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“It meant something though. Even in our lies there’s some truth, and it took me a while to understand why you said that. It was never just sex with you, Soph. You felt that way, didn’t you? You thought I only wanted you for sex?” I can only nod, admitting how little I thought of myself back then. I was willing to stay with him, hoping one day he’d want more. Hoping one day he’d realize how much I loved him and tell me that I was worth loving back. Worth loving even when I wasn’t in bed with him.
Every night I’ve been alone taunts me in this moment. Seeing how much he cares, when for years I convinced myself he didn’t, all so I could learn to get better on my own.
“Why didn’t you--” I want to ask him about the text he never answered before I took off as I pull my hands away, grabbing my napkin and wiping away the tears as delicately as I can, but I can’t finish my sentence.
Another minute passes and the energy in the air becomes suffocating until Madox speaks.
“I didn’t have to run away to figure out who I was. I know who I am, and I don’t like that person without you.”
It fucking kills me to hear him say that. I can’t stand to hear him say that.
“Madox,” I cry his name. I’m doing my best to hold it together, but it’s fucking impossible. There’s no armor left to hide behind and without it, I can’t even breathe.
“My biggest regret though… is that I wish I’d talked to Brett before seeing you that night. He knew what happened to your parents and if I’d known, that night wouldn’t have happened the way it did. I would have been better for you. I didn’t know they’d died. If I’d known about the accident, I wouldn’t have taken you out back to the alley, thinking that’s what you wanted. I would have been able to keep you if I’d known. I wouldn’t have messed up.”
The mention of my parents breaks me. Of my mom and how she died in a car accident. She’d texted me earlier that day and I ignored her. She told me she loved me, and I didn’t respond. I got so used to not saying it back. Hours later, a car went through a red light and both my mom and stepdad were killed instantly. I was never able to tell her I loved her again. Even if our relationship was strained, I did love her.
Regret is a horrible way to live. He may hate who he was without me. I hated who I was with him. I hated what I was and I never want to be that girl again.
What’s worse is that I know he’s right when he says he still would have had me if he’d known. That splinters the already broken pieces of my heart.
“I can’t.” I barely breathe the words, shoving away from the table as my shoulders shake.
“I have to go, Madox.” I try to utter an apology as I stand on shaky legs.
“Let me-”
“No,” I say and push him away. “No, Madox. I need to be alone. I need to be okay with being alone. Please, please. I need to be alone right now.”
He tries to follow me and I beg him, just for a moment. I tell him I’m not leaving him; I’m just leaving this moment. I reminded him I had to work and that it was important to me. I promised him that I’d call him and see him again. That’s what allows him to let me go back to the apartment that’s not mine and calm myself down before I can work.
I just hope I don’t break my promise.
CHAPTER11
Madox
Four years ago
“Is it enough if I say I’m sorry?” I ask her. She keeps running off, burying herself in schoolwork and her internship. I understand that, but she’s staying at her parents’ apartment instead of here with me. She lies and says it’s because their place is closer to the university. I know that’s not why; I just don’t know what I did.
“Are you sorry?” she asks me and I tell her I am; even though I don’t know what I did. There’s something about me that pushes her away and I don’t know what it is, but perhaps it’s just me. I’m damned to watch her leave me. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be for me.
I know I’m supposed to be with her; that is the only reason I could feel this way when I’m with her, this need to be close to her. I think she’s damned to run away and I’m damned to watch her run.
I’ll be okay with that though, as long as we get to hold each other after.
“Then come to bed,” I tell her and she follows. She runs but she always comes back. As long as she comes back, it’s fine. Even though I know it’s not fine, I tell myself it is because that’s better than knowing one day, she isn’t going to come back.
Today
Give her time.Trish’s advice is the same as Brett’s. It’s the same as Ryan’s. Everyone keeps telling me to give her time. Don’t they know, time doesn’t heal pain? She needs someone to take it away.
I can be that someone.
I’ve waited three years. I can wait another day, another week. However long it takes.
If she doesn’t want me because she wants to be okay being alone—I don’t know that she’ll ever come back to me. Why would she? We were so damaged toward the end, it hurts just to think about.
