Page 36 of One Lovely Lie

“Daniel, I wasn’t going to fuck him,” he says with exasperation, throwing his hands in the air. “I was flirting a bit, but is that a crime? Am I not allowed to do that?”

I shake my head because he’s right. He’s just flirting. It’s nothing.

But my mouth betrays me again.

“You shouldn’t be flirting with anybody but me!”

The concern that was in his eyes quickly changes to outrage. He opens and closes his mouth as if he doesn’t know what to say, and I know the drugs must be getting to him too. “It looks to me like you somehow got it in your head that you’re my keeper when that is so far from the truth. I said I wouldn’t fuck anyone while we were messing around, but I was just flirting.”

“I just thought you’d be decent enough to not pull that kind of shit in front of me!”

“What kind of shit?Talking?”

“Fuck!” I curse, slamming my hand against the wall as I bury my face in my hands. “Fuck! Never mind.”

“No, say what you were going to say!” he urges angrily, yanking my hands off my face and getting chest-to-chest with me. “You need to stop acting like this!”

“Likewhat? What am I acting like?”

“Like a jealous fucking boyfriend!”

“And would that be the worst thing in the world?”

“I’m not your fucking boyfriend!”

Pain. It slams into me. I’m not his boyfriend. I’m not anything but his childhood best friend. I’m nothing more to him. He calls me his everything, he says he can’t live without me, but he doesn’t want me.

It finally seeps in. It’s strange how revelations come in the most mysterious of times because it hits me and it stays lodged in my throat, in my heart, and in my mind.

He’llneverwant me the way I want him.

Maybe I had been holding on to hope that he would. No. Iwasholding on to that hope…but not anymore.

“Don’t cry. Why are you crying?” I don’t even realize I am until he points it out and I bring my fingers to my cheeks and they come back wet. “Is it the Molly? This is just a bad trip, right? Here, you need water—”

“Leave me alone,” I cry, pushing him away when he tries to come closer, the water splashing on the dirty ground beneath us. “I-I can’t do this anymore.”

“Do what?”

“Bewith you. I can’t take it. No more, Magnus. No more!” I shout, furiously swiping at my eyes but the traitorous tears just keep on fucking falling. “Whatever we’ve been doing, it’s fucking done!”

“What do you mean?” he asks, looking desperate as he keeps trying to touch me, but I keep pulling away. “Daniel, you’re tripping. Just try to calm down. It’ll be okay.”

“This hurts, Mag! Ithurts! Don’t you get that?” I sob, turning on my heel to face him. “I’m in so much fucking pain! I can’t take it anymore!”

He panics. No matter how much I try to push him away, he’s holding me up against the club wall, his dark eyes wide and filled with so much raw emotion. “How can I fix it? Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”

I shake my head, turning my face on him so his wayward lips land on my cheek. “I need some space.”

“No, not space. That’s not going to work. We need each other,” he begs, shaking me gently. “Why are we even fighting? Let’s fix this.”

“Maybe what our codependent asses need is a break from each other.” I take a deep breath and face him, look him dead in the eye, and frown. “I can’t even stand to look at you right now.”

He lets me go and staggers back, jaw hanging open, and blinks repeatedly at me. “I don’t know how this happened.”

“I know you don’t and it’s my fault,” I whisper. “It’s my fault for believing this could be anything other than what it is.”

I don’t even give him time to respond. I run. I run like a fucking coward back into the club, getting lost in the sea of bodies, and looking for something to anchor me back to shore.

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