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“I’m not! If you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to throw you out, right fucking now. So why aren’t you justgoing?”
“Because I’mtrying!” I cried, beyond exasperated. “I’m trying to do everything right, but no matter what I do, you just keep slapping me back down. So what am I doing that’s so wrong?” Shoulders slumping and anger draining because this struggle to please her, but always failing, had worn me down. I whispered, “What did I do wrong?”
She blinked at me once, and then her eyes filled with immediate tears. Her chin started to tremble, she hugged herself, and the angry fire in her instantly cooled as this broken expression seized her.
“Nothing,” she finally rasped, right before a heavy sob captured her, making her entire chest seize. “That’s the problem,” she wept openly. “Everything you do is amazing, and I can’t handle it. I can’t go through this again. My heart just can’t take it. So I need you to stop. I…I…I just need it to stop, okay?Please… Stop.”
I pulled back, startled by her reaction.
Chloe’s face turned red as she looked at me, her gaze pleading. Then she began to visibly tremble, and she backed away before her knees gave out.
Slipping to the floor, she landed on the carpet at the base of the bed and curled into herself, hugging her knees and burying her face between them as she sobbed openly.
“Not again. Please…” she begged.
It literally hurt to watch her like this.
“Chloe?” I asked cautiously, but she was beyond hearing me.
Not sure what the hell to do, I stepped forward and stopped. But she didn’t even seem to notice I was there, so I went the rest of the way to her and sank to my knees beside her. Turning to press my back to the end of the bed until I was sitting next to her, I stayed there for a minute, simply letting her cry it out.
But I couldn’t handle that for long, so I gently took her arm and coaxed her into turning toward me. “Hey. Come here.” When she did without any resistance, I tugged her into my lap, and I wrapped my arms around her, absorbing every tremble and sob she had left in her.
I didn’t release a breath until she gripped my forearm and held on tightly. Then I exhaled gratefully and rested my cheek against the top of her damp hair, and I just held her through the torrent.
Minutes passed, and she let her moment run its course. I waited until she went limp against me and was just lying there, no longer sniffling. Then I whispered, “I never meant to make you cry.”
Chloe looked up at me, and it broke my damn heart to see her eyes so red and still damp, her lashes clogged from tears, her nose full-on Rudolph, and her expression packed with loss.
“You didn’t,” she swore. “This is all me. I just… I’m still struggling to get over this kidnapping thing right now,” she tried to explain, her voice hoarse from the crying. “And I’m still terrified most of the time, but I’m making it through. I’m getting better, but I’m not… I’m not fully healed. I just wish you hadn’t heaped this on me, too, in the middle of all that?”
“So I…” Wincing at my ineptness, I guessed, “I pushed too fast?”
“You pushed…period,” she said. “There could never be either too fast or too slow. Not from you. I don’t want you trying. At all.Ever.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but then I realized I had no idea what to say to that. The words,not from you, kept echoing through my head, though. She made it sound as if this decree only applied to me. Like any other guy could try with her, but she couldn’t stomachmetrying.
I swallowed, a little hurt by that theory, so I decided to believe it was wrong, and instead, I quietly admitted, “I don’t understand.”
Chloe heaved out a heavy breath, letting me know there was a lot to explain but she didn’t want to. Then she met my gaze, and her eyes were so sad that my stomach cramped with worry.
“You never knew this,” she finally said and glanced away to wipe her face. “But I… I had a crush on you when I was younger.”
My mouth opened, but words failed me, so I shut my trap and stayed quiet.
She glanced at me and furrowed her brow suspiciously. “You don’t look surprised.”
“Oh,” I breathed, only to wince. “I, uh…” I shrugged a shoulder. “Well, your dad tried to tell me something along those lines when he talked me into this whole fiasco, but I… I don’t know if I necessarilybelievedhim.”
“So you didn’t know…back then?”
“Back then?” I snorted. “Fuck no.”
“Well, Ididlike you,” she admitted openly. “And it put every crush I’d ever had before that to shame.” With a dry, humorless laugh, she glanced up at the ceiling and whispered, “I thought I was freaking in love with you.”
My lips parted and then my eyebrows lifted because I hadn’t been expecting her to throw theloveword out there. “Oh.”
Hearing it from her lips—in connection to me—hit me strangely. It made my skin buzz with awareness, and my breath stuttered from my lungs erratically. It just felt so heavy and big, as if I’d just been awarded something monumental, and I wasn’t sure if it was the ultimate gift of a lifetime or something that bore more responsibility than I could reasonably carry.
