Page 49 of What You Own
“Sometimes I think I need you just to breathe, and you want me to hold my breath for ten months? I can’t do it. I won’t.” My eyes burned. I wouldn’t cry in front of him again, not about this. Could not let him see how much this hurt.
We stood there, on opposite sides of an invisible chasm that neither of us was willing to jump over. Living without him for almost a year, no contact, no idea if he was happy or sad or fucking someone else, or if he’d even come back to me once he graduated—no. My anxiety would explode, turn me inside out, make me miserable and paranoid. If I was being selfish about not giving in to ten months apart, then so be it. Slap the words on my forehead and I’d wear them proudly.
I’d rather be selfish than a coward.
“So what do we do now?” Adam asked.
“The way I see it, one of two things. We stay together, same plan as before, with me givin’ you until the fundraiser to make up your mind about us. It means you keep lyin’ until you’re ready to tell the truth.”
“Or?”
I had to shove the words past my lips, and they hurt. Hurt so bad. “We break up. For good this time. I won’t do ten months. You don’t want us together? Then it’s for real and final. We do the fundraiser, and then you’re out of my life, done and over. I can’t half-ass it. I need all or nothin’.”
Adam’s whole body trembled, and I had to order myself to not go to him, to hold him, when he was doing this to us both. Razor wire replaced my muscles, acid my blood. My whole body hurt because his silence was his answer. He didn’t have to say it. I let the darkness take over and hug me tight.
Dark. Gravel. Laughter.
Panic fluttered beneath my breastbone. I squashed it down. Tried to wet my lips with a dry tongue. Had to get this out. Make it real for us both.
“Adam, if I walk out this door, it’s for real. We see each other for the fundraiser rehearsals, for the show, and then after next week, we’re done.”
“Ryan, please.” He moved forward.
I put a hand up, palm out. “Don’t. I didn’t have a choice last time, not about any of it. Your daddy made those choices for us. And maybe this is the worst mistake of my life, but at least I’m makin’ the choice.”
“I love you. Do you hear me saying that?”
“I hear it.” I swallowed hard, sure I was about to shatter into a thousand shards of glass. “I hear it, but I don’t see it.”
Adam made a desperate, stricken noise like a puppy caught in a wire fence.
“I’ll see you at the tech rehearsal,” I said.
I walked out slow, giving him time to call out. To grab my arm. To do anything to stop me from walking away from our relationship.
He didn’t.
Chapter 14
Adam
IDON’Tknow how I managed to drive home without crashing my car. Everything from the moment Ryan walked away from me was a blur of grief and disbelief. Actions occurred on rote memory and nothing more. I climbed into my car. I started the engine. I drove the correct route and didn’t run any red lights. I parked in the garage next to my father’s empty space and marveled at how I’d arrived.
Ryan dumped me.
Or had I dumped him? The entire conversation was jumbled in my head, as though I’d had it years ago and was just now trying to remember who said what. I truly hadn’t thought that asking him to wait would drive him away. I thought we were stronger than that.
You deserve it.
Maybe I did deserve to be dumped on my ass. I’d pursued Ryan. I’d forced him to talk about the bashing. I’d wedged myself back into his life without really considering what would happen if I couldn’t pick him. I hadn’t wanted to entertain the idea of a future without him, even though that had been inevitable from the moment my plan changed. And now I was living the consequences.
I am such an asshole.
I clasped my hands on the steering wheel and leaned forward, resting my forehead against my knuckles. I’d destroyed the best thing in my life because I was a coward. Ryan wasn’t wrong when he said I didn’t know how to live without my father’s money. Trying to finish school without financial support terrified me. I didn’t know how to stand on my own two feet. I’d never tried.
Letting Dad decide had always been easiest. It hadn’t been so bad in high school, but after I came out of my coma, I gave up running my own life.
PAINBREAKSthrough the darkness first. Not sharp pain. A deep throb all over. It weighs me down, makes it impossible to move. I flee from the throb, into the dark, but it follows me. Maybe light will chase it away.
