Page 157 of Power Play

“I don’t give a fuck what your father thinks about me,” I said more quietly. “I don’t care if your mother thinks my tattoos are trashy or your friends decide I’m bad news. I don’t need their approval.”

Charm wiped beneath one eye. “I know.”

“No. Listen to me.”

Her gaze lifted.

“I only care if you approve.”

“I do.”

“You don’t even approve of yourself half the time.”

The words landed exactly as hard as I feared they would.

Charm recoiled, and my stomach dropped.

“That’s what you think of me?”

The hurt in her voice made the entire fight feel too sharp, but it was true. I watched her tear herself apart over clothes, grades, opinions, food, conversations, and every fucking decision she made. Pretending I hadn’t seen it wouldn’t protect either of us.

“I think you’re harder on yourself than anybody else could ever manage to be.”

Her tears spilled again.

“I think you are constantly waiting to find out what everybody wants from you so you can become it before they have the chance to decide you failed. I think you’re so fucking close to seeing you don’t have to live that way anymore.”

Her lower lip trembled. “So close isn’t enough for you.”

My throat tightened. “Close can still break my heart.”

That stopped everything.

Charm stared at me, and I watched the words reach her. The fight fell apart beneath the realization that I wasn’t standing across from her judging whether she was good enough for me.

I was scared too.

My fear had different roots, but the same stakes waited beneath it. I had let her into the place that still expected every person I loved to become temporary. I was already imagining her inside ordinary parts of my life that no longer felt ordinary without her. Six weeks had been enough for her mug beside my sink and her pen in my cup to feel like evidence of something I wanted to keep.

If she chose Lance’s approval over me later, she wouldn’t only end a relationship. She would confirm the ugliest thing I had spent my entire life trying not to believe—that I could be loved privately and still remain too wrong to claim in the light.

“I want all of you,” I said, “or none of you.”

“That sounds like an ultimatum.”

“It isn’t.”

“It feels like one.”

“I’m not asking you to fix yourself before I care about you. I already care about you. I’m telling you I won’t take the part you’re offering because you think sex is going to prove I want the rest.”

Her face went white. “I don’t think that.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No.”

“Every time I stop, you look at me like I rejected you.”