“Do what?”
“Don't look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like—” I trail off because I don't know how to finish the sentence without admitting something I'm not ready to. He won’t stop looking at me.
“Like I don’t disappoint you every time I’m around you.”
I purse my lips together because that shouldn’t have come out. I’m light-headed and starving, which apparently means my filter is the first thing to go.
There’s a quiet moment between us for a second before he knocks his foot against mine under the table.
“Is that what you think? That you’re a disappointment?”
“How could I not be?” I ask quietly.
I turned down the only thing he ever asked of me. I won’t just get back together with him and stop all of this. Here I am, unableto commit to a college or even choose a course and he’s already finished all of that stuff. None of that matters now that he’s graduated early and on a multi-million-dollar salary.
I’m nothing compared to that.
Stop the negative self-talk. You’ll never move forward if you’re always thinking about the past.
Dr. Reeves’s words play in my head, but they don’t mean a thing when I’m staring at the guy who wants to be my past, present, and future even though I break his heart every time he sees me.
Zach reaches his hand across the table, placing it over mine. “I’m not your dad or Jamie, Honeycomb. You could never disappoint me.”
“Don't you think that's the problem?” I say pointedly, looking at the edges of the tattoo peeking out from under his sleeve. “I can say or do anything, and you keep coming back, tattooing yourself with declarations of love and thoughts of a future that I can’t promise you.”
He looks down at the edge of the honeycomb ink disappearing beneath his sleeve, then back at me.
“No,” he says simply. “I think the problem is that you keep acting like loving you is some kind of burden I didn’t choose.”
His thumb brushes over my hand once.
“I got the tattoo because I wanted to. I keep showing up because I want to. I’m here because every version of my life that makes sense has you in it.”
My throat tightens.
“Honey, you talk like I’m sacrificing something. I’m not. Loving you has never felt like losing.”
Then why do I always feel like such a loser?
His voice drops lower.
“The only thing that feels wrong is pretending I could want anything else.”
My chest aches so suddenly, it feels like it’s collapsing in on itself.
This is the problem with Zach. He always says and does the right thing. Zach loves loudly, fully, without hesitation. He doesn’t do halfway. He throws himself into everything he does and looks at me like I’m the safest place to land.
I’m not.
I’m anxiety, confusion, and second-guessing all wrapped in one. I want to believe that he really does love me, but I hate myself for questioning it.
Why would he love me? I’ve done nothing to earn it.
My eyes drop to the edge of that beautiful honeycomb tattoo again. Permanently there, like me, apparently.
