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Stanley sits on the bottom edge of the bed, keeping his distance from me. Although he’s a meter away, I feel like there are miles between us, when a couple of hours ago, we couldn’t have been closer.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you about what the message said,” I begin to say. My voice doesn’t sound drowned out, but hoarse from the tears I shed when I talked with Cora. “I should’ve told you, but I didn’t know how. Sometimes I do things, and I don’t even know why. That message was before I knew you, the real you. Before we got together.”
Stanley limits himself to nod. His sight focused on his feet.
During these seconds in which he remains silent, I notice that he’s not wearing yesterday’s clothes. He has some sweatpants and a black hoodie. It looks odd on him. Maybe more vulnerable and lost.
“I know,” he mutters, and I wait for him to say something else. I don’t know if it’s because I stay quiet, or if it was his intention from the beginning, but he opens his mouth again. “Just… you could’ve told me, you know?”
May lightning strike me if I don’t realize that now.
“I know,” I whisper.
“I knew that you sent him a message. I’m not stupid, I remember everything that happened in our interactions, but I didn’t think that it would affect me in the future,” he confesses, being completely clear with his purpose of being here as I guessed that he would. “Bree, I’m sorry that I even have to ask, but I need to make sure, or I won’t be able to be with you.”
My heart squeezes inside my thoracic cage.
“Ask whatever you want, whatever you need to be at peace,” I pronounce as I blink away the tears.
“Do you have feelings for him? Am I just a consolation prize?”
The questions feel like punches in my gut, even when I saw them coming.
“No, no, no, and no,” I respond firmly. “Stan, look at me, please,” I beg when his eyes don’t meet mine. He does not see my honesty, and his gaze never meets mine. I have to crawl to get closer to him. I lead two fingers under his chin, turning his face and forcing him to look at me. His green irises are deep in a lake of pain. “How can you think that?’
“I’ve been here for hours, Bree,” he breaks down. His eyes scream at me. “I’ve been sitting on the other side of your door, waiting for you to talk to me. I’ve been racking my mind for hours, trying to understand why you wouldn’t let me in, and the only conclusion that I have is that.”
“I don’t have any kind of feelings for John Carter that are not contempt and resentment. He was a stupid and naïve crush that never turned into something else, and I wrote that message due to an exaggerated dose of alcohol. That’s it. That’s all it was,” I reassure him, trying to make him understand. “You’re not a consolation prize. You’re the one I want.”
Stanley presses his lips in a tight line. I know that I fed his insecurities for hours, but that wasn’t my intention. It was never my intention to hurt him.
“Why didn’t you want to see me?”
“Because I didn’t want you to look at me differently. Kind of how you’re looking at me now,” I respond, blinking faster to keep me from crying, but it’s useless because a few tears roll down my cheeks. “I didn’t want you to look at me and see the impulsive girl who made a mistake. I just—I wanted your vision of me to be from the one I truly am.”
He closes his eyes, letting out a sigh, giving in.
“I’m not going to say that this didn’t hurt me,” he tells me. I hold my breath, waiting for more. “But it would take more than this to change the way I look at you. Also, I won’t deny that I’m jealous and fucking angry and that I can’t wait to beat him up for doing this to you. But that will have to wait until tomorrow because my girlfriend needs me right now.”
I choke back a sob, and I climb into his lap, straddling him as my arms hug him. I’m relieved and grateful.So, so grateful.The sensation that spreads to my bones is overwhelming.
“You’re the most amazing person that I have in my life,” I mumble in his ear.
Stanley returns the hug, squeezing me closer to him. We’re just hugging, but I feel everything and more. We’re prisoners of our rollercoaster of emotions as the tension around us starts to dissolve, ending with the sweetness of our feelings.
“And you are mine.”
I smile with relief. It’s probably the first real and genuine smile that I’ve ever done. I’m glad that Stanley is the reason why I’m smiling in the middle of this clusterfuck.
“Thank you for being here, Stan. I know that I’m a mess and that I don’t handle my feelings well, but thank you for not giving up on me,” I express, unable to put together everything that I want to say.
“You’re my girl, Bree. I liked you with all of your disaster and chaos, and that’s not going to change anytime soon,” he assures me, kissing my forehead.
“Not even because of what I wrote in that message, or what the people are saying?”
“People can go to hell,” Stanley says bitterly. “The message is part of your pas, before we were anus, no?”
I nod.
