But I need to pull myself together.
Sniffing, I get to my feet and begin to pace the apartment. I can hear Maisie whining again, scratching at the wall. I pause by the wall and listen. I can hear Will’s low, sexy voice comforting Maisie and it makes me melt all over again. He truly is the perfect man. An animal lover, so gentle, yet so rough around the edges, almost like an animal himself. I know for a fact that he’d throw me around easily, his strong arms scooping me up with ease. The thought leaves me breathless.
But I need to stop torturing myself. Why am I even thinking about this when I’m fully aware that he’ll never be mine? It’s stupid and it’s only going to hurt me even more. I should just block him out of my head. I should just pretend like it was all a dream. Because dreams can never become reality, and that’s one thing I need to get through my head and my heart about us.
It’s never going to happen.
I wander back through to the office on autopilot and sit down in front of my laptop again. Nothing has changed, really. The couple upstairs is still arguing. I can still hear the baby down the hallway crying. Maisie is still scratching at the walls.
But everything is different now. Knowing that Will is just within reach. Knowing that he’s so perfect for me and that I can never have him. He’s the one, the only one. But here I am, sitting alone.
I walked away from him because I had to. I didn’t want to shatter the perfect illusion of those few minutes. Not when I knew in the long term, I could never have what I want. There are a million reasons why he and I can’t be together, but I only need one reason that we’re right together to cling to. It’s enough to make me want him forever.
I feel my hands trembling as I lift them from my lap and place them over the keys of my laptop. The words begin to flow out of me for the first time in months. All of a sudden, I have so much to say. I have so many feelings that I need to release, so many fantasies to put down on paper. Maybe I can never be with him, can never truly know what it’s like to be at his side. But I’m a writer, and fantasies are what I feed off. At least I can be with him between the pages of my story, if not between the sheets of his bed. I can imagine how it could be if things were different.
The tears on my cheeks come hot and fast. I’m such a fool to let this get to me. It’s insane when I barely know the man, I’ve only spent a few minutes of my life with him. But he’s taken a hold of my heart with just one interaction and he’s never letting go, whether he knows that or not. There will never be another like him. I know that now. I might be young and naive, but there are some things that are set in stone for me.
And he’s one of them.
It’s only now, as I stare at the pages I’ve typed out, that I realize how deep I am in this. I have so much to say about him that I’ve spent more time typing than I have in his presence. I laugh bitterly to myself. I wish I’d never gone over there because now I have to live with the torture of life without him.
And then there’s my dad. He’ll get to see Will all the time. They’re buddies, after all. One of the many reasons I can’t have Will in the way that I want him. He’s got all of the luxuries that I wish I had. I shake my head to myself. Maybe if my dad wasn’t in the equation, I wouldn’t have left Will’s apartment. I would have held on longer, had more hope. But as much as I love my dad, I can see exactly how he’d respond to all of this. He’d be so angry with me for wanting something I shouldn’t. He’d lay down boundaries, take control, remind me that I’m a young fool in love and that I don’t know what I want.
But I do. I want Will. Sometimes, things just click into place, and this is one of those times. Everything felt right for just a minute when we were together. The rest of the world didn’t exist. But out here, in the cold, harsh reality, I know that it can never be. Wanting it isn’t enough. It would turn our worlds upside down. Hell, I don’t even know if Will wants anything to do with me. So chasing this is pointless. It’s time to let it go.