Page 75 of Entangled

“God!” I push past him. “Would you just let it go? This has nothing to do with Alec.”

I walk toward the folding glass doors, practically shaking with the need to escape this space.

“You’re right,” he calls out after me. “This has to do with you and the fucking fear you let control you.”

I spin around at his words. “Nothing controls me,” I spit out at him, stomach twisting. “As much as you wish you could.”

“Oh, right,” he scoffs darkly. “Because this is about me and not the girl who fakes being fearless when really she’s the most scared of us all.”

I shake my head, hot with anger at his accusation. “You don’t know shit about me, Coop. Don’t act like you do.”

“Because you won’t let me!” he shouts, brows tight with tension, voice quieting as he continues. “If there’s something about you I don’t know it’s because you won’t let me.”

“Don’t make this into something it’s not,” I grind out. “You knew what you were signing up for. A fun time in Costa Rica, nothing more. You don’t even know my fucking name.”

His nostrils flare with anger and his eyes narrow on me dangerously. “Don’t you ever get tired of being such a fucking coward?”

“Don’t you ever get tired of fighting for someone who doesn’t care? It’s fucking pathetic.” I wield the words like a knife, twisting them deep. Feeling the blade drive into us both. I see his eyes shutter and dread settles into a pit in my stomach.

“You want space, Princess?” He takes a step forward and points a finger to the door. “There’s the damn door.”

His words hit my chest like a sledgehammer and I feel something deep inside of me crack. Anger courses through my veins and pain radiates from my chest with every breath I take as I turn to find my shoes. The pricking starting up behind my eyes making it damn near impossible to see and locate what I need to. My breath is already hitching from the effort of keeping my cries inside when I see my shoes by the bathroom door and make a move to grab them.

Coop’s quiet, humorless laugh sounds behind me. “And of course, she’s leaving. Guess I should’ve taken note the first time. That’s what you do best, right?”

I halt at his words, feeling whatever shreds of control I still hold on to splintering under them. Turning to face him, I hold my arms at my sides and let him see all the pain brimming inside of me.

“You want to know why I am the way I am, Coop?” I whisper, voice growing stronger as I speak. “You really want a Ph-fucking-D in me?” I laugh darkly, dangerously close to the edge. “Be sure because it’s not something you can come back from.”

He keeps perfectly still, not speaking, as if he can sense how I’m toeing the line of hysteria and I see the anger fade in his eyes as he dips his head once.

I march over to his bookshelves, grabbing one tragic love story after another as I speak and tossing them at his feet. “Because of love.” Romeo and Juliet. “Because love can turn into a deadly thing.” Heathcliff and Catherine. “Just ask my father.” Anna and Alexei. “Oh wait, you can’t.” Jay and Daisy. “Because he’s dead.” Antony and Cleopatra.

I look up at him as the last novel lands with a resounding thud, eyes filled with unshed tears, my whole body brimming with pain. “Shot himself right after he shot my mother. There’s love for you.” I scoff and swallow a sob. “Fucking magical, right?”

Heavy silence reigns between us at the end of my tirade, laced and tainted with all the poison spewed between us. Coop’s eyes reflect my own pain back at me with a blinding empathy, his expression crumbled. He goes to take a step toward me and I hold up my hand, stopping him.

“Don’t.” I swallow another sob and look down. “I think this has made it abundantly clear that things have gone way further than they were ever supposed to. I’m going to take a walk and then…” I force my eyes back up to his, seeing the undiluted terror in them at my words. “Then when I get back, I’ll pack my—”

“Don’t do this,” he interjects softly, voice rough with feeling. “I lov—”

“Don’t,” I interrupt quickly, knowing the words he was about to say and not being able to bear hearing them. “Don’t you dare say those words.”

They would obliterate the last wall standing between him and the last part of me.

I wave a hand at the books at his feet. “This, more… was never our story.” My lips pull up for a second in a sad smile. “I told you from the start… I don’t have it to give.”

With that I quickly walk and grab my shoes from where they lie, fleeing this pain-drenched space. I don’t allow myself to look at him as I head for the door, knowing that if I do, I run the risk of breaking completely. The door shuts behind me with a resounding click and I feel that damn pain redoubling from the center of my chest as I slide my shoes on and march out onto the dirt road.

I manage to make it out of sight from the house before the first few tears slide down my cheeks. It’s such a foreign feeling. I haven’t cried in longer than I can remember. So carefully wrapped in the armored cocoon of my own making. So sure life had already taught me to be smarter than all the others.

I’ve had enough therapy to rationally understand that love doesn’t equal death. But it’s an undeniable fact that it makes you vulnerable. Opens you up to a person in a singular way, your heart laid bare before them, theirs to cherish or abuse. And this is the result of such vulnerability. Pain. Even if it’s not intentional, even if we try our hardest not to. And maybe Coop’s right, maybe I am a coward for not wanting to feel that pain.

But fuck him for making me face it. Fuck him for forcing me to unearth all the tragic pieces of me. For taking more of me than I was willing to give. Hollowing me out with his words, and demand, and fucking love until there wasn’t one part of me he hadn’t touched in some way. Threading himself into each piece of me until I was desperately holding on to the last sliver that was still only mine.

Fuck him for making me love him too. And fuck me for not fighting it harder.

I brought this on myself, all of it. Even all the poison spewed today.

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