Page 93 of My Favorite Mistake

“I still don’t understand what you mean, Liza. Do I consider you more than just my friend because we…uh…y’know?”

“I mean, if I told you I love you, are you going to freak out and start avoiding me?”

His stomach bottomed out as his heart simultaneously seemed to explode. “Oh.”

“Don’t misunderstand me, Connor.” She pressed the brakes and then glanced at him. “That doesn’t come with some kind of request for a romantic commitment or relationship. I’m not trying to trap you or trick you into anything. I just—”

The cars ahead lurched forward, and she looked back at the road.

Connor wanted to reach for her, but with her need to qualify her pseudo confession, not to mention how inherently bad he was for her, he simply set his elbow on the edge of the window again and rubbed his mouth. “I’d never think you were trying to trick me, Liza.”

“Well, I’m not tricking you.” She stared ahead with such purpose it seemed she was forcing herself to avoid looking at him. “I just love you. I do. I love you in a very different way than I did before, but it’s also way more than back then. Right now, I love you fresh and new, and with a much better understanding of who you are and the things you’ve gone through. All of that makes me understand why you did what you did long ago, and why you probably want to maintain your emotional autonomy now. Right now, I love you without any need for you to love me back.”

Connor was stunned. He couldn’t seem to make his body or mouth do or say anything. The only activity was in his mind, and it resonated the words,I do not, in any way, shape, or form, deserve this or you.And because he didn’t deserve it nor her, he couldn’t reciprocate the words that had been lingering in his heart for a lot longer than when she started this conversation.

This was probably the most catastrophicwe need to talkhe’d ever been on the receiving end of.

What she’d just said was proof that what he wanted more than anything else was dangling right in front of him, but his hands were tied by the reality that he was no good for her. And the fact that she’d phrased all of it the way she did was further proof that if he ever tried to explain how no good for her he was, she’d dismiss all of his reasoning.

Connor swallowed. “I don’t really know what to say right now, Liza.”

She finally glanced at him. “You don’t have to say anything. I just need you to know, and I need you to know that I care about you and what you’ve been through. I want you to feel like you can trust me if you ever need to talk about anything.”

He forced a nervous laugh. “You know Liza, I don’t know if you’ve ever met me before, but I’m not exactly the type of guy who likes to talk about his feelings.”

Liza smiled, eyes facing front. “I know you’re not. You don’t have to talk about your feelings. I just meant if there’s ever anything you ever needed to like…I don’t know…vent about or whatever…I’ll listen without judgement.”

His mind drifted back a few weeks to the moment on her couch when they lay with nothing separating them but their respective emotional barriers, and he’d told her one half of his deep, dark secret. How he wasn’t sure he had the courage to tell her the whole story for fear of…what?

He didn’t even know anymore.

You could tell her now.

Actually no. But not because of anything that had anything to do with her. If the words tripped over his tongue and out of his mouth, there was no telling what he would do. Merely breathing the words would assuredly breathe life into memories that he’d spent ten years trying to kill.

“Anyway.” Liza drummed her nails on the steering wheel and then reached for the radio knob. The atmosphere inside the car filled with Dooley Wilson’sAs Time Goes Byfrom the Casablancasoundtrack. “That was all.” She gave a quick laugh. “I hope you don’t feel too weird or something now.”

“I don’t,” he said, and something hit him like a two-by-four to the back of the head that he was acting like an insensitive, callous asshole.

She just told you she loved you, you idiot. After you had no-strings-attached sex with her weeks ago. You owe her something.

But what could he possibly give her? Anything he came up with boiled down to the fact that he wanted to give hereverything,up to and including his whole heart and whole life, but couldn’t because he was broken, and useless, and not good for her.

They sat in silence, save for the soft music, and Liza pulled to a stop at the first intersection after exiting the highway. She looked at her hands, picking one of her cuticles with her thumbnail. Something about the commonplace, absentminded behavior—her head tilted down, hair falling like a deep, espresso curtain around one side of her face, her delicate hands, her pillow-like mouth—warmed his heart. Though it was probably less the fact that she was mindlessly picking at her nail and more the fact that she loved him and heknewit, and he loved her too, but was too afraid to say so.

Connor reached for her hand and brought it to his lips, kissing it and then letting it linger there while he caught her gaze over the crest of her wrist.

Just say it!something in him hollered.

“Liza.”

“Yeah?”

“I…” Gumption surged in his chest, but as quickly as it materialized, it retreated. “I’m really glad you decided to stay.”

Liza smiled warmly, but he didn’t miss the tiny flash of disappointment in her eyes. He let go of her hand and turned to look out the window as he attempted to pull the gumption back from the depths of his gut. He managed to grab it and latch on, however it returned in the form of him shifting in his seat and speaking in a teasing tone.

“Also, don’t think I’m trying to trap you or trick you into anything,” he said to the window, speaking a high-pitched voice and playfully mimicking her earlier tone, “but I love you, too.”

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