Page 149 of Waiting to Lose
“Come on. Please. Let’s just talk about this,” she begged.
“I can’t do this anymore, Madi. I just can’t.”
“What do you mean?” she asked in confusion.
“This thing, with us. The last few days, I’ve been really struggling with this whole situation. I decided that I can barely take care of myself, much less you.”
Madi’s eyes searched his. “I don’t need you to take care of me. I just need you to love me.”
Jake’s face became stern. “That’s the problem. I’ve been trying to convince myself that I’m in love with you, but between your crazy-ass family and all the drama that surrounds me when I’m with you, it’s just not worth it anymore.”
“What?” Madi shook her head at him in fear.
“I’m sorry. I was going to wait until tomorrow to tell you, but after tonight I just realized that I can’t take it anymore. It’s over. I need you to go home.”
Jake reached around the corner and produced the luggage she had yet to unpack. “Just go home. We’re done. I don’t want you anymore.”
“Jake, no!” Madi shrieked. “I know you love me. Why are you doing this? Why are you saying this stuff to me?”
Jake took a deep breath and gritted his teeth at her. “I don’t love you. I don’t think I really ever did. It was all just a lie. You were a good fuck, but I just can’t keep pretending and playing house with you. Now that the press knows who you are, it’s not fun for me anymore. I should never have brought you here. I should never have done the stupid contest to begin with.”
Madi’s body shook as the coldness of his words ran along her spine. She racked with chills as she reached to touch his face. “Jake, please!”
His body was cold like his expression. “Just go home,” he said as he backed away from her hand. “You’ve pushed me for the last time. Leave and don’t look back. It’s over.”
Madi tried to reach her arms up for him, but he forced her away and closed the door, locking it.
She sat in the hallway, next to her suitcase, as the shock of his declaration rippled through her veins. It was a lie? She was a game? All of it was just a lie?
Madi tried to process what had just happened, she slumped down to floor. There were no tears, just a cold chill. Her mind paged through everything they had been through and every word he’d ever said to her. She knew she’d acted stupidly, but it wasn’t like Jake to overreact like this. She trusted him. She believed in him. They were two sides of a coin. He was another side of her, and just like a coin, there were always two sides to a story and two sides to a lie. Madi’s mind raced as she reviewed what she knew about him. Jake didn’t play games. He hated them. He needed control too much to wager anything on chance.
All this time, she’d been waiting for a moment just like this, when he finally said he was done with her. From the beginning, she was the one who didn’t fully believe in their love. She’d been waiting to lose him, never fully believing he was hers. But then, when he said it was over, she didn’t believe that either. There was no doubt about his feelings—not a doubt in her mind. Maybe doubt was just the absence of truth. When you find your truth, the doubt just disappears. She suddenly felt a shift in her axis, like her mind had finally met up with where her heart had been all along. She wondered why, as upset as she was, the tears never came. Then she realized what was different this time. She knew he loved her. Sheknewit.
She crawled up from the floor and pressed her hand on the door. Something wasn’t right. He wasn’t making sense. Jake was hiding something, and she was going to figure out what it was.
