Page 115 of If You Need Me

“Dallas? What’s going on?” she asks, her voice unsteady.

“I overheard your conversation with Shilpa,” I say.

“What conversation?”

“The one about not being excited to be engaged to me,” I say to the windshield.

“Shit. Dallas?—”

“I don’t want to lock you into something you don’t want,” I say softly.

“It’s not that I don’t want to be with you?—”

“We’re not on the same page, Wills. We’re not even reading from the same book.” And there’s a good chance we never will be.

“Can you look at me and say what you’re going to say, please?” Her voice wavers.

I steel myself, aware that I’m hurting her in ways I never wanted to, not again. But I can’t keep forcing her into a relationship she didn’t ask for. “I love you so fucking much, Wilhelmina. With my whole goddamn heart. But I can’t be engaged to you when I know you don’t want to be engaged to me. It hurts too much.”

“That’s not?—”

“Do you love me the way I love you? Like spend the rest of our lives together?” My question is quiet and without judgement.

Her silence drags between us in the car. “I just?—"

I hate to argue with her, but I have to get this out. “I get it.” I honestly do, especially with how ecstatic Rix and Tristan are. The person he loves returns that love. “I wish I could take so many things back. I shouldn’t have proposed to you. It was reactive and shortsighted. I shouldn’t have forced you into this with me. I should have owned what I’d done, regardless of what it did to mycareer. I got caught up in the same shit I did as a teenager, taking the easy way out, and I pulled you into it with me. And then I let you do what you always do and smooth my mistakes over. I won’t do that to you anymore. It’s unfair, and I’ve already hurt you enough.”

“Dallas…” Her voice cracks.

I take in her sad, beautiful face, wishing I could be what she needs. “I want to be with someone who loves me the same way I love them. I’ve had all this time to be in love with you, Wills. All these years to want this with you. I can’t force you to feel the same way about me.” My eyes sting, and wetness tracks down my cheek. I scrub a hand over my face, swallow the pain, and push on. Because I need to do this. For her. For me. For the future I want but can’t have. “This, the wayyoufeel, it’s my fault. I made it this way between us from the very beginning, starting when we were kids. I can’t hold you hostage like this anymore, Wills, living a lie. I won’t. I’m so thankful for the time we’ve had together, but I know I’m not what you want. You would never have chosen me. I pushed you into this, and I’m absolving you of it. And don’t for a second think this is all about you, either. I’m protecting myself as much as I’m saving you from a lifetime of lying about who we are to each other.” I fight not to look away, but God, it’s torture watching her bottom lip tremble. “Loving you like this hurts, Wills. So fucking much. Knowing that I’m alone in the way I feel about you…” I shake my head. “I can’t fall any harder than I have already. I’m not the right guy for you.”

Her chin wobbles as tears track down her cheeks, and my heart cracks in two.

She nods as her eyes dart around, hands sliding up and down her thighs. Her voice is a broken whisper when she says, “Okay.”

The silence in the car is deafening. The click of her seat belt sounds like a gunshot. She makes a soft, desperate sound as she opens the door and climbs out.

I don’t try to stop her. Don’t chase after her. Don’t take back what I said, even though it hurts like hell to let her go.

She closes it and turns away, rushing up the steps to the front door, head bowed, hand at her mouth. She doesn’t look back, but I catch her reflection in the mirrored glass door.

She looks just as devastated as me.

CHAPTER 39

HEMI

Ican’t even hold it together long enough to make it to my apartment. My shoulders shake as I stab the elevator button, willing it to be empty when it arrives. Thankfully, my plea is heard, and I step inside to press the button for my floor. As soon as the doors close, I break, tears streaming down my face, a horrifyingly loud sob bubbling up from my throat.

It feels like someone just ripped my heart out of my chest. I can’t get the look on Dallas’s face out of my head—how resigned he was.

If I’m so uncertain of my feelings for him, why does this hurt so much? Why does it feel like I’m dying? Like there’s a gaping hole where my heart used to be? Like the best thing I ever had just slipped through my fingers?

It was too good to be true.

I’m grateful the hall is empty when I reach my floor. I’m crying so hard it’s a struggle to find my fob again through blurred vision. I finally manage to get inside and almost knock my roommate over in my rush to get to my bedroom so I can break down in private.

She has rings around her eyes from wearing her virtual headset.She tips her head up—she’s barely five feet, and I’m nearly five eleven. “Oh, hey. Oh wow, are you okay?”

---