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I should have just filed him away in theAssholes to Never Talk to Againcategory and not given him a second thought apart from the odd,“Remember that stuck-up asswipe on the island with the talented tongue?”when drunk with my girlfriends…
So why didn’t I? Why has the longing and distress burrowed deep into me like this?
My hands coil even more tightly around my waist and I feel myself shudder internally. “Is that all you had to say?”
“I’m sorry. I've been sorry since I left. I wish I could redo that last day.”
“Why?” I shrug before adding, “Didn’t you say you aren’tboyfriend material?”
“Yes. I did. And I meant it.”
His words tear at the fabric of a hope that I hate the very presence of. “Then… then what are you doing here? Come to mess me about again?”
His brow furrows, his lips parting as he stares down at me, inching forwards, just half a foot or so, but enough to make me take a step back. He’s not getting what he wants this time… even if my entire core is hijacked by tingling warmth as my eyes scan the broad curve of his shoulder, the pale muscle of his neck, the full muted pink of his lips which kissed me so gently… and so roughly… and in such intimate places…
“Mess you about?” he says. “You mean you’d want to be with me?”
The question rankles.No I do not.
And anyway, why does it have to bemewho wants that? I don’t want the crumbs he’d offer me. I want him towantme as much as I want him. I’m not some charity case.
“What’s the point?” I shrug. “Aren’t youtoo fucked upto be a boyfriend?Not relationship material?Let me guess, too tortured to put yourself out there? How original, by the way… Another tortured man who refuses to put in the effort to sort himself out and ends up messing everyone up along the way… Excuse me while I let out the world’s biggest yawn.”
His face hardens.
“We’reallrelationship material, you know?” I continue, blowing through any attempts to hold onto my dignity or pretend he doesn’t affect me the way he does. “Allof us. It just depends on how much effort we’re willing to put in to heal whatever’s going on inside us. That’s what some of us do. Those who are not cowards, that is…”
He takes a step towards me, his respiration accelerating. “I’m not a coward.” The rumble of his words is a tremor through my body. “I’m just not delusional. I’m not healthy for you.”
“Then why are you here?! To make me think of you again? Is that it? Or do you expect me to beg? Convince you that you can be in a relationship, put myself out there, only for you to freak out at some point and run away like last time…”
I heard my voice shake as I said it, partly because the stakes have never felt so high in terms of my heart before, and because I hate every fucking thing I’m saying.
It was a holiday romance, for fuck’s sake, as he told me very clearly.
And here’s me talking like he pledged his undying love for me and than ran away the day before our wedding.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but after this descent into the irrational, I suspect he’ll be walking out that door and won’t be coming back.
Only I’m not finished, apparently…
“Well, if you think I’m going to beg you or talk you into it, you’ve got another thing coming! In fact, I wouldn’t beg for anything from you if I was shipwrecked in the ocean being circled by sharks and you came along in a boat after one of them had just enjoyed its first nibble.”
His eyes gleam for a second until his features darken again as I shake under the weight of his glare, kicking myself for my inability to hold onto any semblance of sang froid in his presence.
Which has pretty much summed up our entire relationship since day one.
“I’m not asking you to beg, Indie.I’mthe one here doing the begging. Not you.”
“Begging… for what?”
“I… I don’t know…”
I shake my head. “You don’t know? Well, could you maybe have thought about it before disrupting my night by coming over here unannounced?! Is this the plan? You show up every few weeks just to mess with my head some more before fucking off so that you can navel gaze and lament about how emotionally stunted you are?!”
Girl, you really need to stop talking at some point…
And fucking fast.
