Page 97 of How We Loved

“Fuck!” he yells, hitting the couch beside him, then standing to head toward me.

I stare up at him as he approaches me with long strides.

“I can’t do this, Maya,” he admits.

Tears fall down my face that I don’t even try to stop. “Do what?”

“This. Us. Just friends.”

My eyes open wide. Did I just hear what I think I heard him say?

I stand there silently as he works through what he has to say.

“God, Maya. I can’t handle what you’ve put me through this last month. I was fine with you having a boyfriend. I could support that. But I couldn’t support not being able to protect you. Don’t you realize that’s my job? Your mom made me promise I’d always protect you. You made me break that promise to her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I cry out.

“The day she died. She had me come into her room and had me promise I would always be there for you.”

“That’s not fair, Ben. You can’t push that on me! I didn’t even know she did that,” I yell back, and then my back stiffens as realization hits me. “Is that the only reason why you’ve always been so nice to me? Is that what all the last few years have been about? A promise to my mom?”

He steps up to me. “No. No way in hell, Maya. It’s so much more than that, and you know it.”

“Then, what?”

“Everything was perfect between us, and you pushed me away.”

I throw my arms up in the air. “You’re right, Ben. I pushed you away. But I wanted what I see other girls have. I wanted a boyfriend I could call my own. I wanted to feel those butterflies when he touched me. Don’t you think I deserve that?”

“Didn’t you see we already had that?”

I pause and scrunch my face, letting the words he said jumble around in my mind. “What are you talking about?”

“Us, Maya. Us. You and me.”

“There’s never been an us.” I tilt my head to the side to make my point clear. “There was a you and other girls.”

“That’s because I couldn’t have you!” he yells.

“Why couldn’t you?” I open my arms up wide. “I’m right here. I’ve been here the whole time.”

“I’m not good enough for you, and you know it.”

All of the frustrations of the entire month come out of me, and I don’t care if I’m going to take it out on Ben. I need to rid these emotions from my body. “Oh, really? And why would I know that? Enlighten me, why don’t you?”

He steps up to me, so close that my breathing stops completely. My heart pounds as we stare into each other’s eyes, mere inches apart.

I watch the way his eyes dance between my lips and my eyes. He moves even closer, and I stand here, frozen. So many times over the years, I’ve thought about being with him, thinking just maybe there was something more to us, but I never thought it would actually happen.

But lately, it’s all I’ve been thinking about.

I’ve heard people talk about putting others in a friend zone. We were so far past friend zone that I pushed every thought I had about him so far out of my mind that it might as well have been on Pluto.

But I guess like Pluto being changed from its planet status, we can change too.

He licks his lips, and I swear I can sense what he would feel like, doing that to me.

“Because the desires I have for you should never come out of any guy’s thoughts who is thinking about the person they are supposed to protect.” His eyes darken as he grabs my hips. “Fuck, girl, the things I’ve wanted to do to you?—”

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