Page 79 of Reckless Liar

“In so many ways yeah, but boyfriend seems like such a funny word...” I sighed, shaking my head. I never like the sound of the word. How I felt about him transcended all those silly names. I couldn’t trivialize what we had with a label like that. “I don’t know... I feel like what we have is more than...”

“I don’t get you,” he interrupted. “When we’re home it’s like we can be together, everything is so wonderful here, and then I try to take you out on a date, or hold your hand at the store and you pull away like I’m poison?”

“That’s not true.” I asserted. “That time at the store, I had to get something in a different aisle. You know how I feel about you.”

“You are a terrible liar,” he leaned forward pressing his hands together and setting them on his lips. “I don’t get it. Why do you keep pushing me away?” he demanded. “What do I need to do to prove to you that what we have is real?”

“I know it’s real. You don’t need to convince me of that.”

Tell him, tell him you love him, say the words and this can be over.

“You don’t get it both ways. I told you as much that night Sherie was over.”

“I thought this is what you wanted. I thought you wanted to be with me. I’m giving you everything I have.”

“No, you’re not. You can give me more. You have so much more. You don’t want to admit it. You don’t want to go there. You don’t want to take the chance that I’ll hurt you the way Max did.”

“You couldn’t possibly hurt me the way Max did.” I retorted. It wasn’t possible for anyone to hurt me the way Max did. Xander wasn’t capable of inflicting that level of pain on someone. Never had I known that Xander was the opposite of Max more. “That’s impossible.”

“I know that.” He closed his eyes, and I could see him working through the words. Fear sliced through me, chilling me. “You know why I can’t hurt you like Max did? Because you won’t let me.”

“What? Why would you...”

“You want to know why I was so pissed off? I bumped into Scarlett earlier. She asked me if I knew who it was that you were seeing? She said she had it on good authority that you were seeing a new guy. At first, I thought she was trying to tease me, but then I realized she didn’t know about us. I kept asking myself why she would be asking me about who you’re seeing if she knew about us. And then I realized she can’t tease me about something she has no clue about.”

I sat back, scoffing. “I was in the middle of the drug store. I’m not going to tell her in the middle of the aisle between the tampons and the shampoo.”

He sat back on the couch with his hand in his hair. “You shouldn’t have to tell her there. She should already know. You tell Scarlett everything. So why are you keeping us a secret from her, from your parents?”

“There wasn’t a good time to talk to her and honestly before, I wasn’t sure what I’d say to her about us.”

He pulled his hand out of his hair leaving it a crazy mess sticking up everywhere. “How about the truth? How about we’ve been sleeping together for months. Literally sleeping in the same bed after we have sex. How about that I told you I love you and you didn’t say anything back?”

Now is the time. Say it and this fight can be over. Promise him that you’ll tell Scarlett.Say the words and it will be fixed.

“I have been patient; I know I said I would wait for you. I kept thinking that if I gave you the time, you’d come to care for me. But I’m out of time now. I can’t keep doing this with you. I won’t be your dirty little secret, Ana.”

“You aren’t, that isn’t at all how I feel.”

Tell him...

“No, tell me how you feel then?” He countered, looking me right in my eyes, a dead stare fixing me in place.

“I...” I stammered. I had this vision of how I’d say the words. How it’d be so romantic. This was the last way I wanted to say them. I didn’t want them to be a final plea to diffuse a situation.

“Just like I thought. I know I can’t hurt you like Max did, because you’ll never love me the way you loved Max,” he chuckled to himself as he shook his head. So softly I could barely hear him he whispered, “I was an idiot to think you could.”

“Xan, don’t say that,” I mumbled. “You’re putting words in my mouth. How I feel about you... about us...”

He stepped back from me, his eyes hardening. “You don’t love me enough to hurt you. But goddamn it...” he grimaced. “I always knew I’d be the one who loved you more than you loved me. But I thought, eventually, I’d get back a fraction of what I gave.”

“I do though,” I pleaded. “For so long I thought if you knew what I did to Max you wouldn’t...”

“I already told you, you’re not allowed to use that excuse. Not anymore. You held on to that, so you didn’t have to take a chance and care about me. You needed an excuse to use me the way you did.” His words hissed through his teeth. I’d rarely seen him this angry. I was used to Max’s loud outbursts—the yelling, the punching. This low cold voice put a whole other level of fear into me.

“This isn’t going how I wanted it to. You’re misunderstanding me. You know how hard this is for me. I’m trying here, I really am.”

“No, you’re not,” he retorted. “All I’ve ever wanted from you was for you to love me. I guess I wanted too much from you.”

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