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“Fuck that. Leaving isn’t the answer. Running away isn’t the answer.”
She pauses, the clothes long forgotten when she turns to me. “It’s the only answer that makes sense. I can’t be with someone who only thinks about what they want.”
Her words knock me on my ass and turn my head around until my vision is blurry and I’m having a hard time breathing. This punch…it’s worse than any I’ve taken in my entire life, because it wasn’t done to torture me or own me; she threw it to protect herself from me. From me. The man who is supposed to love her more than anything in the world, protect her from everyone else so she knows she’s safe…she’s defending herself againstme. Because it’s not just once, now, but twice that I’ve failed to keep her safe.
Jesus Christ.
“Nala,” I say, desperate. “I didn’t do this for me—I did it for you.”
“Bullshit,” the word whips out of her, the force leaving a snap behind. “That’s bullshit, Malcolm, because if you had been thinking about me, if you really wanted to do something for me, you would have listened to me when I told you everything. And you would have seen that I’ve been happier—more whole, more complete—in these last few months with you, than I’ve ever been. And you would have realized that Ezra Shields didn’t matter to me. Only you did.”
“Don’t say it like that,” I croak out. Reaching for her, I ignore her warning glare and grab her, too scared to worry that I’m being rough. Desperate, I drag her to her toes and look into her eyes. “Don’t saydid, like you’ve already stopped. Like we don’t exist anymore.”
“Do you know what it was like for me, seeing him again? Do you know what that did to me?” she asks, and now I do let my hands slide away, because Nala isn’t pulling any punches, and my battered body is ready to crumble. I say her name, but she just shakes her head, continuing. “What you did, Malcolm? Going to him, bringing this all up again? It forced me to go face to face with the person who didn’t hear me—the person I thought was flirting with me right up until the moment he ripped my clothes off and shoved my face into a wall, right up until the moment he let me fall, crying and bleeding, into the bushes after he was done with me, before walking away like I didn’t matter.”
I break now, hitting my knees in front of her and wrapping my arms around her waist so I can press my face into her stomach. Her hands don’t go to my head, though, don’t anchor in my hair and hold me like she has so many times before. Instead, she keeps talking, and I know that it doesn’t matter how hard I hold her, I’ve already lost her.
“Worse than looking him in the face and seeing what he did, remembering the fear and the pain, was that you forced me to remember the girl I was after that. The one who was too afraid to challenge him so maybe he wouldn’t do it again, the one who let herself make bad decisions and forget about her sick best friend because she was so torn up over what she had let happen, that she didn’t stop and think, even for a second, that it hadn’t been her fault.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, and then I repeat it, the words falling from my lips onto her skin over and over and over, but she doesn’t respond, not until the end when she steps back and leaves me there, on my knees, alone and aching and tortured at the sight of her.
“It’s not enough. Sorry doesn’t fix this—nothing does. You need to go.” She steps back again, and my heart stops.
“Nala,” I say, and my voice actually shakes.
“I want you to leave. I don’t want you here.” Her voice hitches, cracks, and then tears fill her eyes and fall down, and she delivers her knockout blow. “I don’t want to see you again.”
She walks away, and I hear the bathroom door close, the lock clicking into place in a definite ending. I struggle to my feet, hindered more by the dizziness and hollow ache inside of me than my cast. Walking out of her room, I pause and rest my hand on the bathroom door.
“I love you, Nalani. I’ve always loved you—I always will.” I press my forehead to the door for a brief second, hoping to feel her on the other side. “I’m so goddamn sorry,” I say, my own voice breaking. And then I do as she asks and I walk out, because I can’t imagine never listening to her wants again.
