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I nodded, trying not to think back to all the times Ash ever brought me flowers. It wasn’t very often, but it did happen. Of course, sometimes I met him at the airport and he couldn’t exactly have flowers when he was walking off a plane. Would he bring them today? Would he try to make up for all the long distance arguments and bitterness now that he was here in person?
Ash arrived a few minutes after Zooey left, and I was still sitting on the couch, staring up at the spotted ceiling of our dorm room. The knock on the door made me more nervous than excited, as if there were an army of savage murderers on the other side of the door and not my boyfriend.
I opened it tentatively, afraid of what I would find. Ash stood there, a sheepish grin on his tanned face. Hands shoved in his pockets.
No flowers.
My heart careened through the next few minutes. The long, slow hug as I crashed into him, wrapping my arms around the guy that I hadn’t seen in weeks. Ash kissed the top of my head while we stood there in an embrace that felt both welcoming and cold at the same time.
“So,” I said, when I pulled away. “You can’t stay long?”
He shook his head. “My flight back is in three hours.”
My eyes bugged. “Then why bother showing up?”
“Because I wanted to see you?” Ash said, turning his palms up.
“That sounded like a question. I don’t need you to tell me what you think I want to hear, Ash.” I turned and walked into the dorm, leaving him to let himself in.
“Hana, that’s not it.” He caught my arm and turned me around, wrapping his hands around my hips so that I had no choice but to face him. “Can we please not fight today?”
I swallowed, staring into his pleading eyes. “We can do whatever you want,” I said with a ton of sarcasm. “Your stay is so short, you obviously planned it so that you wouldn’t have to be in my presence for very long.”
“Hana, seriously.” Ash’s voice had turned cold. “All we do is fight and it doesn’t even make sense. Why? Why do we do this?”
I shrugged, looking at the floor between our feet.
Why didn’t you bring me flowers? I wanted to ask, even though it was so stupid. I wasn’t a flowers kind of girl. I didn’t need them. But I did need some kind of gesture that showed that he still cared about me.
“I don’t know why we do this,” I settled on saying, the lump in my throat threatening to cut off my airway. My eyes burned and my stomach was twisted in knots. “We’re supposed to love each other and all of that.”
“We do love each other,” Ash said, his voice nearly whispering. “But we can’t keep doing this. All we do is argue or ignore each other. It’s affecting my job, Hana.”
“Why am I supposed to care about your job?” I asked, regretting the words the moment I said them. I was on a roll now, so I wasn’t about to stop even though I knew it was wrong to keep talking. “All your job ever does is take you away from me, throw you into parties with hot girls who you don’t bother telling you have a girlfriend—”
“That is not true,” Ash snapped. His grip on me tightened. “Hana, everyone knows I have a girlfriend. You can’t still be pissed about that stupid TV interview.”
I shoved away from him and took a few steps backward. “I can be pissed about whatever I want! You have this big fancy life now, with parties and money and fame and there’s no room for me anymore.” I took a ragged breath, willing the tears to stay at bay. Ash watched me, making no move to deny anything, so I just kept going, ripping into him with every horrible thought I’d ever had. “You made me fall in love with you and then you left. You said we’d see each other all the time but we don’t. You cancel visits more than you keep them, and I’m just supposed to be okay with this?”
“Racing is hard, Hana.” Ash’s features hardened and I could tell he was trying to keep his emotions hidden. “I put all my money on the line for my parent’s new house, and if I just quit then we’ll be screwed. I’m the rookie here, and I have to prove myself. I have to be at each race and you know that. I can’t help the interviews and photo shoots—it’s all part of my contract. You used to think it was cool, but now you persecute me for just doing what I’m paid to do.”
“I was as supportive as I could be, but then you totally ignored me in that stupid interview,” I said, no longer trying to force back the anger in my chest. “How am I supposed to sit here and pretend everything is fine when clearly you don’t want to be with me?”
“What would make you think that?” Ash said, his voice breaking. “I love you! And that interview was one damn mistake. I’ve apologized for it a million times. You have to let it go or you’re going to ruin us.”
I folded my arms across my chest. Every part of my body screamed for me to stop, to shut the hell up and run into Ash’s arms. But something had taken ahold of me now, and it was stronger than my heart was. “You’re the one who ruined us, Ash.”
He flinched and then straightened himself to his full height. “Is that really what you think?”
No.
“Yes.”
He sighed, staring at the floor for an uncomfortable length of time. “Okay,” he said, resigning. “I guess we’ll just end this now.”
No.
I blinked. “I guess we will.”
