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The truth of it all.
I should just nod and accept it, but I can’t. I don’t.
“But you can,” I tell him. “We don’t have to let this be it. This, us…it can work beyond this trip. Can’t it? I mean, I know we said we wouldn’t talk about it, but I also know that we don’t have a lot of time left before one of us has to make a decision and…and…I just think…”
I just think we should stay together.
Make it work.
Please don’t make me say that all out loud, not when you’re not giving me anything in return.
He stares at me, and that storm is back again, raging across his eyes, angry, dark and powerful, sweeping him away. I already know the answer. It already kills me.
He sighs, running a hand over his face, his beard, and I feel the tension rolling off him. “I don’t know,” he says, his voice a rough whisper. He walks past me and sits on the edge of the bed, lacing his hands together, looking at the floor. I already get the impression that he’s shutting down on me, like the way he used to when I asked questions he didn’t like.
“Well, I know,” I tell him, even though I’m bullshitting a bit. “Okay, so I don’t know. But I know what I want.”
Be brave, Shay. Time to be brave.
“And that’s you, Anders. I want you and I want us…I want us to give this a shot. I know I said I didn’t want things to get complicated, but things were complicated between us from the start. It’s too late for anything easy and simple, because we’re not easy or simple. We’re two lonely souls with a twisted history and so much excess baggage that it’s weighing us both down. We can’t even save each other if we’re both drowning.” I pause, my heart pounding in my throat, my honesty taking me by force. “But I want to at least try. I don’t want to say goodbye to you and move on. I can’t. I only want to move on with you.”
And there it all is.
My precious truth.
And yet Anders stares at the floor. It’s like he hasn’t even heard me at all.
My heart drops, a sickly feeling that spreads through my veins, making them run cold.
I walk over to him, stand right in front of him, wishing my heart wasn’t so loud.
“Hey,” I tell him. “Look at me. Please. Look at me when I’m baring my heart to you.”
Slowly, he raises his head and I hate what I see in his eyes. Hate how much it reminds me of his younger self, the one who grew cold and distant and pushed me away.
“Don’t be like him,” I say softly, my voice shaking softly with anger. “Don’t be like him. You’re not that boy anymore. You’re a man. You need to handle this, us, like a man. If you don’t have any feelings for me, real true feelings, if you don’t want to be with me, see a future that I’m a part of, then you have to flat-out tell me. Yeah it’ll hurt. It’ll destroy me. But I can handle it. The truth is what I deserve.”
He swallows thickly, licking his lips. “What you deserve, Shay, isn’t me.”
Oh no. Not this.
I shake my head. “Don’t start.”
“I’m serious,” he says gruffly, frowning at me. “You don’t deserve who I really am. You deserve someone who will be with you all the time, who will give you their time and attention and affection, because you’re worth all of that and more. That’s not me.”
“That is you!”
“No. This…” he gestures to himself, to the room. “This is a version of myself that even I don’t recognize. This is what my life could have been. But it’s not the life I’ve been given. I’ll be gone all the time, and when I’m not out at sea, I’ll be working the farm. What the hell are you going to do with yourself? Sit around and wait while I’m gone? Waste your years working on a farm, milking cows?”
“Don’t assume I don’t know what to do with myself,” I tell him, glaring now. I hate when people make assumptions for me. “I would be plenty busy trying to figure out what I want from life.”
He throws his arms out. “Yeah? And what if you come to the conclusion that what you don’t want is me? That the life you have with me isn’t the life you wanted? Shay, you’re so beautiful and vibrant and smart and passionate and you have your whole future ahead of you and I can say with certainty you deserve more than just scraps from a fisherman.”
“Scraps!” I yell. “You think that’s what this is? You think you’re giving me scraps? Well, fuck, Anders, why didn’t you tell me that this wouldn’t be enough?” I lean over and point my finger at him, my heart on fire, my eyes searching his feverishly. “I had no idea that I wasn’t getting the best of you.”
