Page 107 of We Were Something
I shake my head, wanting to walk us backward, take us away from this place and return us to the little cocoon we built for ourselves at the hospital with his mom. The laughing, the stories, the stupid jokes.
“It’s more than lust, youknowit,” I tell him. “It might have begun that way…might have started out like that, but that’s not what it has become.”
“It’s just not right for me,” he says. “Or for you.”
I finally have nothing to say in response, though the desperation within my chest is still there. The way my heart is breaking and falling into a million pieces between us is still very real.
But for once in my life, I can’t manage to find anything to say to convince him he’s wrong.
Even though I know in the very depths of my soul that he is.
He’s wrong.
About us. About our relationship. About the depth of what links us together.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” I finally whisper. “You’re throwing us away when you made me promise…you made mepromisenot to throw us away.”
We stare at each other, his expression unmoving as tears begin to stream down my face.
“What do you want me to say, Paige?” he asks.
For the life of me, in this moment, I don’t know that I can answer him. Because really, there isn’t justonething I want him to say. There are a million.
I want him to say he’s making a mistake.
He didn’t mean the things he said.
When he pictures his future, I’m right there, standing beside him, holding his hand—no matter what people think.
But I know he won’t say those things.
The man is breaking up with me—though, clearly, I thought we were much more ‘together’ than he did. It would be foolish of me to ask him to change his mind.
So instead, I try to grasp at the only thing that feels like it might still be in my control.
“We were something, though…weren’t we? Something real?”
He grimaces and looks away, like he’s embarrassed for me.
And I get it. I really do.
Because I should be embarrassed, too.
But I’m not.
I’m not embarrassed by how much this feels like begging for scraps. I’m not embarrassed that I probably look like trash while he stands there in his expertly tailored suit. I’m not embarrassed that I know his friends are listening in the other room, if the obnoxiously loud sound of silence is anything to go by.
No. I’m none of those things.
Instead, I’m desperate.
Desperate for him to acknowledge what we had. Desperate to know the words we spoke to each other were real. Desperate to be reassured that I didn’t spend weeks falling in love with a man who thinks we were nothing.
ThinksI’mnothing.
Tears track down my face as he remains silent, and when I finally realize he doesn’t plan to say anything in response, I do the only thing I can think of.
I run.
