Page 104 of My So-Called Perfect Life
He shakes his head. “I don’t mean it in that sense, Danielle. I mean that you met me the day after your world, your future, shattered. I don’t want to be the replacement guy for the life you planned with Scott. I also don’t want to be the guy who helps you pick up the pieces, only for you to be whole again for someone else. I can’t stop thinking about the fact that I could be nothing more than a rebound for you. A summer fling to cover the hurt from what Scott did to you. A way to pass time until you’re ready to move on. Whatever you want to call it.”
I’m dumbfounded. I had no idea he felt this way. “Ryan, if all you were was a rebound, I never would’ve agreed to go out with you. Where are you getting this from? Please tell me Evan isn’t brainwashing you against me.”
He shakes his head. “No, I was already questioning what we are before Evan added his two cents. I wasn’t sure what to do. I’ve never done this before. You didn’t push for anything more, so I didn’t know if I was supposed ask or just let it be. But then Evan mentioned this just being a rebound and everything just went spiraling.”
Freaking Evan.He isn’t the president of my fan club, but did he have to sabotage my relationship?
“Evan? You’re listening to Evan? I know he’s your friend, but he’s as deep as the shallow end of the kiddie pool. My students are more mature than he is. Evan is the last person in the world you should take relationship advice from.”
“Just listen, please.” Ryan takes my hand back in his. “Things were good between us, so I figured I would just leave well enough alone. It was working for us and I was happy.”
My heart hammers against my chest as if it’s screaming, “No don’t let him do this.” Tears sting the back of my eyes, but I fight it down. “And you’re not happy now?”
“I’m not unhappy either.” One of the tears slips down my cheeks and he brushes it away with a thumb. “I just think we’re in different places. Which leads to me feeling a bit out of control. I don’t like feeling jealous and stressed. I’m not that guy, Danielle. I’m not into drama. I don’t like questioning things. And that’s what I’m doing because I feel like you need time to go out and be yourself. Like, the other night at the bar, when it looked like you were enjoying the attention of the guys you were with. Or the first night I saw you with Luke, and I felt threatened. I didn’t like the way you seemed to be so comfortable with him or the way he looked at you like you made the sun rise for him every morning.”
“Stop,” I tell him needing to take that idea off the table right now. I’m not interested in Luke or Brandon. “Don’t go any further yet. Luke is one hundred percent gay and has zero interest in girls. The other man we were talking with, that was his boyfriend, who is also not into women. I was so comfortable with them because they are nice people. I was enjoying their attention because they were telling me about a mishap in the dog park that resulted in Luke falling on his ass in a tangle of dog leashes. There was no sexual attraction or tension or interest.”
Hurt is growing deeper and deeper fighting with the sadness in my chest.
“That’s not the issue, Dani Girl,” he rebuts. “You should be able to talk to whomever you want without me wanting to Hulk smash their faces. The insecurity . . . this feeling . . . that’s the problem. Not you.”
You’ve got to be kidding me. “Are you really giving me the, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ speech right now?”
“No,” he emphatically denies. He pulls me closer to him, but I wish he wouldn’t.Don’t pull me in before you hurt me.“What I’m trying to tell you is that if I let myself feel—if I give how I’m beginning to feel about you a name, I know it’s love. I could fall hopelessly in love with you. But I don’t want to acknowledge that until you’ve had the time to figure out if you can love me for more than the guy who helped you put your life back together. I don’t want to be the temporary guy with you. This whole thing made me realize that you didn’t go and see what fish were out in the sea, like you’d said that first time in the bar. So, I got to thinking that you need to do that.”
He could fall hopelessly in love with me?The words whirl through my head like a cyclone. The idea of Ryan loving me is amazing. He is wonderful, smart, kind, thoughtful, and everything a woman would treasure in a man.But he doesn’t want to love me?
Anger fires quickly in my gut. I care about this man. He means more to me than he knows. I have never tried to make him feel like he wasn’t good enough or worth it. “When have I ever made you feel temporary?”
“I’m not saying that you have,” he says with frustration in his voice. “I don’t think I’m explaining myself the best, but deep down, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to commit myself to this without knowing that I’m not your fallback guy. I keep waiting for you to realize that you’re over Scott and ready to settle down. I don’t want to be your fun guy, Danielle.”
Ryan has always been the fun guy, and I guess it’s more of an insecurity than either of us realized until now. “Ryan, you’re more than my fun guy. I have been over Scott for months because of you. You helped me get over Scott.”
His lips turn down and his eyes soften. He looks sad even though I just told him he’s more to me. “Did I or am I just replacing him until he no longer matters?”
He doesn’t matter. “I had to call the police to remove him from my apartment. The Scott ship sailed that day.”
“I think you need time to be single,” he says. “Some space to go have fun, meet people, see what life has to offer out there. It’s only fair. You jumped from Scott to me.”
Like hell I do. That’s not what I want at all. “Ryan, I don’t want to go out and see what else life has to offer. I like what I have here. I love what we have. Your feelings aren’t one-sided. You’ve become important to me, too, and now, you want to go our separate ways because, for some reason, you think I need or want to sleep around? Don’t I get a say in any of this?”
He’s so frustrating. Why can’t he understand that I don’t want that?
“That’s not what I said. I spent most of my hiking trip trying to work this all out in my head,” he says. “The thought of you going out there and finding someone else who makes you happy makes my stomach churn, but you need time to be on your own. I’m not saying that I don’t want to be with you. I just need you to be sure you want to be with me.”
This makes no sense. “So, you want to break up?”
“ I want you to have the chance to make sure I’m the one you want too. I don’t want to be cut out of your life. Trust me, I know it’s a risk. You could find someone else, but it’s a risk I have to take if it will save me from a world of hurt down the road.”
“Or things can continue on just fine,” I add in the one option he doesn’t seem to want to consider.
“But they won’t Danielle,” he tells me. “You’ve noticed I haven’t been myself this week. Things are strained because I can’t stop thinking about this shit.”
This is not how I pictured today going. This is not what I was thinking when I started this conversation. “You want to be just friends. You want me to go out and live the single life. And then what? Call you and tell you about all my dates? Is this because I went to the concert instead of your parents? That’s not fair Ryan. It was a once in a lifetime chance!”
“No, Danielle. But the look of sheer fright on your face at the thought of meeting my family didn’t help.” His Adam’s apple bobs as he gulps. “If we’re meant to be, Danielle, we will be. If you think we’re meant to be together, then do this for me. Give me the peace of mind I need.”
What warped reality does Ryan see in his head?
