Page 48 of Glad You Exist

“I will only say this once, then I never want to hear you say anything like that again, okay?” Liz’s eyes grow wide as I basically loom over her, my voice tight with unchecked anger.

She nods her head tentatively at my words.

I pause taking the weight from her hand and place it on the bench behind me. I then turn my whole attention to this beautiful, kind, selfless girl I’m so desperately in love with.

Who instead of hurting from what happened to her is worried about hurting me.

“The only thing that mattered to me tonight wasyou. I don’t care—have never cared—about the party. I care aboutyou. All I wanted to do tonight was hang out withyou.”

I make sure to put emphasis on theyouso there’s no confusion.

It’s about damned time she understands just how much she matters to me.

Undeterred, I go on because now that I've started there’s no stopping as the words come spilling out of me. My threadbare grip on self-preservation snaps and I'm a dam breaking with the force of every wave of emotion coursing through me.

"Do you not understand what you mean to me? How for the last eighteen years, friends or not, you have remained the single most important person in my life? How no one in the last three years has even come close to you? How you consume my every thought and dream? How much I want to skin that piece of shit for what he did to you? What he could have done to you? That I will kick the crap out of him if he ever so much as looks at you?"

I huff out a breath, trying to power through despite my heart painfully lodging in my throat. "So please don't insult me by thinking or saying a party would ever trump you. Nothing—no one—will ever come before you."

Liz’s breath hitches as she visibly swallows, the weight of my words pinning her in place.

I can practically hear the wheels turning in her head. As her eyes bounce between mine, I watch as she pieces together what I've said.

My gut clenches when her forehead crumples in what seems like confusion.

I expel a breath. My words don’t seem to penetrate those ironclad walls.

I force myself to look away.

I want to keep going, I want to tell her that I love her. That I want her. Only her.

But there are only so many times a guy’s heart can break in a single day. Two is my quota.

I roll my shoulders back and drop my hand from her chin.

I walk around her to place the cake on my desk.

I’m about to tell her to go back to her room and sleep when I feel her fingers close around my arm, pulling me to a stop.

“Brad.”

Her voice makes me pause.

“Brad.”

There it is again.

Creating a sliver of hope in me.

I have never heard her use that tone with me. It’s gentle, coaxing.

It’s as if she’s throwing everything into how she’s calling out to me.

Letting it speak for her.

I don’t dare turn around. I don’t trust myself not to cut myself open and hand her my heart.

What happened tonight has exposed me raw.

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