Page 52 of The Broken Beginning: Part One

The complete personality change was something I didn’t trust. As we walked, I wished I had a way of talking to Stacey so she could give me her spin on things. Then again, I think her spin was already known. She had been harping on me from the beginning to just make him jealous, so he could see what he would be missing out on if I were to take everything that was me and give it to someone who wasn’t him.

Never being one to beat around the bush I addressed the elephant in the room.

“Is this because you heard Stacey and me talking about dating and fuck buddies?” His shoulders stiffened, but he shook his head.

“I bought the helmet while I was out, before I heard your conversation, remember?”

“Well, same difference, because you left after finding out that I went on a date with Paul.”

“I don’t want you dating Paul,” he admitted.

“Well, that’s cool because Paul doesn’t want me dating him either.”

“Sounds like he’s a smart guy.”

I rolled my eyes at that because if I told him that I was dating him tomorrow, Merc would have talked about what an idiot he was.”

“I honestly don’t understand what’s going on here. You can go fuck whomever you want, but I can’t go on a date without you losing it,” I complained.

“I’m not giving my heart to anyone.”

“Me either, and you seem to forget the times your heart was in it with other women too.”

“My heart was never in anything with anyone. I thought it was with Brinley because I was young and dumb as fuck.”

“Still are,” I mumbled. To my surprise, he laughed at that instead of getting pissed.

“That is something I love about you,” he insisted. “You tell it like it is, no matter whether it will make the other person feel bad or not.”

“Truth hurts sometimes, that doesn’t mean things don’t need to be said.”

“I agree. So, I’m going to give you some truths.”

“I’m all ears,” I countered with every bit of sarcasm dripping from my words.

“I wasn’t ready for you.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“Shut up and listen,” he snapped. Merc was lucky that the way he did it had a slight teasing tone to the abrupt order, or I would have punched him in his balls and walked the whole way home. It should only take like two days to get back. Totally doable, I tried to convince myself.

“I wasn’t ready for you. To be tied down. To be a family.”

“You have a family though, whether you wanted it or not.”

“I know that, Lily. The thing is, they gave me enough leeway to pretend that it wasn’t true for a long time.” I understood that because it was exactly what he had done through the entirety of my pregnancy.

“By the time I realized just how badly I’d been fucking up, you hated me.”

“I never hated you,” I lied.

“Yeah, you did. No blame either because I deserved that hate.” He sighed and squeezed my hand tighter in his hold. “At first, after I realized what a dumbass I’d been, I struggled with what to do about it. But, you know, you made it perfectly clear that the only thing you wanted to work on was being friends. So, I continued doing the same old shit. At first, I did it to spite you because when I was ready to try for something more, we had that one night, and it turned out the way it did. Seeing you instantly regret it, knowing that neither of us was in a healthy place to have gone there that night anyway…” He shook his head, looking almost defeated.

“It took a while to remember, or to process the fact that I created that whole situation to turn out exactly the way it did. My actions made you feel that way. My inactions fueled that fire. I get it now. I’ve known it for a while.”

We were quiet for a bit after that revelation. There was really nothing I could add to his observations. It was all just sadly true. Well, at least my part of it. I wasn’t sure about whether his feelings were genuine.

“I’ve been hoping that you would start seeing that boy you had a crush on again.”

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