Page 84 of A Dose of Agony
My eyes flare. “I think you’re doing okay.” I step in closer, pressing myself against his body.
“I had low expectations, honestly,” I tell him. “I wasn’t sure if you would be here, and I didn’t blame you.”
“Birthdays are important in your culture, from what I understand.”
“Kind of. Not particularly to me, though. Is that the reason you came back this week?”
He pulls back to look me in the eye. “Let me ask you this. If I had not come, would there have been even a tinge of disappointment?”
“Yes,” I admit. “But only a little.”
“Then it’s important.”
I sigh and curl back into his arms. “There are much more important things,” I say. “Like your safety and peace in your world. My sister’s life. Justice against the Cosmic Council. Those things will always matter to me more than gifts.”
“Do those things matter more than your happiness?”
I bite the inside of my lip. Do they? “I… don’t think I’m capable of being truly happy until those things are resolved.”
Jarron’s muscles tense. “Is that what you need?” he murmurs against my hair. “Is that what it will take to earn you?”
Earn you.
I shiver against those words, but I brush the hope away, afraid of letting it rise too high because I can’t accept it yet.
What do I really need? Answers. Truth.
“I don’t know.”
“The most frustrating part of all of this,” he says, “is that I know what you need. And it’s the one thing I cannot give you.”
My brow furrows. “What?”
“Assurance.”
My stomach twists.
“I cannot give you a definitive answer before you take the risk. I am not able to. I wish I could make you understand, but most of all, I wish you would trust me.”
I wish you would trust me. I swallow down a mountain of guilt.
Jarron has always been nothing but incredible to me. He’s given me everything I’ve asked of him.
This is the one thing he’s asked of me.
And I haven’t given it.
Trust. That’s all he’s requesting.
And here I am, hiding more and more from him.
I push that pain and guilt deep, deep down. Maybe I need to reassess some things, but right now isn’t the time to do it.
“Are you finished eating?” he asks.
I look back at our plates, half-finished. It was delicious, but my stomach doesn’t seem able to handle much more.
“Yes. It was amazing, though.”
