“I didn’t ask you for how you in my head either,” he snapped. “But here we are.”
I blinked, thrown.
He took a step closer.
“You think this shit easy for me?” he asked, voice low and rough. “You think Ilikefeelin’ like a fuckin’ lunatic every time you don’t answer your phone? You think I enjoy sittin’ in my car outside places I know you hang out at, just to make sure your car there when it’s supposed to be?”
“You do it,” I said. “So yeah, some part of you like it.”
“Nah,” he said, shakin’ his head. “Some part of me is scared. That’s what you not gettin’. I watched one woman I love die ‘cause I trusted the world to let me have her in peace. I’m not rollin’ those dice twice.”
My anger flickered, but I kept my face hard.
“And what about me?” I asked. “You so worried about losin’ me you not even seein’ how youmakin’me wanna run. You not givin’ me a choice.”
“I am,” he said. “You just don’t like the options. You wanna do this shit your way, you act like you don’t feel nothin’, dip in and out when it suit you, call it ‘fun’ so you don’t have to own it. I’m not built for that.”
I folded my arms, heart thumpin’ against my ribs.
“So how you built then?” I asked. “Spell it out.”
He stepped even closer, close enough I had to tilt my head back to keep eye contact.
“I’m built to love hard,” he said. “All in. No halfway. When I say you mine, I mean that. Not ‘mine’ like property. Mine like responsibility. Like, if some shit happen to you, it gon’ sit onmychest. If you cry, I’m the one who gotta wipe it. If you happy, it’s gon’ be ‘cause I added to it, not ‘cause some nigga did you right by accident.”
“That sound cute on a T-shirt,” I said, voice shakin’. “But in real life, you chokin’ me.”
His eyes flickered.
We stood there, breathin’ hard.
“I know I’m pressin’ too much,” he said finally. “I hear myself when I talk to you. I see your face when I pop up. I know I’m two steps from losin’ you with the same shit I think is protectin’ you.”
“Then stop,” I said. “It’s that simple.”
“It’s not,” he said. “Not for me.”
He ran a hand over his head, swearin’ under his breath.
“I don’t sleep right if I don’t know you made it home,” he admitted. “I don’t focus if I don’t know you not out here gettin’ played or touched or… hurt. I know you grown. I know you don’t need a savior. But after what I seen, after what I lost, my brain don’t know how to chill.”
“And you thinkmybrain just chillin’?” I shot back. “You think I ain’t up at night runnin’ scenarios? You think I ain’t scared as fuck of lettin’ somebody else have that kind of access to me again? I didn’t ask you to sit outside my life like security ‘cause I was tryna protect me. From you. From this.”
He looked like I’d slapped him.
“Well,” he said after a second, voice a little hoarse, “how is that workin’?”
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
We both knew the answer.
I was still here.
Still textin’ him back.
Still lettin’ him touch me.
