Page 104 of The Infiniteness of Yesterday
“I don’t know,” I answer. “It was sort of mutual, I guess.”
He nods again and sits back, pulling his hands from knees and placing them on his own instead. I feel cold without his touch.
Removing his glasses, he rubs the bridge of his nose. Setting them back in place, he faces me fully and there’s no way for me to run from the pain in his voice.
“Why didn’t you tell me when it happened?”
I reach for the blanket and cover myself with it. “I think I was scared. Embarrassed. And in disbelief that it happened.”
Rubbing his jaw, he nods. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“I’m processing, Harlow,” he snaps, and it’s so unlike him that it feels like a slap.
“I’m sorry.” I burst into tears. The last thing I wanted to do is hurt him, which is why I kept it to myself.
“Fuck,” he curses, moving to sit beside me on the couch where he pulls me into his arms.
I push against him, not wanting him to hold me right now. I don’t deserve his comfort.
“Let me go,” I plead. “I should be comforting you. I’m a horrible girlfriend. I’m a horrible person. I’m a horrible?—”
“Please,” he begs. “Stop saying bad things about yourself.”
“It’s true.”
He holds me at arm’s length, and I know I must look like a mess from his perspective. “Do you want to kiss him again?”
I don’t think so, but I’m not so sure and that’s the worst part of all.
But, “No,” is what I tell him.
He cups my cheek, wiping away my tears. “I won’t lie, this wasn’t great to hear, and I’m hurt—I’m really fucking hurt, but it’s not going to be the end of us.”
He presses a kiss to my forehead and my eyes flutter closed.
I don’t deserve him.
Maybe I never did.
CHAPTER 37
SPENCER
EIGHT YEARS AGO
“Ilove Christmas,” Harlow says with a smile, adding an ornament to the tree in my dorm room. It’s one of those small, tabletop trees, but she insisted that the room needed something. She even wrapped string lights around my headboard.
Parker is out for the evening with a girl who he swears isn’t his girlfriend even though he’s been exclusively seeing her since the end of September.
“We have an hour before I need to leave,” she says in a suggestive tone. She wraps her hands around my waist, resting her chin on my chest and blinking up at me with big doe eyes.
“Not yet,” I remind her.
Since she first brought up the topic of sex and we agreed to wait until her birthday if she still wants to then, she’s mentioned it a few more times. I think she’s scared if she doesn’t continue to show interest I’ll think she’s changed her mind.
“My birthday isn’t until February.” She pouts up at me. “That’s forever away.”
