Page 153 of Maybe You

His gaze is full of yearning.

I can see it.

I can feel it.

Then again, him wanting me was never the problem.

He does.

Has.

For a while now.

It’s keeping me that’s causing the issues. I rest my hands on top of the stairs. The warm concrete seems to somehow settle and steady me.

“Thank you for coming,” I say.

He nods haltingly.

“There’s something I need to say,” I continue. “And I know you probably don’t want to hear it, but I’m going to say it anyway.”

He doesn’t respond in any way, but he’s not running either, so I’ll take that as encouragement.

“I want to have a life with you,” I say.

He sucks in a breath. His lips part.

I barrel on.

“I want to come home to you every night. I want to make you chicken taco salad for dinner because it’s one of the few things I know how to cook, so if we ever divide dinner duty, you’d be having that a lot.”

He stares at me wordlessly.

I shrug. “Just a fair warning.” I swallow and continue. “I want to go grocery shopping with you and watch movies. I want to argue about who’ll have to put fresh sheets on the bed on Saturdays and then do it together. I want to go swimming with you and eat lunch with you. I want to get a Christmas tree together, and take road trips, and travel. I’ll go to boring work events with you and make you laugh. And maybe we could get a dog. Unless you’re allergic.”

My chest feels tight, like there’s not enough room to breathe. Like my lungs have been gripped in a vice.

“But mostly, I just want to love you, and I know it’s not what you wanted, and I know it’s inconvenient, but I do, and I don’t expect you to change your mind or do anything at all with this. I just… I just needed to say it. One last time.”

Sutton licks his lips and swallows hard. Everything he does seems to happen in slow motion in my fuzzy brain.

I inhale, and the painfully familiar scent of his aftershave tickles my nose. This might be the last time I get to smell him.

I focus my eyes on him and take him in greedily.

This, too, might be the last time.

The longer he stays silent, the more it starts to sink in that this really is it.

That I wish things were different, but I can’t change them.

That these are the dying breaths of us.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” Sutton whispers.

“I know.” I finally look away. I don’t think I have it in me to record the eyewitness account of the end of us live.

I close my eyes instead.

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