Page 87 of Love Undecided
Chapter 38
Kat
I realize I'd better get this over real quick-like. I hurry through what I have to say before he can misinterpret or interrupt.
“You need to let me go. Even if you aren't with Stacy, we won’t work. I can’t be with you. Even if your mom hadn't died from the same fucking disease that I have, I can’t be with anyone who has seen me the way that you have.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks.
“The bulk of our relationship was me with cancer. And we both know I never would have survived that first go-around without you. But then it came back, not once, but now twice. And it’s going to keep coming back. It is never going to go completely away. And if my last two go-arounds are any indication, it’s just going to get worse each time it comes back.”
I pause to take a breath.
“I can’t ask you to be a part of that. I can’t ask you to commit yourself to a life of caretaking and hoping for miracles. To living in constant anticipation of when it will resurface and how. Living in fear, always seeing me as a victim, a helpless, weakened victim with one foot in the grave, living life to the halfway point instead of to the fullest. That is no way to live and it is especially no way foryouto live.”
I gulp the remainder of my wine, signaling the waitress for another, fully prepared to keep drinking until I have to pour myself into an Uber.
“You are perfect and incredible, everything a woman wants in a partner. You have so much to offer - you are vibrant and funny, loyal and loving, giving and generous, and just totally fucking all around wonderful. You deserve for a woman to be able to give all of that back to you. You deserve someone who gives as much as she takes.
“And that’s all I can do for you is take. And soon you’ll resent me for it, and then we’ll either have an ugly and bitter breakup, or you’ll stay with me because I have cancer and you’ll hate me for it. And then I’ll hate you for hating me and staying, and then we'll both be bitter only without the breakup. And it will destroy you.
"And then it will destroy me. And I can’t have that. I can’t be the one that destroys you. Not again. You’re beautiful and you don’t deserve that. And I don’t deserve you.”
That’s when I feel the tears start to stream down my face. I look away from him toward the water, hoping the ocean breeze will blow them dry before he has a chance to see them.
“Are you through?” he asks.
When I glance back at him, I can tell he’s angry. Furious really. Like he’s vibrating with it. I’ve never seen him like this, face set like stone, eyes hard, tone cold.
“Um, yeah?” I answer him like it’s a question. I hate it when women speak with an up-tone. I hate it even more when I speak like that. I clear my throat and try again.
“Yes,” I say with more finality.
