Page 125 of Maybe You

He’s practically vibrating.

But it doesn’t feel like anger.

No.

It looks like panic.

Pure, uncontrollable fear.

And I don’t understand.

He whirls toward me.

Clenches his jaw.

“Then we’re done.” He chokes the words out.

Yet another shot in the chest.

And now the calm numbness has a tear in it.

“Just like that?” I ask, disbelief coloring each word. “We’re over, just like that.”

“There was one rule,” he says. “You broke the fucking one rule I had.”

“And you didn’t?” I demand.

Sutton doesn’t answer.

Something horrible rises in my chest, a mix of confusion and anger, and that fucking wound in my chest is still throbbing and pulsing and spitting out hurt.

“Seriously?” I say, scared shitless and indignant, all in one. “You’ve been attached to me for months. Fucking months! I sleep in your bed and meet your friends and spend every waking moment with you, but having me actually say the words is where you draw the line?”

He starts pacing again.

“I fucking love you!” I say. “I can’t just turn it off.”

Sutton stands in the middle of the room, gripping his hair. For an absurd moment I expect him to stuff his fingers in his ears and start chanting “Lalala” to himself to block out all that unwelcome love I’m throwing at him.

I let out a hoarse laugh. Stand up. Feet still rooted to the floor.

“What did you think was going to happen?” I ask. “That we’d just go on like this and never have a future? Because newsflash, I want a future. With you. I want us to be together and love together and live together. That’s what I want. And I have the right to ask for it. I have the right to want it. And saying that I love you doesn’t make me a liar. It makes me somebody brave enough to tell the truth.”

He's standing there, in the middle of the room, tense and silent.

“Tell me you don’t love me,” I say and take a step closer. “Tell me you don’t love me too. Tell me to go, and I’ll go. I can’t make you love me, so if you don’t, tell me. Easy solution.”

I wait.

He still doesn’t say anything.

A part of me wants him to do it.

Say it.

A clean cut.

“Tell me,” I say. “Tell me you don’t fucking love me. Tell me! Tell me, tell me, tell me. Fucking tell me!”

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