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“I can’t let my jealousy and fear—my inability to rationalize and rein in those emotions—tear you down. And I can’t deal with knowing you are sharing something so desperately precious to me with others. Even if it’s pretend. Even if it’s just a job.”
Her face crumpled, and I squeezed her hands in mine, fighting from pulling her in my arms and lying to us both just to make her stop crying. But that would be just for now, I’d only be postponing the inevitable.
“Please don’t do this,” she begged through her tears, tearing me apart.
I took a moment, trying to work past the pressure on my chest, trying to control the tears sliding down my cheeks. “You deserve someone strong enough to deal with it. You deserve someone who doesn’t rely on you so much. You’re just a teenager, just starting your future with so much fire. You deserve more than someone who hefts their baggage on your shoulders. You deserve more than me.”
“I don’t. I do—.”
“You do.”
“I only want you, Cal. Please.”
I lifted a hand to her cheek to wipe away her tears, but they were just replaced with more. “Oaklyn, I can’t swallow the thoughts of you working here. I’m selfish and scarred and I don’t want to hurt you with my issues, and that’s what this is. My issues. Not you. Logically, I know you wouldn’t do anything, but the fear of it is tearing me apart. It is eating at me, and it’s going to spread like a venom I’ll take out on you.” Taking a deep breath, I said it one more time. “I can’t do this. I can’t handle my emotions with you working here.”
Her face crumpled all over again, and a part of me hoped maybe she would give in and let me pay. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and lifted her chin, tears still falling.
“And I can’t let you pay for my schooling. It would tarnish everything good you said about us. Everything good we’ve done would be ruined because I’d feel like a whore.”
“You are not a wh—.”
“I would feel like one.”
“Oaklyn. I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.”
With that, she stepped into me, wrapping her arms around my waist, burying her head in my chest, and I held her as close to me as possible. Trying to keep a part of her with me even when I walked away. I leaned down and pressed my nose into her hair, trying to imprint the smell of her in my mind so I wouldn’t ever forget. Her shaking shoulders and quiet cries cracked my chest open and crushed everything soft inside.
My own tears slipped in her hair as her hands ran up and down my back. I made sure to feel every stroke. Cherish every touch. It might be the last time I let anyone get so close.
She tipped her head back and rose on her toes to press her wet, trembling lips to mine. Immediately my eyes closed. I tasted her, memorized her, let my tears mix with hers.
All too soon, she pulled back, and dropped her head, hiding behind her hair. Her arms no longer wrapped around me, but around her own waist as though she was protecting herself from any more pain.
Hopefully, when I walked out the door, she wouldn’t have to protect herself anymore.
When I walked past her, I stopped and pressed a lingering kiss to the crown of her head, her soft cries at my back as I exited the room.
I left Voyeur for probably the last time and headed home to lose all my control in private, trying to find comfort in the fact that she wouldn’t be there to feel it.
30
Oaklyn
Each day I felt like I couldn’t sink any lower. Each day I was sure the ache would ease a little, making breathing a little easier, make moving less painful like every muscle in my body had given up.
It never did.
Instead, it intensified each day I had to be around him but couldn’t be with him. Because even though Callum and I had decided neither of us could settle, we still saw each other every single day. And it made the pain that much more difficult to beat. That much more difficult to forget.
I missed him. Missed him as my friend. Missed his kisses, his touches. I missed all the future had had for us. All of it gone. California, gone. The explorations we would have had together—gone.
A week after he’d walked out of Voyeur, I’d tried to force myself back into performing. I’d entered my information to perform a solo performance. I’d simply had to masturbate under the covers. Simple. Nothing hard or very exposing.
With my hand moving under the sheets, not even bothering to actually touch myself, I’d never felt as bad as I had in that moment. Long after the light had flicked to red after the performance, I’d laid in bed and thought about Callum, the weight of his memories holding me down, crushing me. I’d immediately taken my name off the list of performances and returned to my spot at the bar.
