Page 57 of Friends Who Fake It

“Do you want me to go?”

This was so cruel. She dug her fingernails into her palm, staring at him for a long beat. “I think you need to.” Because otherwise, she might do something stupid and beg him to stay. Not just for today, but longer. Forever?

“Please,” she whispered, holding the door even wider.

He looked beyond it, onto the street, like it was a portal through which he was reluctant to travel, but then, he walked towards it, pausing as he passed to glance down at her, then walking outside.

Willow expelled a long sigh as she closed it and leaned against it for the physical support she’d badly needed.

Which meant she startled when a minute later, he thumped against the wood of the door.

She hesitated to open it this time, because her heart was hurting and she had no idea what to say. But slowly, she pulled the door inwards, not sure she’d be able to stave off her tears much longer.

“What?” she whispered.

“The thing is, I don’t want to go,” he said, frowning, as though he was lost in thought. “I want to stay here, with you.”

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “We can’t keep sleeping together. It’s not…easy, like I thought it would be.”

“No,” he agreed, in that same, slow, pensive way. “It’s not easy.”

Her heart ricocheted in her chest.

“What does it mean that I can’t stop thinking about you?” he asked, staying right where he was, with no idea how his words were affecting her.

“What does it mean that I miss you like a limb?”

She sucked in a sharp breath of surprise.

“What does it mean that I keep replaying every moment of those two incredible weekends and wondering what I could have done differently, to stop you from getting this hold on me?”

“What hold on you?”

“I don’t want to feel this,” he said, with a hint of impatience and irritation in the tone of his voice. “I want everything to go back to how it used to be.”

“Okay,” she said, unsure of what he meant and wanted. For a brief moment, she’d thought maybe he was confessing some actual feelings for her, but then this?

“And at the same time,” he said, frowning deeper. “The thought of going months without seeing you feels like a death sentence. How can I live like that again?”

Her heart tripped. “What do you want?”

“Not to feel like this.”

She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest. “Then leave. The longer we go without seeing each other, the better.”

“And then what? You hook up with some other guy, who realizes how special you are, how incredibly, uniquely wonderful, and isn’t shit scared of ruining it, or of being ruined by how he feels for you, so he actually gives you the one thing you need?”

She could hardly breathe now. It was all too much—all too real. Too honest. Too insightful.

“So, you’re scared to be with me because you think what? That we’ll break up and you’ll turn into your dad?”

“Stranger things have happened. You should see my brother right now.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not Marcia, and you’re not him, and nothing is written in the stars. You and I get to choose how we live, and how we act. So, you can choose to be with me, or you can play it safe and walk away.”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you saying that if I choose you, you’d be okay with that?”

She realized what she’d all but admitted and flushed to the roots of her hair. “Seriously, Francesco? Do you need me to say it first? Do you need me to admit I love you, before you’ll work out if you can say it back? Are you really going to make me be the one to go out on that limb?”

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