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“What, Donovan?It was easier to pretend?”I stood up as my feelings began to clarify themselves.The sadness parted from the anger, and the latter was ready to let loose.“Were you even going to tell me, or was I just going to wake up one morning and find you gone?”When he didn’t answer, I shook my head and turned away, pacing to the other side of the room.“You know what makes this so shitty?Yesterday, I asked you if you knew when you were leaving, and you looked me right in the fucking eye and said you didn’t know.But you did, didn’t you?”
Donovan nodded.“Yeah.I knew.”
I dropped my head back, looking up at the ceiling as I heaved out a breath.
I’d been prepared for the moment he would tell me it was time for him to go.I always knew this...whatever it was between us wasn’t forever.And it was always going to be painful when it ended.But the fact I’d trusted him to be honest with me about his plans hurt more than his leaving ever could have.I’d expected more from him after everything.After how much he’d begun to open up.
After the way he’d made love to me, making me feel like the two of us entwined together was the only thing that mattered.
Maybe none of it ever mattered to him.If he could look straight at me and lie, I guessed I wasn’t worth the truth.
And that sucked when the truth was the only thing I’d ever expected from him.
As I opened my eyes, I found Donovan standing in front of me, and his stupid, pretty blue gaze was filled with apologies.I wanted to say something to him, I just didn’t know what the words were.The only thing I knew was that my heart hurt, and the bubble I’d lived in for the last few days had popped, leaving me flailing instead of carrying me along in its gentle hold.
“Nova, I never wanted it to be like this,” he said softly.“I just wanted things to stay the way they were for as long as possible.”When I didn’t respond, he said, “Did you really expect me to give up everything I’ve built for you?”
I didn’t.Of course I didn’t.I hadn’t once believed he would, but the way he’d said ‘for you’ as if I were so unimportant to him hit me right in the gut, so much so that I couldn’t look at him.
Shaking my head again, I said, “I thought, after the last few weeks, you’d know me better than that.Have I ever asked you to stay here?”
“No.I know you wouldn’t.But that doesn’t mean you weren’t thinking it.”
Finally looking up at him again, I saw a change in his expression.He was reverting right in front of my eyes.Like all the things he’d said to me were fake.The times he’d said he missed me, giving me a cute Italian nickname, texting me almost all night when we weren’t together.The teasing.The bond we’d formed.
And those kisses.Nothing about them had felt phony, and yet suddenly, his eyes had stopped holding that fondness I was used to seeing.He was looking at me like I was just another random girl who wanted something from him.As much as I cared about him, I never wanted anything but his time for as long as he was here.Whether I’d thought about him staying was irrelevant.I’d never pushed it onto him because it was my thing to deal with.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he said, turning away from me like I was the one who was suddenly different.I had no clue what my expression portrayed; I could only assume it was confused as hell because that about summed it up.“You can’t get angry about me taking a job.”
“I’m angry you lied about it, Donovan!”
“But I told you why!”He spun around to look at me again.“I didn’t want to ruin the time we had left!”
“Well, it’s ruined now!If you’d just been honest about it-”
“Oh, you wouldn’t have been bothered?You think we would have had a lovely Christmas with both of us thinking about me getting on a plane in a few days?”He threw his hands in the air, letting them thud back down against his sides as he turned away from me again.
“We would have done the same as we have been!”
“You think it would have been that easy to pretend things were normal?”
“Well,you’vemanaged just fine for the last few days!”
The words flew out before I could stop them, and it was a cheap, unfair shot, but there was truth at the heart of it.Hehadbeen pretending.He had outright lied to me, and even if he thought he was doing it for the right reasons, that didn’t make it okay.
“You know, what?Fuck this.”He turned to me, walking back to me until we were face to face.His eyes were stormy, his jaw tight, and his whole posture rigid.“All of this, it was you who did it.You were the one who pushed for us to be around each other.”He gestured towards the coffee table, where our half-finished cards lay, now forgotten.“Why did you do this?You must have spent a fucking fortune on all this stuff.Food, movies, baking and craft supplies.Why?”
“Why?”I asked, taking a step closer to him.“Because when I found out who you were, it didn’t make any sense that you could be such a different person than the one I used to know, and I just wanted you to feelsomething.To show me there was a human in there somewhere because you were so cold when you arrived.You resented that you had to come and be with June.I wanted you to care about something other than yourself.To remember what it’s like to let go and have fun!”
“Newsflash, Nova.We’re not kids anymore.Life isn’t always fun.”The scorn poured from his words, and with each one, I wished I’d stayed away from him.
Who the hell was he?Ten minutes before, we’d been making innuendos about whipped cream, and now we were back to being almost strangers again.How did he just switch off his emotions like that?We were both shouting, but he was looking through me now.
“You need to go,” I said quietly.
For the briefest of moments, the Donovan I’d been getting to know reappeared, his eyes softening and his shoulders sagging.It took all of my strength not to throw myself into his arms, but just like that, his walls were back up, and he nodded before turning and walking out.
Chapter18
