Page 127 of Take It Offline

Her gaze drops away from mine.

I ball my hands into fists to stop them from shaking. “I’m not saying I don’t have feelings for you, but?—”

“Then what are you saying?” she asks, her voice so thick with pain I have to steel myself against it by digging my fingers into the meat of my palm.

It isn’t the first time I wanted everything I can’t have. And Emma is the only thing I want. The last want I’ll ever have. But I can’t keep her. She’s too good, too pure to be dirtied up by a beat-up mess like me. Though that’s never stopped me from taking more than I deserved.

“I don’t want to lie to you. But it’s hard for me to trust this. I wish I had the luxury of blind optimism like you, but I don’t. I have to believe what’s here today is only temporary.”

“It’s only temporary because you’re pushing me away. Charlie, I’ve fallen in?—”

I put my hand up to stop her.

“One piece of advice? Don’t say that to someone who isn’t going to say it back.”

“Oh.” She goes unnaturally still. “Right. Good… good advice.”

I want to say it, more than anything, but I don’t trust that this is real yet. That it won’t disappear the moment those words leave my lips.

Though a lead weight sinks in my gut, I clear my throat and force out the next words. “It was never meant to be anything more than sex.”

“You’re right, it wasn’t, but then it became more.” She stands. “At least for me. But fine. Push me away because you’re scared of what we have. Just don’t pretend it’s for my benefit. I care about you, and I want to be together.”

Regardless of what she thinks, we were never going to get enough time. Because we were over before we began.

“Don’t worry,” I sneer, my heart crumbling. “You’ll go back to hating me soon enough.”

“Don’t flatter yourself.” She steps close, dragging her hands across my chest, shoulders, cupping my face.

My throat grows thick, twisted.

“You have the biggest heart I’ve ever seen, but you’ve walled yourself off. You’ve locked your feelings away and trapped yourself and call it protection. Nothing in, nothing out. You might be safe that way, but you’re miserable. I hate whoever made you feel like you don’t deserve happiness, Charlie, because you do. I can prove it to you if you give this a chance.”

“I know you think that?—”

“I know it,” she whispers. “Don’t you believe me?”

I want to. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want this.

But life doesn’t become what we want it because we wish for it. “Nothing good in my life has ever lasted except for Reese. I know I’m being an asshole right now, but I haven’t had everything handed to me, all right? I’ve only ever had it ripped away. You’re asking me to, what? Just trust in this lasting forever because you said so? That’s not how the world works.”

“I’m asking you to be vulnerable with me. To give us a chance.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready to do that.”

She’s nodding erratically, like she doesn’t know what to do. That makes two of us.

“So,” she says, her voice shaking in a way that shatters my soul. “This is it? We go back to hating each other?”

I press a palm to her damp cheek. “Sweetheart, I never hated you.”

Her eyes slip shut as I kiss her cheek.

My heart might be breaking in two, but I’m going to lock that shit up and not let her see. She doesn’t deserve me adding to her distress.

“Then why?”

Because I love you.

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