Page 23 of Werewolf Heart

Although she desperately wants things to be good between them, she can’t force the poor man to be around her if he doesn’t want to. She can’t force this. (She can’t lose him like that.)

Sara hears the keys clicking inside the lock. She holds her breath. She waits.

She catches a glimpse of Robert’s eyes, and Sara knows she’s a fucking goner.

Chapter 7

Robert

He doesn’t see her for a whole week.

He hears her alarm clock, her long morning showers, the lingering smell of her perfume after she leaves the kitchen, but Robert doesn’t actually see Sara.

Good. He’s avoiding her.

After their talk, he feels like his feet can’t touch the ground. He’s afloat. He goes to work, does his job, comes back home, eats cereal for dinner, and watches random YouTube videos to fall asleep. Robert might be a little bit depressed. Guilt lies in his heart. Because, truth be told, what Sara said is true.

For years he never made a move, never reciprocated her teasing, even backed off for a while in their friendship. Because Robert had a suspicion. He thought Sara might like him more than a friend, and he couldn’t handle it. Call it insecurity. Call it being a fucking coward. But Robert was scared shitless of his friend seeing him that way. It wasn’t disgust. It wasn’t because he was turned off by the idea. It was because Sara had been one of the few people he let in. Who watched him cry over his crappy dad. Who he felt so at ease, he showed even the most annoying parts of himself: like random rants at three in the morning, his need for things to be in the exact place he left them, the anxiety attacks in the weirdest of places (like at a Sainsbury’s buying rotisserie chicken)—and it scared him.

Robert has been betrayed before. Bullying disguised as jokes. Manipulating him to get something out of him. Cheating. Lying. More cheating. Girlfriends who used him for a few months then dropped him like a hot potato. All the times his dad seemed to be better—a better father, a better person in general—only for him to go back to being his old narcissistic self and scream at his son for the tiniest of mistakes. For Robert, that certain type of anxiety starts up like a rock in the pit of his stomach. His body turns cold and all his limbs go tight. He has nausea, migraines. Sometimes, it doesn’t even feel like it’s real. As if he’s stuck in a nightmare he can’t wake up from; a kind of sleep paralysis, but the demon sitting on your bed can actually hurt you. (Or, at least, it feels like it.)

The thought that Sara could possibly hurt him that much terrified him to his core.

So, he didn’t say anything. He ignored it, pulled away. Till he needed her again. Because Robert is a bastard and he knows that now. And he knows he can’t avoid her forever, but it’s hard to face something he’s tried to drown for years.

However, they live in the same flat, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise when he opens the door one day and he sees Sara sitting on the sofa. Her eyes widen when she spots him.

“Hey,” she says. “You look tired. Busy day at work?”

“Yeah,” he says back, awkwardly. He shuts the door, kicks off his shoes. “I think I’m gonna go to bed early.”

“Oh, okay,” she mumbles, turning back to the screen. "If you need to talk… I'm here if you want, okay?"

"Sure," he whispers, and walks towards his bedroom. Opens the door. Closes it. Walks back to the living room. “Actually, I do need to talk to you.”

Sara nods, almost eagerly, then turns off the TV. She waits for him to begin.

Okay, here goes nothing!

“You were right,” he says. “About— well, almost everything.”

She puts a hand under her chin. “Almost everything?”

“Yeah." He walks to the sofa and cautiously sits next to her. “I did know you liked me. Suspected, anyway.”

“And you didn’t like me back," she says, quite fast. "I get it, Rob. You don’t need to explain yourself—”

“I didn’t say that,” he says, shaking his head. “I never said I didn’t like you.”

“Right,” she mumbles, frowning. “You like me as a friend, but not as a girlfriend.”

“Didn’t say that either.”

“Rob. What are you trying to say?”

He takes a deep breath. “I was scared, okay?”

“Scared?” She says, shocked. “Of me?”

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