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Graham steps into the bedroom and hovers near the door, his mouth a thin line. His shoulders are tense. He’s obviously uncomfortable, and I didn’t expect anything else. He didn’t sign up for me crying in my bed because I got fired. He signed up for hot sex in exchange for the rent.
I sniffle into my pillow and try to get myself under control.
It doesn’t work.
“Madelyn...” Graham says carefully. “Are you okay?”
There are lots of things I want to say to him, like,please get into the bed with me.Like,could you explain how everything keeps going to shit when I try so hard.Like,what is it about me that makes it so impossible to keep anything good? Why aren’t I just better? Why can’t I just go along with what life wants from me?
“No.”
There’s an even longer silence. I wait for him to leave without saying anything else, but Graham just stands there, watching.
“Should I come back another time?” he asks.
The answer is no. He shouldn’t come back. He should go on with his life and forget the game we’ve been playing. Both of us should, because games like this only end in heartache, even if they’re not the final cause of it.
But my heart hurts for how much I want to be touching him. If I were the strong woman I pretend to be, I could tell him the real truth—that it was a mistake to get involved with each other and the best thing we can do now is walk away gracefully.
I don’t feel very strong at the moment. I feel weaker than I’ve ever felt, and I just can’t give him up.
Not right now. What the hell am I supposed to do? Tell him I got fired, I failed my cousin, and my aunt is sick? No. No, I cannot and will not burden him with that when I don’t even deserve him.
“Yes.” I tell him. “Red.” I tell him because I don’t know what else to say. I just want him to know I’m not okay.
Graham takes a breath, and I can’t tell if it’s a disappointed noise or a relieved one. His hands come out of his pockets, and then he puts them back in.
“I’ll leave you alone, then.”
I nod, mostly into the pillow. My bedroom door opens again, and then it shuts.
My heart breaks.
It’s more painful than being fired, more painful than my conversation with Kenzie, more painful than anything else. I can’t breathe because it hurts too much.
I was hoping he would come to me. I was hoping he would see what a wreck I was and just make this feeling go away.
I was hoping he’d fallen in love with me, because I’ve fallen for him, even if I haven’t been willing to admit it.
Graham is the only person I want comfort from right now, and I sent him away, and he justwent.
That’s the proof I needed and it hurts. I need to leave. I should have left when Kevin did and made my way somewhere else. I could’ve figured it out; I know that now. But leaving felt like giving up.
Well, sometimes it’s better to give up. That’s obviously a lesson I’ve learned too late. Somehow, I thought that if I had the apartment, I’d at least havesomethingto prove myself, but I don’t.
I have nothing.
I turn over and sob into the pillow until I fall asleep.
Graham
This is why I don’t do relationships. Because what the fuck was that?
She’s not well. I know she’s not well. But she sends me away and…I fucking had to because of a goddamn word? I pace the entrance to my penthouse, staring at the security camera in her hall.What the fuck even was that?
I’ve never felt so inadequate.
I text her to tell me when she's available to talk and I get no response.
