Page 249 of Falling Backwards
My voice comes out whispery.“I know, beautiful.I promise I know all of that.”
“You do?”she whispers back.Her eyes are all over my face.I can feel her thumbs brushing anxiously over my fingers.
I nod.“I do.I’m sorry I snapped at you yesterday.Even though I was keeping stuff about him from you, it wasn’t exactly because I didn’t wanna tell you.I really just didn’t even wanna think about it.But…” I look down at our hands and watch my thumbs start up their own anxious brushes over her skin, “…I guess the, uh…the remnants of your paybackwerestill….”
Maggie squeezes my hands.
I squeeze hers.
“Of course those were still there,” she says.“I understand.”
I move my eyes back up to hers.For a few moments, I soak up the honesty and sweetness there.Then I tell her what I now know to be true: “It’s…okay now.”
So, so small is the upwards turn of the corners of her lips.A smile she can’t quite give in to because even though what I said—what Ifeel—is a relief, this is all still a lot.Remorse doesn’t just disappear.
And there’s more to be said.
There’s moreIhave to say.RemorseIhave to face.
Fear and determination roll through me in equal measure at thinking that—even as I painfully remember how I felt years ago towards both her and myself.
I take a quick breath and finally try again after all this time.“Maggie, I’m so fucking sorry about the bet.”
Her tiny smile falters away in a heartbeat.
She gulps, shakes her head.
“I know you’ve heard that before,” I go on, “but I always have been sorry.Please let me just tell you—let me explain what happened so—”
“No,” she cuts in weakly.“I don’t wanna talk about that.”
“I don’t either, but we should.”
“You made me feel stupid,” she cracks out.The green of her eyes is starting to glisten anew.“You made me feel so damn stupid, Luke.I didn’t wanna have my face rubbed in it then and I still don’t now.”
I’m blessed with a whisper of relief that she isn’t pulling away from me, but more than anything, I’m being taken over by old guilt.
I tell her, “Iwas the stupid one about all of that, not you.It was never you.And I know it’s difficult to think about—I haven’t liked doing that either, or remembering what you did back to me—but weshouldtalk about it.When we became a real couple, we were not smart to try to put all this behind us without talking about it.God, it’s almost like we were sixteen again, the way we weren’t handling things, and we’renotsixteen anymore.We can’t block any of this off anymore, and you know that because you told me the hard things about what you did, which means you have to know I need to tell you the hard things too.We can’t fully get past it if only one of us does their part.”
She inhales deeply, pins me with that watery stare…but she doesn’t refuse again.Her exhalation is slow, shaky.
The next breath in and out is quicker, heavier.
The next even more so.
“You broke my heart,” rushes out of her.“I felt something true for you and I believed you felt it for me.Youmade mebelieve that.You were kind to me and—and you complimented me and you acted like you cared about what I said and what I liked and what bothered me.You acted like you were growing close with me.You were the first boy I trusted with my heart, and my first boyfriend, and my first kiss.But what were you really doing the entire time?Just playing a game with me because you and your friend thought it would be funny—”
“Hethought it would be funny,” I correct her.“I never did.Not for a second.”My stomach swoops with my next correction.“And none of the other stuff you said was part of my bet with him.I mean, Iwassupposed to date you, but the way I acted with you, how close we became, me telling you about my dad—all of that was me falling head over heels for you.That first kiss and every single one after it?Any time we touched?Us staying up all night talking to each other?It was all me.Everything you loved, I loved too.Even when I asked you to be my girlfriend, that was me, not the bet.I wasn’t thinking about the bet.I was thinking about whatIwanted.Which wasyou.”
She frowns at me.I can’t tell if it’s because she’s doubtful or confused or cautiously hopeful.
I don’t so much as blink as I hold her gaze.
Her tone doesn’t help me discern how she feels when she asks, “That…was all real?”
“Yes, it was.”My resolve to be honest doesn’t stop my throat from trying to constrict around the plea, “Let me tell you what happened?”
Maggie holds my gaze too.Until she does step back and pull away from me, releasing my hands, slipping hers out of mine.
