Not good.
I cannot tell anymore.
“I chose you,” he says.
“When?”
His eyes darken. “Every day.”
“That sounds beautiful and means nothing if you still won’t stay.”
“I do stay.”
“Until you decide not to.”
“I return.”
“Until you don’t.”
“I am here now.”
“Standing in my kitchen, telling me my life is too big a step.”
He exhales hard through his nose, and frustration breaks through his control. “You are twisting my words.”
“I’m hearing them.”
“You are hearing old pain.”
The accuracy of that lands like a slap.
My whole body goes cold.
“Get out,” I say.
His expression empties.
Not because he does not feel it.
Because he feels it too much.
“No,” he says quietly.
The word sparks fury through me. “Excuse me?”
“No. Not like this.”
“This is my apartment.”
“I know.”
“Then when I tell you to leave, you leave.”
His throat works. “I will. But not before you understand?—”
“Oh my God.” I laugh again, and this time it sounds almost wild. “You do not get to decide the terms of my rejection.”
“I am not rejecting you.”
