Page 66 of Purity

“Why aren’t you saying anything?”

His jaw ticks. “I’m thinking.”

“Obviously, your thoughts aren’t positive. I can see it all over your face.”

After pushing himself up, he walks over to his closet and reaches to the top shelf. He pulls out a baseball and stares at it for a moment before tossing it into the air and catching it. He does it again and again.

My head jerks back. “Are we going to play catch before we finish this conversation?”

“I told you I’m thinking.”

My breathing grows shallow, and I shut my eyes to fight the dizziness. This isn’t good. He hardly even seems aware of his movements.

“Why is it so hard to give this idea a chance?” I ask.

After catching the ball, he pauses for a moment. He steps to the side and lifts his elbow high in the air, like he’s going to pitch, but he only tosses the ball softly onto the bed. “You’re asking me to choose between friendship and sex.”

“That’s not what I’m asking at all. We’ll still be friends.”

“For now.” His voice is so faint.

Heat creeps along my neck and into my cheeks. “So you’re just not willing to take the risk that we might break up someday? I guess what I feel for you is much stronger than what you feel for me.”

“No.” He whips around to face me. “The opposite of that is true. I could never risk losing you. The only way I would even consider this is if you could guarantee that we would still be friends for the rest of our lives even if we try and it doesn’t work out. Can you guarantee that?”

His slight smile is almost a sneer. He knows I won’t lie.

“No, I can’t.”

“Of course you can’t. Friendship is a guarantee. A romantic relationship isn’t. I don’t even believe in monogamy.”

My ears pound like a hammer. Jesus, help me, I wonder how many times he’s made this exact speech right after sex. “That’s a fuck-boy thing to say.”

The swearword on my lips must sound as strange to him as it did to me, because his eyes grow huge. He stares at me for a moment as if he’s never seen me before. “You’re calling me a fuck-boy because I care about you too much to lose you?”

I cross my arms over my chest. “The fact that you talk about losing me like it’s a sure thing tells me you don’t really want me. You already see yourself dumping me when we haven’t even started anything yet.”

“That’s not true at all. I can’t see the future, and that’s the problem. All I know is that passion doesn’t last. We had sex, and it was great, but our friendship is so much more. How can you not see that?”

My throat aches, and I struggle to swallow. I’m not going to win this battle. He’s determined to keep things as they were.

Because he doesn’t want me enough.

“So if you want to go back to being just friends,” I say, “I guess that means you don’t mind if I start having sex with other guys, because I’m certainly not staying celibate after this.”

His look of horror would be comical if I weren’t so close to tears.

“Did that not even occur to you?” I ask. “Do you think going back to our old friendship means I’ll go back to being the old me?”

He averts his gaze from mine, his nostrils flaring.

“Did you think that I would be this person forever—sweet, compassionate Livvy who’s always there for you at the drop of a hat because she has nothing else going on in her life?”

When his eyes grow wide and dazed, I huff softly. He did think I would always be this way, because this is who I’ve always been—devoted to him, even when he’s slept with other women. In a way, I have been his girlfriend. He just got sex elsewhere.

“I think our relationship is a little enmeshed,” I say.

His gaze snaps to my face. “What do you mean?”

---