Page 121 of New York Love Stories: Vol. 2

“That’s not good enough anymore.”

He closes his eyes for a long second. “Why’d you leave?”

“I don’t owe you an answer. I don’t owe you anything.” I take a breath and watch a couple holding hands cut between us on the sidewalk.

“Tell me what I did wrong, Tealey, and I’ll fix it. I’ll do anything to make it better. I thought I was.”

My eyes widen.He can’t be serious.“You thought you were? In what universe were you making things better? Ah. Wait,” I say, sarcasm dripping from my lips. “I get it now.” Leveling him with a glare, I narrow my eyes at him. “You were making it better for yourself. Job well done.” I give him a golf-clap round of applause.

Gripping the handle of my luggage, I start for the curb when I see headlights coming down the street.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Tealey. I know you’re upset, but if you give me a chance to explain?—”

“I don’t have to give you anything, Rad,” I snap, the anger preferable to the pain from before. “I don’t owe you more than I’ve already given, and arguing in the middle of a street at one in the morning isn’t something I’m willing to do.”

The silence stretches between us as I inch closer to the curb. He comes closer but is smart enough to keep some distance between us, and asks, “Tealey, stay. Talk to me. We’ll go upstairs for privacy.” I glare at him over my shoulder. “I promise you?—”

“Your promises are why we’re in this mess, so don’t get it twisted. And stop making promises you can’t keep.”

Don’t second-guess yourself, Tealey.

I hate that I feel empathy when I see the sadness in his eyes, the frown that his mouth has probably never felt before as me feeling bad, and defeat is probably something his shoulders have never experienced before. But I can’t let him prey on my sympathies anymore either.

I hate that I’m weak to him when I’m the victim.

A blue sedan pulls up behind his car. It’s my ride.

Raising his arms out to his sides, he says, “I still don’t know what we’re fighting about, and you’re running away before we have a chance to work it out.”

“I’m not running.” I stand with my chin raised. “I’m walking right out of your life.”

“Leaving without so much as an explanation.”

“Which is what you gave me. Nothing.”

He flinches from the words.

He was obviously never mine to keep, so I set him free by pushing him away with a bitter goodbye, and say, “Let’s just call it what it is, which was fun.” I shrug. “For a while.”

“Fun?” His face contorts under my neutrality.Good. “Oh, no. You don’t get to demean what we feel?—”

“We? You meanme?Because from what I recall, you don’t feel anything at all. Right, Counselor?”

Despite my obvious intent to leave, he comes closer, lowering his voice, but revealing the ire in his eyes. “Feelings?Fuck feelings.They do nothing but shit on logical thinking. Nothing I say is going to change your mind tonight, but I hope that in the morning?—”

“In the morning?” I ask, taken aback. “There is no morning for us.” Using his previous demonstration, I hold my fingers together and then pull them apart. “This is us in the morning. You, living your life, and me, living mine. There is no morning for us. This is it.”

“Tealey?” Those feelings he tries so hard to ignore wash through him, and for the first time, it’s not sadness but pain he feels. “Don’t leave.”

“I can’t stay. The pain’s too much for me as well.”

This time, he reaches for me, but I move my hand away. He asks, “How did I hurt you?”

“By trying to be something you’re not.”

“What is that?”

“Honest.”

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