Page 109 of The Bro Pact
To feel so visceral, it grips your throat and stops your heart like a living, breathing entity.
This is too overwhelming.
All of it.
I wasn’t mentally prepared for Marissa to stop by and ask me to move in with her.
And now Ren?
I really don’t think I can handle it.
I have a macro exam coming up that I need to focus on. Summer session was supposed to get me ahead, not put my overall GPA at risk.
Ren finally notices the agony on my face and spurs into action.
“Hey, hey, hey.What’s wrong?” he asks, cupping my cheeks between his palms, but I ignore him, staring at the ground instead. “Look at me,” he demands.
I can’t tell him Marissa just asked me the same exact thing. It would hurt him too much. And I never want to hurt Ren. Ever.
My gaze finally meets his intense stare, neither of us breaking eye contact.
Everything in my soul is telling me the right choice is Ren, but everything I’ve been raised to believe, raised to want for myself, tells me to choose Marissa.
Fuck!
Curling away from him, I scrub a hand through my tangled strands.
I can’t make this decision right now.
I just can’t.
“What’s wrong, Kyle? You can tell me.Please.”
Warren places a gentle hand on my shoulder, but it’s as if a balloon pops and all the air whooshes out of me on contact. I start to droop, wanting to sink to the floor and melt into it, but two strong hands hold me up firmly.
Concerned eyes urge me to speak, and I have no more strength left, so I give in, confessing everything. “Marissa’s been texting me since the end of our trip. I’ve ignored her, but then she showed up at my house earlier today, and Nelson let her in. She wants to get back together and . . .She asked me to move in with her.”
Ren’s jaw drops, as if he doesn’t believe it, and I almost don’t either. “What?”
“I know. It’s a crazy coincidence that you both asked me the same question on the same day, and now I’m faced with this huge, life-impacting decision,” I blurt out, feeling a little better to get some of this weight off my chest.
“What?” he asks again, this time shouting the question.
“I . . .”
Does he really want me to repeat myself?
Ren closes his eyes, rubbing his temples like he’s completely shocked by what I just said, even though things have been strained and distant ever since we’ve been home.
When he finally opens them, his stare is harsh. A storm is brewing in his dark gray depths, and for the first time in history, it seems to be headed my way. “You don’t wanna be with me?”
“I don’t know, Ren,” I say softly.
“After everything we’ve been through? All our memories? And I don’t just mean the road trip, Ky. I’m talking about ourwhole damn lives.”
“I don’t know,” I repeat in nothing but a weak whisper, shaking my head uselessly as Ren keeps going.
“Even after last weekend? I mean, I know we got interrupted, but I thought it proved that our connection existed outside of the vacation bubble.”
