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The side of Hailey’s mouth tugs up and then she’s looking through me.
“Thirty seconds and I was transfixed. Less than ten and I knew I needed to make you mine. You had me whipped long before I fully understood the meaning of the word.”
Williams gulps, frowning at nothing.
“Hailey, what do you see?” I ask gently, even pointing when she still won’t match my stare. “Look me in the eye and tell me what you see right now?” I beg as if she hasn’t shoved glass through my veins while trying to make herself invisible.
I told her I was done with the excuses. And I am.
I’m over my emotions being tugged back and forth, up and down like the string on a yo-yo. Anger. Reluctance. Anger. Sadness. Anger. Delight. Anger. Lust. Anger.
Total clarity is all I want.
It’s the most I deserve and the least she can give me.
“I-I can’t…” she whimpers pathetically.
“Why?” I snarl.
Her head’s shaking side to side before I have time to finish spewing the one word like its poison. My frown as charged as my imbalance at witnessing the tears she no longer shies away from.
My heart lurches to my throat at the sight of her conflict, her strife. The agony.
“You won’t because we both know what you’ll see if you do, don’t we?” I lick at my lips. “It’s the same thing you saw before you left years ago and when you came back this summer.”
In the beginning, it was only disguised underneath all my anger and hostility, but it never left, not fully. Not ever.
My mouth goes dry. This cold, dejected person is what I’ve become. Who she’s turned me into.
Hailey’s full-on sobbing now. Silent but strong are the droplets as they race from her sockets and down past her cheeks and chin.
Her eyes flash up at me, and it’s as if a lifetime has passed in between.
The intensity catches me by surprise, but I don’t dare let her know how much I’m affected. Drawn to her. Haven’t I given her more than enough opportunities to realize this on her own?
Hailey continues to stare me down the length of her nose, crying but fearless. “You made it too easy for me to fall for you back in high school. At one point, I would’ve sworn I could have loved you.”
My heart pauses. Literally paused.
My eyes, like this dying thing underneath my ribs, grow hard at her confession.Could have?She’s lying. I can see it in her eyes, but it doesn’t matter because she can’t admit it.
Flames lick at my insides.
“Love…” I falter as more anger rises to my cheeks. “What a fucked-up waste of an emotion.”
I want to laugh, but if I did, it would only come out hollow.
“Well, I love you.Present tense.” I profess. “I love you, Williams,” I repeat with more conviction. Stupid me, I never did know when to give up, to walk away.
With nothing more to lose, I watch as her features twist underneath the drying of her tears, her head jerking back like a cobra readying itself to strike. My skin prickles with malice at the sight.
“…I never asked you to love me.” Her voice breaks the longer she talks and the more she tries to pretend she’s done a decent job of holding herself together. A news forecaster could’ve predicted a better outcome.
This time I no longer care, chuckling even if it’s empty and completely full of defeat.
“You’re right, you didn’t.” A breath escapes her, rattling around like a penny in an empty jar. She hadn’t been expecting me to agree. “But you never asked me not to love you either.”
“You don’t love me.”
