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“Please—just—love me.” The pathetic plea leaves me.
The word love hangs in the air. He knows that I love him and I know that men like him don’t love. They survive the damage they cause and then they keep going.
“I need you to understand, my naïve girl, this is for you.”
Shaking my head, I deny that I need this. Running away from him. Stealing his money and hiding … that’s not something I need.
All I can think is to let every and any thought escape me. To be honest with him. I don’t want to run. He just doesn’t understand. I don’t even know if I understand. But this isn’t what I want or need.
“I’m afraid of disappointing you and you forcing me to go or me being so afraid that—”
“You know what I think when I think about you? Every mistake I’ve made. I think about every way I could change this shit we’re in.” He sounds almost angry with himself as he runs his hand down the back of his hair. The shadows in the room make the curve of his jaw sharper, the bags under his eyes darker. They make him seem even more tormented than he is.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper and my voice breaks.
“Why are you sorry? I care about my mistakes because I want to be perfect for you. I’m not, though, Braelynn. I never have been good enough.”
I tell him as I crawl slowly to the end of the bed to be closer to him, “I’ve fucked up. And I know it and I’m sorry. I don’t want to leave you.” He doesn’t move closer to me, though.
“This is an out—”
“Stop!” I scream and then lower my voice to add, “Please … I said red!”
My heart rages as his expression shifts to one of remorse and sympathy. He takes the few steps to meet me at the end of the bed, gently laying his forehead against mine to whisper, “Maybe I should shut the fuck up and just kiss you.”
“You should,” I tell him, gripping both of his wrists and keeping his hands on me.Don’t let go of me and don’t let me go, I beg inwardly, but I’m too chickenshit to say it out loud when he peers down at me and his lips find mine.
His touch is no longer a balm. It feels too much like a goodbye.
“I don’t want you to leave me. I want you to stay. It won’t be like this forever.”
“Like what?” I ask him without thinking.
“You know what,” he tells me and I do, so I only nod.
“I have to go,” he says and pulls his hands away, breaking the grasp I have on him.
“I don’t want you to leave me alone.”
“You’re safe here. I have a lot of things to take care of. A lot has gotten out of hand.”
“I’m begging you, please don’t leave right now.”
“I have to. You’re going to be my good girl.”
He tells me like it’s a statement and I don’t know what he means. I don’t know what he wants from me. All I know is that I’m not okay.
“You don’t want me to leave?”
“It would destroy me if you did,” he confesses to me. “But I—”
“Then I won’t,” I say, cutting him off. My heart still races, but with our gazes locked I know exactly what this is. It’s a test. “I won’t leave you. I promise.”
For the first time since he came in here, his lips lift slightly, in the saddest of smiles.
With his thumb running down my jaw he murmurs, “That should make me happy …”
He doesn’t say the “but it doesn’t,” part aloud, but I hear it anyway.
