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She turned away from me just as her chin started to quiver. That one glimpse was enough to punch me in the solar plexus. Her sadness winded me, took me down to my knees. Her back moved as she filled her lungs with air.
When she faced me again, her jaw was solid stone. “I’m too much for you. That’s what you’re saying. You asked, so I thought you wanted to know me, but I guess you realized I’m a lot more than you’re willing to handle. It’s notlight and funto be with a girl with all this baggage. I hear you loud and clear.”
I started to reach for her out of pure instinct, but she flinched away like I was a stranger.
“Elsa, don’t be like that.”
Her lip curled. “Don’t ever call me that again,Lock.” She rose from her chair, regal as she held her chin high. “You aren’t who I thought you were.”
Standing, needing her to hear, to understand this was for her own good, not mine, I got in front of her, blocking out everything around us.
“This has nothing to do with your baggage. There was no future here. I’m doing you a favor leaving now. It was only going to get harder, because this was always going to end. We never should have started, and I’m sorry for that. I’m really sorry. That’s on me. I’m making it right now, though.”
She held herself so still, her limbs vibrated. “Oh, should I thank you? Is that what you expect?”
With a heavy sigh, I shoved my fingers into my hair. “No, of course not. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can still be friends. I’m right next door. I’ll be here when—”
“We were never friends,” she hissed.
I leveled my gaze on her. Her blue eyes blazed back at me. So mad. So untouchably beautiful. “You had to know this was coming. You knew what I was about. I never hid it from you.”
Again, I reached out for her out of pure instinct. She stumbled back, hitting against the table. I grabbed her shoulders to steady her, but she wrenched out of my grasp, her chest heaving.
Her pretty lips turned down in a deep frown, accusation pouring off her in waves as she glared at me. My hands were extended, holding on to thin air when all the fuck I wanted to do was hold on to her and never let go.
But keeping her was impossible. This hurt now. The way she was looking at me killed me, but it would have been worse months or years down the line.
“Ele—”
“Get the fuck off my deck.”
It staggered me, to get that poison from her when I’d uncovered her sweet. I knew it was there, had fallen in love with it, withher, but I’d never have it again.
“I never wanted to hurt you,” I told her.
She was steel when her eyes met mine. Colder, harder, more impenetrable than I’d ever seen her. If she was in pain, if she hated me, if she wanted to rip off my head and eat her cereal out of it, she didn’t let me see it.
“I won’t ask you again. Get off my deck and do not come back. You aren’t welcome.”
With that, she spun on the ball of her foot, calmly opened her sliding glass door, stepped inside, and closed it behind her, disappearing into her house.
Bending at the waist, I heaved a ragged breath. Why the fuck didn’t doing the right thing feel better? It should have been a relief. Maybe that was coming. When I saw she was okay, moving on from this, then it would come.
The melting iced coffee sat abandoned on the table, her folded newspaper beside it. Goddammit, I was going to miss this. Miss her.
With one last look at the deck that had been both the start and end of us, I walked down the steps, crossed the dying grass, and went home.
