Page 43 of Meet Me at the Metro

I’m so tired of the back and forth myself, but I don’t know what to say to her. Every time she’s around, I fucking crave her, and that’s what’s messing with my head the most. I’ve felt numb for so long now because it seemed to be the only way I could make things in my life a little simpler. Now I’m starting to feel everything all at once.Norahas me feeling everything all at once again, and I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do with all of it. I don’t know how to handle it.

“I’m sorry for trying to fucking help you, Nora,” I fire back defensively as I stand and take a step back toward the bedroom door.

“Don’t you dare do this, Theo.” She completely ignores the state of her foot as she rises from the bed and tries to close the distance between us. “Don’t you dare pull away now. You don’t get to do this.”

“Do what?” I snap back, still finding enough air to argue back even though it feels like she’s stealing the breath straight from my lungs.

“Distance yourself and shut down when things get heated between the two of us! Keep walking away from the truth. You keep stringing me around, you know that? I’m in hot water with you one second and cold water the next. This isn’t fair!” Her breaths are hot, the smell of alcohol still lingering on them. “I know you’ve got a complicated history. I know you’ve got your guard up because of it, but—”

“You actually don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”

“Oh, really?”She responds defiantly, her face now only inches away from mine and red with anger. “I don’t?”

“No, you don’t,” I growl.

“Then, please, go ahead and enlighten me on what the issue is then! Quit putting walls up and just talk to me like a normal human being.”

“I’m talking to you right now, Nora.”

“You know what I mean, Theo. You keep closing off a part of yourself every single time we have a conversation.”

I shake my head with frustration and disbelief. “You don’t want to hear what I have to say.Trust me.”

“Yes, I do, because I’mtryingto know you,” she says, the hard look in her eyes finally softening as they scan my face. Silence swarms us for a long moment before she finally hushes out, “I can’t keep doing the back and forth with you. I’m so tired of you letting me in a little just to shut me out.” My chest jolts as her fingers brush my face, subsiding the tight tension in my jaw. “If you would just let me in. I want to hear everything you have to say.”

But you really don’t.

Everyone is always so insistent on me opening up,letting them in,but the second I open the floodgates of my past, everyone straps on their life jackets and float as far away as they can from me because that past is fucking ugly. It’s heavy and loaded, its weight carried on my back every day for the last ten years like some hideous secret. It’s not Nora’s job to deal with that weight—not a single ounce of it. I don’t want her to bear it for even a second.

“You don’t know what the hell you want,” I scoff, hoping that the sting of my words is enough to end this and any future conversations wemight have had. Barely finding the will to do so, I force a gap between the two of us. “Get some sleep, Nora.You’re drunk.”

The front door clicks and swings open in the distance.

“ELLIE! THEO!”

I push out of the room quickly, using my friends’ arrival as an excuse to get myself the hell out of here. One more minute with Nora would be enough to convince me to stay, but after everything that’s been said,I can’t stay.

Evie’s and Harvey’s eyes meet mine from where they stand at the end of the hallway. I force my feet to start walking toward them instead of back toward the girl I left in the bedroom behind me.

“She’s in her room. She sprained her ankle. I’m heading out.” I look back one last time and regret it immediately as I catch sight of Nora’s solemn face hanging out of the doorway.

Harvey grabs onto my arm, the remainder of his drag makeup from tonight barely clinging to his face. “Everything okay, mate?”

“Everything’s fucking great,” I lie, trudging my feet through the living room and refusing to stop until they’ve made it to the pavement outside of the flat.

13

AND SO, I TREAD ON

E L L I E

I’m jolted awake as a searing throb cuts through my ankle and travels up the side of my calf. I was hoping that a good night’s sleep would be enough to remedy most of the damage that came from my drunken fall last night, but as I sit up and see how swollen my ankle looks, I realize that my hours of dreaming didn’t do shit in healing my injury.

My fingers lightly brush against the purple, black, and blue bruising around the inflamed joint stretched out in front of me, and I choke on a gasp from the abrupt pain that follows.

I look over the rest of my limbs, groaning to myself with regret as my eyes lock onto my poorly bandaged arm. With a gentle finger, I carefully lift an edge of the taped gauze wrapped around my forearm, relieved to see that the wound underneath doesn’t look nearly as bad as I remembered it looking last night.

“You clumsy idiot.” I scoot my body to the edge of the bed and allow my legs to hang for several long moments before feeling brave enough to test out how hurt my ankle truly is.

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