Page 15 of Rejected
“Stop saying things like that and acting like a… like a lovesick puppy. It makes me want to kill you.”
He was quiet for a second. Then he said in the most impossibly kind voice:
“Youareangry.” His eyes were searching her face. “More so than usual. Why?”
The way he asked it, so calmly, when he appeared to be about to combust before, destroyed all her defenses. She slumped.
“Why did you have to propose in such a violent manner?”
“Pardon?” He looked at her as if she’d began sprouting Greek.
“The… the things you said,” she replied, all the rage sucked out of her at his gentle tone. “They were too much. If they were real at all.” She was weak. If her best friend had not transformed into some sort ofmoronic Casanova, she would lean on him for support.
“I am to blame,” Laurie said. “The shock of it… I guess I thought… I hoped that you too felt something for me, that you had an inkling…”
“Well, I didnot!” she was back to yelling at him again.
Why am I like this?
Why is he like this?
Why is he ruining everything? He was all I had left. All I needed. And now he is ruining the most beautiful thing in my life.
He swayed a little.
“What are you doing?” Jo grabbed his shoulder.
“Nothing, I am… I’m just dizzy. It’s overwhelming.”
“What is?”
“Being near you. I can… I can barely breathe. I get light-headed every time I so much as think about you.” Laurie swallowed, looked down at his shoes. “That’s why I tried keeping my distance in the past few months, but it got worse. Good Lord, how can you not have noticed?”
“I have noticed that you have been avoiding me. Spending time with every simpering debutante who throws herself at your—”
“Jo, Jo!” He caught her hands in his, arresting her gaze with his eyes. They were wide and frantic. His hands were hot, shaking.
What is happening to him?
And more importantly, what is happening tome? Why, I am shaking as badly as he is.
Even though he was crouched on the grass in front of her bench, he looked huge. Kneeling, he was almost as tall as she. And the way his powerful body was trembling in front of her, completely in her power, was making her feel weak and ravenous at the same time. As if there was a fire burning in her veins. She had never felt like this, ever.
“I hate spending time in polite society, you know that,” Laurie said in a way that could only be described asfrantic. “I hate every moment of this. Playing the rake? Haunting your brother’s card tables? I hate all of it. Imissyou. Did you think I’ve changed? I have not. I am still your Laurie. I tried becoming someone else, for years I tried it, but I couldn’t. How could you not see that I did it deliberately? I could sense that you needed more time.”
“Time for what?”
He bit down on his lip so hard it went white.
“Time for what, Theodore?” she asked in her most severe voice. She knew how he hated being called ‘Theodore’, but she hoped it would jolt them both out of this nightmare.
It didn’t.
He swallowed, then stuttered as he said:
“To l-love me.”
She flung down his hands, and he winced as if in pain. She knew she hadn’t hurt him—at least notphysically, but the pain that visibly washed over him made her recoil.
