Page 193 of Rules of Association

“To me, Ceci? Are you kidding me?” I sounded disbelieving to my own ears.

“No—I know! I just,” she sighed. Her eyes squeezing shut as she continued her up and back movements in the garden path. “I just, I don’t know what to say. I had a plan, but now it’s like there’s so much to say that nothing wants to come out at all. I’m stuck.”

Easing up to her, I stopped her by the shoulders. “What did you do when I was gone?”

“What?”

“How did you work through it, honey?”

“Boxing rounds.”

“Boxing rounds.” I nodded. “Okay. Then do it like that. Tell me what you’re feeling for one three minute round. If you need more time, we’ll reset the clock for another one.”

She blinked, but I didn’t give her a chance to continue on with whatever thought was brewing behind those eyes. “Don’t argue, baby. Just do what I tell you to do. You’re on the clock.”

“Okay…” she broke away from me and started her pacing again, this time in longer, quicker strides. “Okay, okay, okay. I guess—Okay.”

“Is that all you're going to say is okay?”

She cut me with a glare, before pulling in a deep, deep breath and letting it out slowly. When she looked at me again, I had to admit I momentarily regretted giving her so much power. Maybe I should have set some parameters of what exactly we were hashing out here.

But it was too late now. She was turning to me and opening her mouth to speak. Hesitantly at first. “I want you to know that I’m not stupid okay?”

“I’ve never once called you stupid.”

“Hey,” she clipped, her eyes boring into me. “You said it was my turn, so let me talk.”

I shut my mouth.

“I know you don’t think I’m dumb. I’m saying that because I did notice, okay? Maybe not right away but I noticed at some point that there were starting to be these feelings between us.

And you might think I was taking you for granted, knowing and not saying anything. But I wasn’t trying to, I promise. I was trying to preserve this thing we had as long as I could. Because I knew if I admitted my own feelings to myself, that would be the end for me, and you—”

Air came in jagged through her mouth, her breath hitching momentarily. Resetting, she started again. “I’ve known from the very beginning what I have with you, Connor. You’re perfect, you’re amazing, the best friend I’ve ever had. And I guess I didn’t want to ruin that with the possibility that this was just some kind of phase for you when for me it would be…real.”

The look I gave her must have spoken volumes, because she puffed out air, huffing.

“I was scared,” she said. “That’s why I ignored it up until I couldn’t anymore, and that’s why even after the beach I said something stupid.”

“I shouldn’t have said what we did was a mistake. That was stupid and cowardly and I wanted to take it back right away. But I couldn’t because you left and then I was all by myself without you and…” she paused, her face taking on that miserable expression she’d been wearing all night. Her mouth wobbling again and her voice going just as unstable. But she sucked in a deep breath, righting herself and staying strong. And to me she glared. “And now I’m so mad at you, because while I was a coward, you were a coward too.”

Oh, okay. I narrowed my eyes, my neck getting hot. Some apology this was. I almost wanted to laugh.

“I'm a coward now?” I asked, crossing my arms and looking down at her.

“Yes, Connoryou,” she annunciated, throwing her arms out at her sides before letting them drop. “You should have just talked to me.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Instead of leaving on your little European expedition, you should have stayed and talked to me, Connor. But you left.”

“I had to,” I said, breaking my silence.

“You didn’t have to. You could have stayed and talked to me about it. About us.” She grew more animated, more into herself the more she spoke. More passionate, and I couldn’t help the warm feeling I got as she spoke so vehemently about me. Even though she was talking crazy. “Because it was one thing for me tothinkI knew how you felt or to guess what your little whispers and one-off comments meant. It was one thing to be kissed by you and be scared to death to hope that it meant what I thought it meant. But it would’ve been a whole other thing to be wrong about something like that. I couldn’t take it if I was wrong. So I never tried to be either. I tried to keep us the same because same was good and the rest was unknown. And subconsciously I think I kept waiting for some kind of sign that it was okay to love you, that it was safe to want you as more than my best friend but still have that part of you too, but you never said anything. You never told me. How did you expect me to know for sure if you wouldn’t tell me, Con?”

“I was scared too,” I said. “If you thought you couldn’t be wrong about me, I thought I was nothingbutwrong about you. It felt like every time I put myself out there, you shut down or ducked away or blew me off. It felt like rejection, Cee. If you thought you couldn’t take it, how did you expect me to take it over and over again?”

She was quiet for a second, her timer still ticking.

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