Page 37 of Better Hate than Never

I kneel on her bed and lay her down until the mattress holdsher weight, desperate to escape, to peel her off me and rush out into the frigid night air and let it douse the flames, cool my mind and body until I’m myself again and she’s Kate, and we’re back where we should be. On opposite ends of the room.

Of the world.

Whining faintly, she finally surrenders her grip around my neck, her arm slipping down my chest, her fingertips branding my skin. Her head lands on her pillow and flops to the side, her forehead pinched as if she’s in pain. I hate what it does to me, seeing that furrow in her brow, the taut pull of discomfort at the corner of her mouth.

So I don’t look at her mouth or her face anymore. I gently tug off one sturdy boot from her foot, then the other. I peel away her thick, fuzzy socks, and she sighs in her sleep. Her toes wiggle.

Then I lift the blanket and slide it up her body, resting it at her shoulders, forbidding myself to touch her any more than I already have.

Another sigh leaves her, then she mutters, “Topher.”

I stare down at her, telling myself to leave, hating myself as I stay right beside her bed and say, “Yes, Kate.”

She licks her lips, flails her arm in her sleep, and rolls onto her bad shoulder, not even wincing. I’m worried she’ll hurt herself, sleeping with the sling, so I bend over her and carefully undo the Velcro holding it together. Then I reach behind her and slip it off her body.

Kate’s sigh gusts across my face. “S’nice,” she mumbles. And then she slides her hand across the sheets until it finds mine.

Her eyes flutter open, slow blinks, her gaze unfocused. Her smile is soft and so impossibly sweet. “S’you,” she whispers.

I nod, words lost to me.

Her smile dissolves. “I forgot,” she says, her eyes drifting shut.

Don’t ask her, I tell myself.Don’t ask her. Don’t ask her—

“Forgot what?”

“That you hate me,” she whispers.

My heart cracks and spills aching, sour regret. I despise myself so much. “Never, Kate. I swear.”

“You do,” she says, her mouth pulling in a frown, the tiniest sparkle at the inside corners of her eyes.

The crack in my heart becomes a clean break. Tears. They’re tears.

“I never...” I swallow roughly. “I never wanted you to think I hated you, Kate, I...” My voice dies off. Another snore lifts her ribs. She’s asleep.

And, like a coward, I tell her what I don’t have the courage to say while she’s awake.

“All I’ve ever wanted is for you to hateme. I couldn’t hate you if I wanted to. I wish I could, but I can’t.” My thumb slides along the smooth, warm skin of her hand. “I don’t know how to do this, so all I’ve ever tried isnotto—not to see you or touch you or think about you, because I can’t...”

She exhales shakily, curling in on her side, as if protecting herself, shielding herself from me. Those pleas to make peace that have been thrown my way by our friends and family are pebbles to the landslide of her tears, her hand clutching mine, her truth that’s slipped between the cracks of her awareness.

She thinksIhateher.

It’s the last thing I ever wanted. I have never loathed myself so much.

“I’ll fix it,” I tell her, gently tucking behind her ear a hair that’s caught in the tears wetting her cheek. “I promise, Kate, I’ll fix it.”

I know she’s asleep, but her silence feels damning, skeptical, a warning that nothing but a long, hard struggle lies ahead.

I meant what I said, when I told her that I don’t know how to do this, how to share a world with Kate without disdain safelywedged between us, without distance maintained by living an ocean apart.

But that’s not enough to stop me, not anymore.

I can’t—Icannot—live in a world where Kate believes, even if she only reveals it in her most unguarded moments, that I hate her. I can’t let tears wet her eyes and that ache of heart-deep pain pinch her expression. I can’t live with myself, knowing I hurt her.

And now I have to fix it.

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