“I told you I’d wait,” I added quietly. “I meant that. You don’t owe me the words just because I’m having the day I deserve.”
She looked at me then. And for a second — just one — it almost cracked again. Like she was about to saysomething.Anything. Instead, “I shouldn’t have said anything.”
That one hit harder than I thought it would.
I looked away. Nodded like it didn’t matter. “Okay.”
Silence. Thick and cold.
I stood, suddenly needing air that wasn’t full of the echo of her voice, of everything she didn’t mean to say. I gathered the shirt off the floor, tugged it on without meeting her eyes.
Behind me, I heard the bed creak as she curled into herself again. “You want something to eat?” I asked, voice hoarse.
“No,” she said. Soft. Small. “I — I just want you to come back.”
That stopped me in my tracks.
I turned.
She was curled under the blanket again, barely a shape in the sheets. But her eyes were wide, and wrecked, and shining.
And even if she couldn’t say it — even if she wished she hadn’t come close — shemeantthat part. She wanted me close.
I crossed the room without another word, slipped under the covers and let her crawl into me like gravity. Her cheek pressed to my chest.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whispered.
“I know,” I said. “It’s okay.”
She was quiet for a long time. Then, barely audible, “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
My throat closed. I brushed my fingers through her hair. “You didn’t.”
A lie.
But she sighed like she believed it. And I held her tighter, as if I could keep the words in her from running wild again. As if that would make it hurt any less.
She didn’t owe me the words. I wouldn’t love her any less as long as she stayed right here.
Butfuck, I’d really like to hear them.
CHAPTER 53
Figments was slow, slower than usual for a Saturday afternoon.
Sunlight warmed the floorboards. Someone had started a Sufjan Stevens album in the back. And I was sitting behind the counter, knees tucked up beneath me, sipping lukewarm tea and pretending to read while just rereading the same line six times.
I hadn’t seen him yet today.
Not since he had dropped me off at my house the night prior with a searing kiss, and an embrace that lasted an eternity.
And a slap on the ass, just to remind me he hadn’t changed all that much.
I hadn’t seen him since the argument with ‘The Way We Move’s director. Since he’d closed the door on Kellogg like he was done being anything other thanmine.
I didn’t know what that made me yet.
I was still turning it over in my hands when the front door opened. I didn’t look up right away.
