His calm, steady gaze is elsewhere, somewhere far from me, and that makes the ache inside me twist even tighter.
“I’m fine, Tilly,” he says quietly. “Really. You don’t have to apologize. You have the right not to feel the same. I promise, I’m fine now. I needed the break, and it helped.”
I blink rapidly.
He got over me.
A sharp pain like a knife twists in my chest.
“Then… why can’t you look at me?” I ask. “I just, I need you to see me right now. For this.”
He finally looks up, but his face scrunches like looking at me physically pains him.
I feel bare, and it’s painful.
But I know that I have to be truthful right now. Even if it’s the last time I’ll open up.
His hand brushes against his hair. “Because…” he says so quietly it’s almost inaudible, “…my cut is scabbing. If you touch it, it’ll ruin the healing.”
My chest tightens further.
I have to make him look at me.
I have to.
I step closer, biting my lip until it bleeds a little. “No. I need you to look at me. Just for… a second.”
I whisper it, voice trembling like the last thread of courage I have left. “I think I love you.”
He snaps his head at me, and I swallow.
“I think I always did. I just… I was too scared to admit it to myself. I know this is horrible, and that I’m peeling off every shield you have built against me, but I had to–”
I break off into a sob, pressing my hands to my face, feeling everything crash down at once.
My tears fall freely now, and I don’t even try to stop them.
I deserve everything the world is putting on me.
I deserve every single painful tear.
Every. Single. One.
My chest heaves, my throat burns.
I want him to see me, all of me, the messy, ugly, desperate parts I was hiding for so long.
“I had to tell you,” I whisper through broken breaths. “You deserved to know. Even if it’s too late… even if I ruined it… You deserve to know that I love you.”
The silence is unbearable.
I can feel my heartbeat in my throat, shaking my entire body. My hoodie is damp from tears, my hair stuck to my cheeks.
I want to disappear.
And still… he doesn’t answer.
I feel the walls of the room close in. My chest presses tight, and my stomach turns over, every thought screaming what I just did.
