Page 113 of Third and Ten

“Hey, if you don’t like my tone, then don’t engage me in conversation right now,” she says, holding out a hand to block me. I clench my jaw and grunt in response.

“Oh, right, so now it’s my fault you still haven’t managed to get into her pants,” Ethan grumbles at me, lighting a spark at the very end of my fuse.

“HEY!” I boom, making both of them flinch. “Listen, kid. We’ve been through this already, but maybe you need a reminder. If you want to talk like a grown man, then you’d better be ready to back it up. Because I’ll be damned if I let you say another disrespectful word about your aunt, much less in front of her.”

“Sorry,” he whispers. His lip twitches as he stares at his feet, and he swipes at the moisture accruing on his cheek.

“Now, I’ll say it again: Let’s all take some time to cool down and come back to this conversation later with clearer heads, hmm?”

“Works for me.” Ethan turns and walks out of the house, leaving Tenley and me in a tense silence.

“I’m sorry I yelled,” I began. “But—”

“I thought you were leaving?” she asks, cutting me off.

I huff. “I know you’re upset about this whole situation, but don’t take it out on me, all right?”

Her brow lifts. “You don’t think I have the right to be mad at you after what you kept from me?”

“It wasn’t my place to say anything,” I say in my defense. “And if I’d have known that he was meeting the guy in person, I would have done something, tried to go with him, tried to stop him, anything. I’d never knowingly let Ethan put himself in danger, and the last thing I want is to hurt you.”

She’s silent as I continue. “Tenley, you understand how much I care about him, right? You are the most important people in my life,” I explain, my voice thick with emotion. “I love you.”

“You don’t keep secrets like this from the people you love, JD. Especially not after begging them to open up and face their commitment issues.”

I sigh. “It’s not as black and white as you think. I didn’t have all the details, and until this afternoon, I wasn’t sure whether you knew.”

“This is exactly why I didn’t want to start anything in the first place,” she says to herself. “It was bound to get too complicated at some point.”

“Come on, Ten, you don’t have to do this. Don’t make this out to be a big deal.”

“I gave up my very comfortable life to come here and take on Ethan, and then braved a bunch of my fears to be with you, and you didn’t think I’d feel betrayed when I found out you helped Ethan go behind my back to meet the one person who could take him away? How am I going to show up to the custody hearing and ask for full guardianship after this, JD? The judge is never going to let me keep Ethan now that he’s gotten a half-decent response from his father, remember? And I’m not even sure I deserve to be his guardian anyway, since I’ve been doing such a crappy job that I had no clue he was talking to Ryan this whole time.”

“I’m sorry,” I repeat. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”

She glares at me. “Right, because you had more important things on your mind.”

“Well, can you blame me for having a hard time sorting through all the mixed signals? You’re angry with me for keeping something to myself on Ethan’s behalf, but I’m just finding out that the two of you have been making decisions about our relationship without bothering to include me.”

She frowns, but she doesn’t fold. “And you’ve known from the beginning that he is my priority, over everything else.”

“Okay, but could you freaking clue me in?” I notice my voice getting louder. “One day you love me, the next day you don’t. Sometimes you’re all over me, and others, you won’t let me touch you.” I stop and take a deep breath, trying to settle myself. “You know, you’re not the only one with a lot invested here. I told you from the start that I was willing to put Ethan’s needs first. I fully understood the weight of that, and I’d like to think I’ve been upholding my promise. The problem is that you’re using Ethan’s situation as an excuse to pull away from me again. If our relationship was too much for you, then all you had to do was tell me.”

Her eyes are trained on the ground when she answers. “Okay, then. It is too much, JD. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything before, but I’m saying it now. Maybe we should take some time to think about all this, to figure out what’s best for everyone.”

My heart constricts, and my vision for our future together starts to fade. “Time apart, you mean?”

She shrugs. “I think we could both use the space.”

“I wish you’d stop telling me what you think I need all the time, because I’m pretty sure I know better. But if you want space, I’ll respect your wishes.”

“Fine. I need space,” she chokes out, her chin trembling. And I can tell it’s a lie because she’s doing a poor job of convincing herself that it’s true.

I shake my head. “You’re so damned stubborn. He warned me that you’d be like this, you know.” She looks at me questioningly. “Your dad. He said you’d get in your own way, and he made me promise I wouldn’t back down when you did. So, yeah. You can have your space, but I’m not giving up that easily.”

She’s started crying now, and it takes her a second to reply. “Yeah, well…” She trails off when her phone buzzes. Then her expression changes when she glances down, and she covers her mouth as a sob escapes. I rush over to her, afraid to ask what has her so shaken up.

“It’s Ethan. He says he’s sorry he’s been a burden to both of us, and that he’s going to try living with Ryan for a while so they can get to know each other. He asked me not to come after him,” she explains through her tears. And my heart aches as I watch what I thought was my future slipping away.

---