Page 70 of Lily In The Valley
Her face changed. The pain hit like a delayed punch.
“You always do that,” she said, trembling now. “You always make it about what you’ve done for me. Like love is a transaction. Like I owe you because you showed up.”
“I don’t need you to owe me,” I said, quieter now. “I just wanted it to mean something.”
“It did,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean it fixes me.”
I looked away. The ache crawled up my spine like something alive.
She stepped forward, voice shaking. “You keep showing up like your love is a rescue mission. But I don’t want to be saved, Khalil.”
“You’re drowning,” I said, softer still. “And you don’t even see it.”
Her eyes filled. “And you think clinging to me while I sink is noble?”
We stood in opposite corners of the living room, two ghosts haunting the same space. Two people standing in the ruins of what they swore they would hold.
“You’re selfish,” I whispered.
She winced.
“You think you’re protecting yourself,” I continued, heat rising in my throat, “but all you do is hurt the people who see you. Who love you. You let people give and give and give, and when they’re empty, you act like it’s their fault they’re tired.”
“And you” her voice cracked, “you don’t even know how to be loved unless you’re being needed.”
That hit something raw in me. A rusted nerve I didn’t know she knew how to touch. I stepped back. Fists curled.
She didn’t stop.
“You think loving me means saving me, but it doesn’t. You show up, and you perform, and you pour out everything you have like it’s the only way to prove you’re worth staying for.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. I swiped at my nose again, heat creeping to the tops of my ears.
“I do,” she fired back. “You don’t love me, Khalil. You love being the one I might not walk away from.”
“Shut up.”
“Because your mother did. And you’ve been chasing women who make you feel needed ever since.” Her words held a familiarbite she reserved for others. Reserved for her parents. Now that they were turned on me, they sank into my heart like venom-dripped darts.
I blinked hard. My lungs shattered.
“You want someone broken so you can feel whole.” She continued poking and prodding at the deeper parts of me only she were privy to.
“Stop.” I closed my eyes and inhaled, letting the air hang trapped in my chest.
“You keep showing up for me like I’m your redemption arc”
“Kelly.”
“I’m not your second chance at proving you’re needed!”
I slammed my fist against the counter. The wine glass shook like it had been slapped, then tipped to the kitchen floor, shattering.
“Fuck that, Kelly! That’s the bullshit excuse you want to go with?” I snapped. “You think I like feeling like I’m the only one standing between you and collapse?”
Her breath quickened.
“You know what your problem is?” I said, voice low now, biting. “You been so busy playing peacekeeper in your parents’ fucked up marriage, you don’t know what healthy love looks like. You think running is freedom. You think pushing me away is strength. But all you doing is mimicking your mama’s silence and your bitch-ass daddy’s distance, calling it boundaries.”
