Page 83 of Christmas Crisis
“But what kind of friend am I to just…just…stand by while—”
“The kind of friend who respects my will! The kind of friend who truly knows me, and who knows my mind. Dammit, Leo! I don’t need you to tell me I’m wrong. Or right. I’m a grown woman, and I get to make choices all on my own, even if you disagree with them. Even if they turn out to be wrong!”
“So I’m supposed to just watch you teeter on the edge of a cliff and say nothing?”
I tried to slow the beating of my heart. “Maybe not every cliff, but when it comes to Stone, you have to trust me to make my own decisions. Even if it means watching me fall.”
“I don’t know if I can do that anymore,” he rasped. “Sometimes it feels like I’m enabling you.”
Something about the way he said it—like I was a recalcitrant teenager he needed to steer away frombad life choices—rubbed a raw place in me. It scratched below the surface of the Miranda who made a point of never beingtoo much. The happy, perky, undramatic, flat-dimensioned Barbie most of the world saw.
“The only thing you’re enabling right now is my getting pissed at you—”
“Why?! You’re only pissed because you know I’m right. And because you know I’m going to love you all the way through it. Besides, I’m not the one you’re mad at—”
“Leo, you need to stand down—”
“If you need to make me the bad guy because you don’t feel like you can yell at Stone, then do it! Get pissed at me. I can take it. But don’t pretend you don’t see this situation for what it is!”
“And what’s that?” I folded my arms, feeling my blood race through my veins.
“Totally fucked up! It’s time to call it! Get out. You don’t have to put up with this shit. You have options—”
His words cut off abruptly as his chest rose and fell.
Options.
An unspoken understanding reared up between us. A heavy burden fueled by countless conversations and nights spent in each other's arms. But this time, the truth of it wasn’t just in my mind. It was written across his face as well.
We would be together if he weren’t asexual.
And even though it was irrational, I suddenly felt angry with Leo for not being able to give me what I wanted from him.
That was why I couldn't let him have the satisfaction of telling him I knew Stone was bad for me, that I’d already decided to end things.
Leo wasn’t wrong. He was the only person I ever allowed myself to go off on, because I knew he would never walk away from me. But at that moment, that knowledge made me bitter.
I resented loving him almost as much as I loved him.
“Don’t fucking tell me I haveoptions! Not about Stone. Not about anyone. Since you can’t give me what I need, you don’t get a say in what comes next!”
He reared back as if I’d slapped him, and I felt the echo of my words like a physical force.
For nearly two years, I’d been so careful never to make him feel deficient for being who he was, to never push on his most sensitive nerve. And now, I’d gone and done exactly that.
“Leo—”
He shook his head aggressively. “I wish… I wish I could give you everything, Miranda. More than anything, I wish that.”
I felt the heat under my skin drop from a boil to a simmer. “Okay. Let’s take a step back. I’m sor—”
“No,” he said softly. “No. Don’t do that. You’re so good at making things neat. And I’m telling you that it is okay to rage. You always put the pins back in the grenades. You don’t need to make me comfortable. I can take it.”
My shoulders trembled.
“What do you want me to do?” I asked dully. “Call you names? Curse you out?”
“No. I want you to know it’s okay to be mad. If you get mad enough, maybe you’ll demand more for yourself.”
