He’d want a complete recap of this and I wouldn’t be able to give it to him. I couldn’t tell him I’d kissed another woman’s fiancé. Because he’d expect me to feel remorse. Admit my fault. And I couldn’t. If it was anyone else, I would, but not Nate. First, he’d been mine, not Octavia’s.
“I know you’re clear of cancer. Why are you telling me that now?”
Because he said I wasn’t easy. He wanted easy. Didn’t he remember what he had said? “You said I was scary and you wanted easy.”
His eyes looked sad as my words sank in. Then he took a step toward me and I didn’t move back this time. I was deciding I might not care about the fact he wasn’t free. I was a hussy. Or at least becoming one.
“That’s not what I meant,” he replied. “My life . . . the way I feel for you is intense. It’ll never be easy.”
“So you want to feel what?”
“Free. Without attachment.”
He wanted to feel nothing. He didn’t want to chance the pain to experience the great. He was a coward. He didn’t love Octavia. He loved how simple it was with her. She was never around and she didn’t seem to want to talk to him much. That wasn’t a relationship. That wasn’t what my parents had. And I wanted what they had. Every girl dreamed of that kind of devotion.
