Page 121 of Bad at Love
The way his voice breaks tells me everything I don’t want to hear. A warm rush of tears races to my eyes, threateningto spill over. I want to touch him and console him but at the same time, I’m afraid. I’m afraid if I touch him, I’ll break.
“Please tell me,” I whisper anxiously. “Please.”
“Marina,” he says glancing at me with so much pain and heartbreak in his eyes that I nearly fall backward. “I am so, so sorry. You deserve so much more than this, than…than someone like me. I don’t want to have to do this, I don’t.”
I’m starting to choke up.
My heart is balanced on the edge of a cliff, wind battering it, ready for the fall.
“Do what?” I manage to say. “Do what?”
My fingers clench at the front of my suit, needing to hold onto something.
“This,” he says, wiping his eyes. “Us.”
No. No, no, no, no, no.
“Laz,” I say, desperation reaching up from inside me like bony hands. I grab onto his arm, his beautiful, wonderful arm, because if I hold onto him like this, he won’t do what he’s trying to do. He can’t.He can’t.
I suck in a deep breath, trying not to shake. “Laz, every couple has their ups and downs, every relationship gets hard. It’s work. It gets scary sometimes but you just power through it.” I try to sound strong and brave and confident, like I can convince him if I try hard enough. “Jane…Jane said sometimes you just need someone else as complicated and fucked up as you are to make love work. And that’s what we are, Laz. We are fucked up and complicated and we’re equals.”
“No, we aren’t,” he says, voice gruff. “You’re wrong, Marina.I’mfucked up.I’mcomplicated. And I’m completely undeserving of your love. I am not your equal. You are beautiful,” he trails off, pinching his eyes shut,looking away and I can hear his pain, feel his pain, but it’s still eclipsed by my own. “You’re beautiful and you’re smart and you’re so good and so pure and so giving and you need someone who is your equal, who can give what you give. That someone isn’t me.”
Everything hurts, everything. I can’t let this be the end, I can’t let him do this.
“Don’t do this,” I warn him, my voice quivering. “Don’t you dare do this. Don’t do this with me. Okay? You don’t get to decide if I’m deserving or not. You just don’t.”
“But I am deciding it,” he says. “This can’t work.”
“It does work!” I snap at him, trying so hard to keep the waterworks at bay, to not break down, to not lose my mind, to not go crazy. “It is working. This is just your insecurities. This is what you always do and it’s a habit and you’re not going to do this, not today. We are going to work together because I love you and that’s what happens when couples in love fight. They work it through. They talk. They don’t run. They don’t bail when it gets hard. They don’t give up. Okay, you aren’t giving up on us.”
“I’m so sorry,” he says again. “I don’t have a choice.”
He turns around, head low, his back to me.
I’m speechless, dumbfounded.
How dare he?
How dare he turn his back on me, on this?
To not even want to fight…
“It can work if you just put in the effort for once,” I tell him, my breath shallow now, like I’m losing air, drowning, a slow leak. “It can work if you want it to.”
“Maybe I don’t want it to. Maybe I don’t love you. I don’t love you like you love me.”
Oh.
I…
The world begins to spin.
I am dead on my feet.
“You…” I start to say but I can’t go on. I can’t, my heart is breaking, sharp shards that obliterate the rest of my body. I’m empty and cold and hollow in seconds. Drained.
“I’m sorry,” he says, sniffing. I still can’t see his face. It’s better that way. “I love you as a friend. But I know that’s not what you want from me right now.”
