Page 45 of Apparently, I’m Torture

I stood and stepped away from her, leaving her to stare up at me from the sofa. Maybe some distance would help; the last thing I wanted was a fight. I tried coming at this from a different angle.

“Helping people with their work is fine, but you’ve got this exam coming up, and you’ve already failed once. It’s just… if you don’t pass this time, what then? Giving yourself some extra space to study couldn’t hurt.”

She lowered her eyes and clenched her jaw. Guilt tore at me. I managed to turn the conversation away from my feelings, but… I was upsetting her.

Her voice shook. “I’m going to pass, Shawn. I have to.”

“If you keep going like this... you might not.”

Saying something like that was pure stupidity. I’d already pointed out her people-pleasing and her past failure. What the hell was I doing making her think I didn’t believe she could pass her final exam?

She could. She was smart and capable. There was no doubt in my mind that she could pass.

But it was out of my mouth, and the words hung in the air between us. I forced myself to watch as her expression closed-off, and I knew her anxiety was stirring through what I’d said, adding context and layers that weren’t there, making her believe the worst about a situation I should never have brought up in the first place.

“You don’t think I can do it?” Lilly’s eyes squeezed shut and she bent over her stomach. Her husky voice warbled as she sang, “Jump up, make a sound, hey, stomp your boots, turn around, start now, make a change, gonna make that sound.”

I cursed under my breath and went to her, bending down and trying to grip her arms to do that squeeze-thing that helped calm her, but she batted my hands away.

“Lilly, of course I think you can do it, I just meant you need time to prepare yourself–”

“What is this?” Uncle Henry’s thickly accented voice pushed its way into the room, tipping over me like a bucketful of ice water. “What you do?”

“I think she’s going to be sick,” I called to him over my shoulder.

“Why she sick? What you do?” he repeated, not waiting for an answer as he shuffled back out.

Tristan entered a second later, squatting in front of the couch as he handed Lilly a container, and I stepped away to give him space.

All I’d managed to do was upset her enough to make her sick, and as much as that made me hate myself, it also proved to me that it was a good thing for both of us to lose contact after graduation. As much as my body ached to think of it, I had no doubt of it now.

Chapter 17

Shawn

Monday Evening

One Month Until Graduation

Tristy’s Coffee Shop

Shawn

Closing time finally came around. Lilly finished mopping as I stacked the last of the chairs, and Tristan wrapped our uneaten pastries in a bag. It wasn’t long before it was just the three of us alone in the backroom again.

Tristan stood and counted the shelves of coffee bags, bread and condiments while Lilly and I collapsed on the couch together. Well, not quite together. I edged away from her with a jolt, as if her touch could burn me.

I knew that was the kind of thing I had to stop doing. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings more than I already had. But the best thing I could do for her was to give her space, especially since, lately, all I’d managed to do was upset her.

I almost gave her a panic attack, for fuck’s sake.

And if that wasn’t enough, there was always my original reason for staying away. I couldn’t risk having her figure out how I felt.

It was already bad enough I couldn’t have her. If she knew how I felt and still rejected me? That’d be the cherry on top of my shit-sundae, wouldn’t it?

I couldn’t take Tristan’s advice. Not now that she was with someone else, and we still had to work together for another month.

So I stood from the couch and pretended to help Tristan with the inventory as Lilly muttered something under her breath.