“Have you talked to anyone?” she asks.
“Like a psychiatrist? Yeah. I have.”
“Do they think… have they said anything about whether you have it?”
“So far, no. But there are no guarantees.” I push myself to my knees and turn so I’m facing her. “I could be fine today and five years from now, there might be fifty boxes of cereal in my house.”
“Or you could be fine five years from now, or even fifty years from now, because you are healthy. Your mom might have been able to get better if she hadn’t taken drugs.” Her eyes widen. “This is why you don’t drink or smoke or anything.”
“I have control issues.”
Her eyes go shiny, and she blinks. “Because of this. Oh, Tanner.”
I shake my head. “Don’t Sterling. Don’t pity me. I have a great life. I am Tanner fucking Steele, remember? I get whatever I want, whenever I want it.”
I want you. It’s always been you.
The words echo in my head.
She looks at me intently. “Is this why you don’t do relationships?”
“Partly. It’s hard to think about a future with someone when you don’t know if you’ll be there, or worse, if you’ll be a burden.” I leave out the madness of my obsession with her. It’s hard to be in a relationship when the only person you’ve ever wanted is the one person you should stay away from.
Her face changes then, shutters. “Is that why it has to be temporary with me? Because I might be a burden?”
It takes a second for her meaning to reach my brain and when it does, a shock goes through me, like I’ve been stabbed but can’t feel the pain yet. “Jesus, no! You could never be a burden. It’s me! You deserve someone who will take care of you, be there for you in every way you could possibly want or need, and I can’t be that man.” My voice cracks. “I walked away from you that night because I knew I’d break your heart one way or another. You had just started your life. You deserved better than me.” I may have written songs about heartbreak before, but I’ve never felt it the way I feel it now. It’s not a shattering, or an explosion where the heart disappears after a sharp burst of pain, but rather a slow, tight ache that builds with each beat and you think you’ve reached maximum agony only to realize it’s still beating, but there’s no one for it to beat for.
“You don’t get to make that call for me.”
I look up and she is furious. Her cheeks are flushed, and her chest is rising. “How selfish are you?” She stands and walks down the beach and back. “How dare you. Who are you to decide for me what I do and do not deserve?” She points her finger at me. “What if I had given up all those years ago? There are no guarantees in this life, Tanner Steele. None. My kidney could fail tomorrow! I could get hit by a bus, for god’s sake. And you’re telling me I should have lived like I was already dead?”
I jump to my feet. “That is not what I’m saying.”
“Oh, so it’s different for you, is it? You get to fear what might happen to you in five years, but I don’t?” She comes back and she jabs me in the chest. “I would rather be grateful for the time I get than waste it by locking myself down because it might be taken away. Everything is temporary, Tanner, if that’s how you want to view it.”
24
Sterling
Istart to stumble up the path, choking on the tears I won’t let fall. I’m done crying for this man. Everything he has in this world, being on top of his career, people who love him, it’s not enough. He pushes for perfection or he pushes it away.
“Sterling!”
Tanner kicks up sand as he runs to me. “I did not mean for it to come out the way it did. What I want more than anything is for you to be happy.”
“Do you know what makes me happy? You. I’ve never come close to feeling the way I do when I’m with you with anyone else and I don’t want to. But you’re right, I do deserve more. I deserve someone who is brave enough to let me make my own decisions. I deserve someone who loves me with no reservations, whether it ends up being one day or a million days.” I feel the tears spill over and I swipe them away angrily.
I take in a shaky breath. “This was supposed to be fake, but it ended up feeling real to me, Tanner. You say you’ve always wanted me? Well, your words mean nothing when you aren’t brave enough to really try.”
I head up to the bunkie, slide the door open and grab my bag from the table. I pull my tablet out, quickly logging in to see how I can get from here to Toronto in the fastest way possible. I don’t look up when Tanner’s shadow falls over my screen.
“Who’s running now?” he says.
“I shouldn’t be here anymore.”
Tanner tugs on my tablet and I let go. He goes into my Instagram page, opening up the pictures of us from yesterday. “I’ve looked at these so many times. Not the new photos, but the other stuff. The pictures of you and your friends at the football games, your shoe collection, that weird purple monster cake you made one Halloween.”
My heart starts racing. Those are really old pictures. “When?”
