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Is running worth it? But am I running if it’s right? If being apart from him, no matter how it hurts, for a short time is right for us?
Not even for us. For me.
Because me? I’m the one with the addiction that could destroy us. We both have to face up to them, but I’m the one of the edge of breaking.
His is physical. Mine is emotional.
I’m not a fucking princess and he’s not a Disney prince. We can’t overcome the villain by one of us suddenly performing a miracle. He can’t save me, and I won’t let him.
I am my own to save because I am weak.
I am my own to save because I am strong.
Because, in weakness, there is strength.
I believe that, to make this work, to let my love truly overcome my addiction, I have to walk away. I have to be strong no matter how it will kill me.
I don’t know how long I’ve been standing here, staring at my bag on the bed. It feels like an eternity of seconds passing by needlessly.
But the hotel room door opens and time stands still. It hovers in the air around me in its own sense of purgatory.
“Liv? Where are you?”
“In here,” I say, my voice cracking.
“One of the guys said a blonde girl came onto the beach earlier but left. Was that you?”
I can almost feel his footsteps as he walks into the room. I nod. “Yep.”
“Why is your bag packed?”
I grip the handles. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “But I can’t do this. I can’t pretend I’m okay with what you do. I can’t fake the smiles or act like it doesn’t matter when it does.”
“What—Liv?”
I turn, slowly lifting my gaze to his. Tears fill my eyes and I can feel my heart crumbling despite how right I know this is. In a few steps, I cross the room to him and rest my hand against his cheek.
His stubble is rough and familiar against my skin, and his dark eyes are filled with the inevitability of this moment. He knows. I know.
Two hearts will be broken today, but one can be saved.
“I love you, Ty. I love you so fucking much that it hurts me. You have to know that. But that’s why I have to go.” A tear falls as I swallow the sob building. “But I’m too selfish to ask you not to wait. I want to know you’ll be there when I come back, even if it’s a lie. I have to go for me. I have to go for all of us.”
“I don’t understand.” His hand covers mine. “Why? Why the fuck do you have to go?”
“Because I can destroy you, but I can’t destroy our baby.” I stroke my thumb across his cheek. “I can’t hurt our baby. Even if, in the end, she is all I have, I can’t hurt her. Nothing matters more than she does. Let me go and let me deal with what I have to.”
“You aren’t making sense!” He takes my face in his hands the way I have his.
I can barely look at him. I can see his heart fucking breaking in his eyes. I can see it cracking and falling away as the tiny pieces shatter with my words.
“I love you, but you hurt me and you don’t even know,” I whisper. My voice is thick and I can’t breathe. My throat is tight, so tight, my vision so blurred, and I don’t know anything anymore. “You don’t mean to, except I think I hurt myself. And you don’t deserve that. You deserve perfect, and until I can give you something more than broken, I have to go.”
I kiss him one last time. It’s bittersweet, and my heart breaks all over again when I pull away.
He stands, staring at me, his eyes burning a heartbroken hole into my back. I walk to the door, every part of me hurting, my soul being ripped to shreds by my own words, and open it.
“I don’t want fucking perfect. I want you. Just you.”
