Page 67 of The Consequence of Loving Me

I pull myself up in the bed, taking part of the sheet so it still covers my naked body. “You can’t just tell someone not to have feelings for you. It doesn’t fucking work like that. You told me not to fall for you, and I appreciate the warning, but I’m telling you it didn’t work because I’m sitting in front of you with feelings for you and I’m tired of the bullshit. This thing we’ve had for the last month has turned into something more than I thought it would. I’m falling for you and there’s no warning you can give me to stop it from happening because it’s already begun.”

Her head starts to frantically shake. Her small hands pull at the bottom of my T-shirt she’s wearing, wringing it to give her hands something to do. “No, this isn’t happening.”

Dread begins to pool its way through my body. It starts in the pit of my stomach and oozes out into every single part of me. The look on her face makes it apparent that she isn’t letting go of the silly thought that no one should love her again.

My hand reaches out to touch her, my body craving to feel her, even if it’s a small amount. Right as my fingertip is about to graze her thigh, she scoots away from me, so far down the bed that there’s no way I can touch her unless I move.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be, but I am. I didn’t have the intention of wanting you. I really didn’t.”

“Don’t do this, Maverick. You don’t know what you’re saying.”

I shake my head at her in disbelief. “Looking back, you’ve been collecting small pieces of me this whole time. And it was wrong. I didn’t even realize I was doing it before, because I was so committed to Selma. But now that I’m not pretending anymore, I can say I’ve been handing myself over to you, hoping to maybe get a damn scrap back.”

Veronica steps off the bed and begins to pace back and forth.

It’s ironic, because as I throw the covers off me to look for my boxers, I accidentally knock a picture she painted of Connor off the nightstand.

Connor. A man I haven’t met, but a man that still holds her heart captive. More than that, holds her soul captive, because neither her head nor her heart can get past what happened to him.

I search for my boxers, finding them on the floor in front of her closet. My mouth continues to ramble on as I shove both my legs through the holes. “Now that I think about it, it’s pathetic how I’ve been begging this whole time for something from you. Whether it be your thoughts, your feelings, your past, or even a small fucking piece of your heart. I was begging for any of it, all of it, even if it was the smallest piece. Anytime I feel that maybe I finally have something from you, even if it’s broken and jagged and bleeding, you pull it out from me so fast I land on my ass. But I stand up and ask for more again and again and again. Just when I think I’m lucky enough to have that from you, you slap it out of my hand with your dismissive comments and attitude.”

“It’s the sex. You’ll get over it once you aren’t inside me all the time. You’ll find you were attracted to my body, not the pieces of me within it.”

“Don’t degrade yourself like that, Veronica. It’s childish. I’m an adult who can navigate my own feelings. I could never be buried inside you again yet still feel this way.”

“You don’t know that.” She opens the door and stomps out of her room like a damn child.

Even though I’m still in nothing but my underwear, I follow her, nowhere near done with this conversation.

36

Veronica

I’m a few steps out into the living area of the basement when Maverick comes charging in behind me.

“For fuck’s sake, Veronica. What do I need to do to prove to you that I’m not just spewing shit out of my mouth because I want to sleep with you? Because I’ll do it.”

I turn around and face him. “I need you to keep your promise. The promise that this wouldn’t be more than just sex. You promised!”

“I didn’t promise a thing. I remember it very clearly. This has never been just sex for me. Is that really what I am to you? Just another guy to get you off? Because I refuse to believe that.”

“Well believe it, Maverick.” My hands are on my hips as I speak the words to him. While I stand in nothing but his T-shirt—the T-shirt I refused to return because it smells like him and I relish in the comfort it gives me.

His hands fly up in the air as an exasperated sigh escapes his lips. “You make it hard to fall for you, you know that?”

“That’s the point! You weren’t supposed to feel anything. I may be a lot of things in this world, but one thing I haven’t been with you is vague. I’ve told you from the beginning that I don’t want anyone falling for me. Not since Connor.”

“Connor isn’t a part of this, Veronica. Don’t you get that? He’s not here anymore and I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I wish you didn’t have to lose him like that, but he’s been gone for years now. You need to let yourself move on. How am I supposed to fall in love with you when you’re still in love with a ghost?”

“Stop talking about Connor.” I cover my ears, the walls beginning to cave in around me. My past and present are colliding in a vicious moment I’m not prepared for. Hearing Connor’s name come from Maverick’s mouth causes me to feel too much at once.

“That’s the problem. You have to acknowledge what happened to him. You have to acknowledge that you loved him, that the love wasn’t enough to keep him alive, and I’m sorry. The fact of the matter is that no matter how much you love someone—and I mean really fucking love them, mind, body and soul—you can’t keep them alive when their time comes. He died. He died and he’s not coming back. My feelings are so strong for you I would do anything in the world to bring him back to you. Just so I don’t have to see your grief. But I can’t. And you can’t keep using his death as your excuse to never love again. You have to fall out of love with a ghost. Come back to reality. Come to me.” His voice cracks by the end.

The look on his face is serious, his eyes pleading. “I think you’re scared. And I think you blame yourself for Connor’s death because I think it’s easier for you to pretend that there’s a reason, a cause behind his death other than to simply admit that sometimes people die, Veronica. Sometimes people die and it’s horrible and tragic and I wish it wasn’t. But they die. And it isn’t anyone’s fault. Could things have been different if the two of you weren’t in the water? Yes. Yes, they one hundred percent could have been, but you both made a choice. It isn’t anyone’s fault. It’s just life being life.

“You and Connor could have never gotten in the water and he could have died the next day in a car accident. Or he could have lived to be a hundred years old. We just don’t fucking know. We have to live, and we have to live every single day. And god damn it, Veronica, if I don’t want to live each day with you. I don’t fucking care what that means. I don’t care if you think I’ll get hurt or that you’ll destroy me. Because I would rather die tomorrow knowing I got the girl that’s holding my heart in her hands than die seventy years from now after living with what ifs for the rest of my life.

“You think you’re selfish and I think you’re selfless. You think there are consequences for falling in love with you and I think they’re benefits. You think you destroy what you love but I think you heal it. Because you’ve healed me. You’ve taught me what it is to love someone, unconditionally, and to love them for who they are, not for who you want them to be.

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