Page 95 of Maid in America

“Yes, we hang out, but… I don’t want to hang out and pretend that I don’tlove you!”

The words silenced them both.

Finally, voice cracking again, he said, “Maybe our time has passed, and I’m just fucking up our friendship by saying that, but I fucking love you. I have for months. This... this is killing me, Chastity. Seeing you and not being able to kiss you or make love to you or fall asleep with you in my arms… it’s tearing me apart.”

Chastity sat stunned, trying to grasp the gravity of it all.

“I wish that everything you do didn’t drive me crazy in the best way, that I didn’t want to see you naked every time you’re in my sight. I wish that the thought of someone else touching you didn’t keep me fuckingawakeat night. I want a life with you that I never wanted with anyone before, and it’sso close… and I can’t have it. It’s fucking torture.”

He removed her feet from his lap and stood. “I can’t do it anymore. I’m sorry. I tried to be a true friend. I really did. But I love you, and this shit twists me up inside. I think the distance could help. You can still call, I can still be there for you from afar, but at least I won’t have your feet in my lap pretending touching you is not giving me a raging-fucking-erection. At least I won’t have to get a whiff of how goddamn good you always smell or wanna hold you in my arms every time you fall asleep during theSummer Loveafter-show. I won’t have to look in your eyes and picture having alifewith you, ahome…”

The breath had been sucked out of her lungs. Too many thoughts were racing through her mind at once, struggling to settle on a sentence in rebuttal.

A single word.

Anything.

But nothing came from her lips.

“I should go. I’m sorry.”

He dumped his food container in her kitchen trash and stared at it in the bag, wishing he had a bottle of whiskey to crawl into to numb the pain.

“Don’t go.” It was all she could muster.

He kissed Chastity atop her rainbow-streaked head and left her in silence.

Seconds later, a sob tore from her chest, feeling as though her whole world had just imploded, taking everything good with it.

She rose to her feet and wiped her face. Abandoning her shoes, she sprinted out the door, racing down the hall and stairwell to reach Barrett before it was too late.

“Barrett,” Chastity shouted, sprinting out the front door of her apartment complex, bare feet sticking to the hot asphalt.

She waved her hand at his Jeep, one idling in his usual spot in the parking lot.

“Stop, Barrett. Please!”

The warm evening breeze ruffled her hair as she wound her way past several old, dinged-up vehicles to his Jeep.

Barrett killed the engine and stepped out, unable to meet her gaze. He clutched his keys in his hand, torn between hearing her out and salvaging what was left of his dignity and leaving.

“You can’t just say all of that and walk away from me!” Her voice wavered with emotion. “You were just going to leave without hearing what I had to say? You drop a bomb and walk away… like I meannothing?”

“What do you want me tosay, Chastity?” His voice boomed.

Several tenants peered out their curtains and blinds to see the show.

“I love you, too, Barrett. I have loved you since that night at the lake, maybe even before that. I didn’t set out to play with your emotions. This has been hard on you. Iknowthat. I was scared and confused. I shouldn’t have pushed you away that day at your apartment. I should never have cost us a singleday together because you’re all I think about. But you gotta understand that I wanted you to have thebestversion of me. Not some fucked-up person who didn’t know what she wanted or what she was doing. I know I’ve still got work on myself to do, but I want to do it withyou. And… maybe it’s too late for that.”

She stepped away and turned. “If you still want to leave, I understand. But, Barrett… you have to know… Ineedyou to know… that I am fucking crazy about you. I want to be with you. I want…you.”

Barrett lunged forward, pulled her to him by the waist, and pressed a fevered kiss to her lips, parting them, clinging to her as if she was his only source of oxygen. She kissed him back in the dying light of the sun, their bodies casting twin shadows of hope on the asphalt.

Beside them, a car rolled up, headlights blasting. They simply ignored it, unwilling to let their long-awaited moment end for anyone else. When the car honked, they both blindly held up their middle fingers in its direction, tongues still making up for several months of lost time.

Minutes later, they crashed through the front door of her apartment. Barrett lowered her to the floor, kicking the front door shut behind them.

He climbed on top of her, mouth exploring the depths of hers. They stripped each other in a flurry, tossing shirts and belts and jeans everywhere as Molly sprawled all three of her long legs across the futon, watching them like a patient cuckold.

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