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My eyebrows shot up toward the heavens. “What? No, no that’s not what I—”
“Because if it is, I need to know now, Oliver. You can’t string me along and then mug me off in a couple of months. I’m not here to play around. I’m too old for that shit.”
The shadows on Beckham’s face took on a sharper edge. The warmth in his eyes flickered. “Beck, I’m not stringing you along. I told you I love you, and I mean that, okay? I fucking meant it.” Tears started to flow, uninvited. “You know the last person I told that to? Huh, Beck? The last person I said ‘I love you’ to was Derrick. And you want to know the last time I said it? I told it to him while I watched his life bleed out onto a dirty street. That was the last time I told someone I loved them. So when I say it to you, I really fucking mean it.”
More tears. Beckham was saying something, but the emotions were too strong, the riptide pulled me into the deep end. I didn’t stand a chance. I couldn’t hear his words past the crying.
I walked past Beckham, my hands covering my face, my body racked by uncontrollable waves of sadness.
Inside his bathroom, I shut and locked the door. There, I slid down onto the floor and cried, and I wondered if maybe… maybe I had been asking about our relationship and not the case.
28 Beckham Noble
I’ve never felt like a bigger tit. I could hear Oliver’s muffled cries through the bathroom door, and they absolutely wrecked me. Frustration boiled up inside me. Anger at myself for taking this to a place it didn’t need to be. Anger at the situation, at the fact that we had challenges to face regardless of how we felt about it.
And that was exactly what made a relationship worth it. The fact that there would be challenges ahead and that we’d be facing them together, hand in hand. That’s what made life worth it. We couldn’t lose sight of that.
“Oliver, let me in, please.”
Except I had gone and let my insecurities fuck it all up. Of course I was scared Oliver would get bored of me and move on to the newer, shinier version. It was a fear that had more to do with me than with him, and yet I still projected it directly onto him. I turned an innocent question into a lethal weapon. I may have just royally fucked everything up, all because I was terrified of losing Oliver.
“Please, Olly.”
The cries quieted, but the door remained locked. I leaned back on the wall, rubbing at my forehead to ease some of the building tension.
This shouldn’t be like this. I should be in that bathroom, holding Oliver and comforting him, not on the other side of a closed door, unable to do anything but wait.
I balled my fist. This was a new level of helplessness I wasn’t used to feeling. Part of me wanted to punch a hole into the wall, only to get rid of some of the pressure inside me.
After what felt like an hour, the door to my bathroom creaked open. Oliver stepped out. His eyes were puffy and red, his gaze falling down to the floor.
“I’m sorry, Olly.” It was the first thing I needed to get off my chest. “I didn’t mean to go at you like that. I let my insecurities take control. If I could, I’d take that moment back.”
Oliver wiped at his cheeks, under his chin. “What insecurities, Beck?” He looked through tear-streaked eyes. The light was off in my hallway, so Oliver’s face was lit softly by whatever light leaked over from the living room. There was a neon-green tint to the scene, coming from a small palm tree nightlight I had placed in the bathroom.
Oliver never looked more familiar to me. Even with what little light there was in the hall, I felt like I was looking at my soul mate, like I could paint a picture of him with my eyes closed and come out with a photorealistic copy of Oliver’s face.
“I’m scared of you leaving me. Scared that you’ll toss me to the side like a used toy.” I could see Oliver winding up to protest, but I cut him off. “And you haven’t done anything to make me think like that. Nothing at all. You’ve only given me more reasons to love you, every single day I find a new one. Whether it’s the way you tilt your head when you smile, or the way you always have to tie your left shoe before your right, or how you do these weird little bird noises every time you’re thinking hard about something. Every day, I find something to love. And with every new thing added to the list, it’s one more thing I’m scared of losing.”
