Page 79 of Unbearable

“What I regret is that you can’t see our problems are so much more than this.”

He says nothing. Because he knows.

I shake my head, completely worn out by this and him. “I’m so tired of having this same argument with you.”

“Then stop having it,” he says, as if it’s that easy for me to let go of this.

“You would say that.” I can feel the resentment burning behind my words.

“Yeah, I would, because you’re forgetting I asked you for more.”

“And Ibeggedyou for more way before you pulled your head out of your ass,” I seethe back at him. “Have you ever stopped to think about whatyou’vedone to me?” I can tell by the look on his face he hasn’t. And still hasn’t. So I let him know. “Youmade me into the insecure girl who considers herself not good enough for someone like you. How do you think that made me feel? You committed to Berkley but yet me, no,never. You never even gave me the option. And now, because you’ve suddenly decided, I’m supposed to consider forever because you’re feeling shitty about it?”

His face hardens, a flood of anger coming with it. His finger points accusingly at me, his breathing so heavy he can barely get out the words. “You don’t know a fucking thing about whatI’mfeeling!” He shakes his head again, grabbing the back of his neck, his eyes on the floor, as if I don’t deserve their depth.

“So tell me then! You give me nothing, Tyler. Nothing to go on. It’s like you’re a fucking lock and I’m supposed to know the right combination but I don’t.”

I repeat my words in my head for a moment because I’m not entirely sure they made sense to him.

When he doesn’t answer me, I draw in a heavy breath, ready to explode.

I shift my stance, my hands thrown up in the air. “This is so stupid, Tyler. You tell me you don’t want drama but here you are creating it. We’re acting like kids.”

His mouth twists in a scowl delivered my way. His eyes are hard, lips parting as he speaks. “You don’t think I know that?” The bitter laugh returns when he looks up at me.

I find my voice. “Then stop.”

Opening the door to my dorm room, intending on getting air, Tyler catches it. His hand, up near the top, slams it closed with little effort, the sound echoing through the room. “You don’t say shit like that and walk away.”

“Shit like what?” Every time we disagree about anything, we come back to this same argument and these same reactions. “Tyler, we’re not even dating yet we fight like insecure high schoolers.”

When I turn back to Tyler, his eyes say a lot. “Fuck, Raven!” He starts pacing the place beside my bed. His all-too-cold eyes shift from the floor to me when he stops pacing. Hell, I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing at all with how still he’d become. “You think I want this? To be so obsessed with you that I’m fucking hanging around a college dorm hoping you’ll give us a chance? You’re the one who said you wanted more first, and then I came around to the idea and you tell me no. You’ve moved on. How could you move on so quickly?”

That’s a good question. But then again, it’s not all that complicated after what he said to me in the rain. He made me feel like I’d never be good enough for him. Why can’t he see what a slap in the face this was to me?

“Because you made me move on. You told me not to love you. What was I supposed to think? You made me feel like I wasn’t good enough to be yours. Apparently what we had didn’t matter enough to you.”

And I’m a fucking idiot. I want to slap my hand over my mouth so I don’t say anymore. I know what we had mattered to him. It had to have because he’s here now.

He gives me that nod, the one he gives when he was so angry he can’t speak. His stomach pulls in, a long deep breath as if to calm himself a little. “It fucking matters, Raven!”

“It matters that you’re just being a selfish asshole because I won’t put out anymore.”

Jesus Christ. I should have stopped at my first stupid comment.

Tyler’s anger, when pushed far enough, is a sight I’ll never forget. I’ve heard about it from Red, but never seen him this out of control.

I hear the crash first, my bookshelf on my desk hits the ground and then my laptop smashing against the wall beside me. “You think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t ya?” His words come out in a growl but he keeps his distance from me, pushed back against the wall as if he’s needing the separation now more than ever. “You know me, right? I fucked you all summer just for the fun of it and then keep coming back to hurt you more. That was my fucking plan all along. I’m fucking here, right now, trying to get you to see it was more than sex to me!”

We weren’t these people. We weren’t. I didn’t say things like this, and he didn’t react this way. Love can make you do some pretty stupid shit sometimes. It’s the words you never say that mean the most. The ones on the tip of your tongue, screamed at the top of your lungs to be heard, it’s those words that sometimesneedto be said. Like an “I’m sorry” or an “I love you.”

They matter. They really do.

Tyler tips his head to one side, his hands clasped together behind his head. “So is that it? You’ve decided we aren’t going to happen no matter what I say? Do you want me to leave?” he asks, his blue eyes intensely staring at me knowing he crossed the line.

I know what my answer is but I can’t manage any words because I have no air supply, but I nod.

While we stand there staring at each other, no words are spoken because none are needed. With one stare, he says all he needs to say. The moments gone, but his eyes are anxious. He’s not sure what I’m going to say next, and it scares him. He blinks, and when he opens his eyes again, the depth of his blues are somewhat guarded now.

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