“How about the truth?” I take a step toward him, my sneakers squeaking against the hardwood. “Were you going to tell me you might be traded?”
His face cycles through emotions—shock that I know, guilt that he hid it, and something darker beneath that I can’t name. His jaw works, the muscle ticking, and he shoves his hands in his pockets as if he doesn’t know what to do with them.
“How did you—”
“It doesn’t matter how. Were you going to tell me?”
He doesn’t answer. His gaze drops to the floor, to his shoes, anywhere but my face.
That’s answer enough.
“Banks.” I’m fighting to keep my voice steady, but it’s a losing battle. “I thought I did something wrong. I’ve spent the last week thinking you were pulling away because of me—because you were done with this, with us. I’ve been tearing myself apart trying to figure out what I did.”
“It’s not about you.”
“That’s the problem!” The words explode out of me, louder than I intended, bouncing off the high ceilings. “You don’t let me in. You have thiswhole crisis happening, your entire future is uncertain, and you just… shut me out. Like I’m not even part of your life.”
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Worry me?” I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. The sound is harsh even to my own ears. “Banks, that’s not your call to make. I thought we were… I don’t know what I thought. Never mind.”I sound so childish, so stupid for ever thinking…
“I don’t know how to do this.” His voice is rough, strained, cracking at the edges. “I told you that. I don’t know how to let people in.”
“And I told you we’d figure it out together. But you have to actually let me try.” I press my hands against my eyes, willing myself not to cry. Not here. Not yet. “I asked you directly what was wrong, multiple times. And you lied to my face.”
“I didn’t lie—”
“You said, ‘It’s not about you’ and ‘Nothing to talk about.’ That’s lying, Banks. That’s deciding I don’t deserve to know what’s happening in our relationship. That’s treating me like I’m outside your life instead of part of it.”
He’s silent. His jaw is tight, his hands still shoved in his pockets, every line of his body radiating tension. He looks like a man bracing for a blow, waiting for the impact he knows is coming.
Part of me wants to stop, to soften, to cross the space between us, wrap my arms around him, and tell him it’s okay—that we can figure this out, that I forgive him.
But I can’t. Because it’s not okay. And I’m not sure I do forgive him.
Notto mention, he hasn’t even apologized.
“This is why I don’t do relationships.” His voice is flat now, hollow. “People leave. Everyone leaves. Why would I let myself need someone who’s just going to—”
“I’m not leaving!” I throw my hands up in frustration. “You’re the one who might leave! You’re the one with one foot out the door, already bracing for goodbye. I’m standing right here, Banks. I’ve been standing right here this whole time, trying to be part of your life, and you won’t let me in.”
“That’s exactly my point. I can’t control it. I can’t control any of it. The trade, the contract, my whole goddamn future—it’s not up to me. And if I let myself need you, and then I have to go—”
“So you just shut down? Push me away?” I stare at him, seeing it all so clearly now: the walls, the distance, the way he pulls back every time things get real. The little boy who bounced from foster home to foster home, learning that love is temporary, that everyone leaves, that protecting yourself means never letting anyone close enough to hurt you. “That’s your plan? Reject love before it can reject you?”
He doesn’t deny it. He just stands there, looking wrecked, as if I’ve reached inside his chest and grabbed something he didn’t want me to see.
“I can’t do this, Banks.” My voice cracks. I don’t care anymore. The tears are coming, and I can’t stop them. “I can’t be with someone who won’t let me love them.”
The word lands between us like a bomb.
Love.
I didn’t mean to say it. It just came out—the truth I’ve been dancing around for weeks, finally spoken aloud in a half-empty townhouse in Brooklyn, surrounded by other people’s furniture and the wreckage of what we were trying to build. I could love him. Maybe I already do.
Banks’s expression shifts, something raw and desperate flashing in his eyes. His whole body leans toward me, as if he’s fighting the urge to close the distance.
“Win—”
