35. Chapter 35
Chapter 35
Riley
Emery
You have to come to Christmas with our family.
Riley told me she wants you there.
Matt
You really need to let your sister and I figure out things between the two of us.
Emery
She isn’t going to bring it up herself. She’s too scared. She needs you to push her out of her comfort zone.
Please just ask her.
I picked up the bow we had left over from wrapping gifts and pulled the tab off the sticker. “Hey, Matt, come here.” I snuck up behind him in the kitchen loading the dishwasher. Before he could turn around, I reached around his head and stuck the bow in the middle of his forehead.
He turned around with a smirk on his face and chased me back into the living room to tickle me. We collapsed in a heap on top of the wrapping supplies scattered over the floor. I wiggled out from under him trying to catch my breath. He flipped over on his back beside me. I sat up and reached for my phone to take a picture.
“So, how are we doing Christmas?” Matt pulled the bow from his forehead and looked up at me.
“The same way we did Thanksgiving,” I said.
He sat up making the wrapping paper under him crinkle. I started moving the wrapped presents under the tree. He caught my arm and pulled me back beside him. “Let’s spend it together. We’ll split the day however we need to, just tell me we can spend the day together.” He tucked my hair behind my ear.
“Matt, you said we wouldn’t talk about the future,” I said, dipping my head away from him. I reached for a scrap of paper and twisted it between my fingers.
“It’s next week, Riley. It’s not the future.”
“It is the future. What are we going to tell our families when we show up together? What are they going to think?” I pulled my knees up to my chest and focused my eyes on the twinkling lights of the tree. Lately I kept catching myself forgetting how scared I was, felt myself hovering on the edge of admitting to him how much I had fallen for him.
A week ago, I’d walked into his apartment to him standing there in nothing but his underwear. I hadn’t felt the urge to panic, to look away. All I wanted was to touch him, to forget all our rules and tackle him to the floor. It felt like a turning point for us. If he had told me we could throw out all the rules I would have gone along with it. I had instigated almost breaking the rules.
I had let his coworkers see us together, let everyone see us dancing together.
The entire time we were at the school I had been so turned on from the image of him flashing across my mind constantly. It was torture to sit there next to him pretending like it didn't happen. We still hadn't talked about.
We were also ignoring how I had straddled his lap after. I could have came that way, grinding on his lap while his fingers clutched desperately at my hips. Those strangled noises he tried to hold back had me imagining what he would sound like not holding back. Then he asked if he could touch me and my brain jolted with a reminder of the rules.
We should talk about it. Maybe we could modify the rules again.
“What do you want to tell them?” he asked. He moved behind me, stretching his legs out on either side of me and wrapping his arms around me. He nuzzled his face into my neck. It was my favorite way for him to hold me.
“I don’t know.” I wanted to relax back into him, but my body stayed stiff. I forced myself to take a deep breath. Static filled my brain making it hard to hear my thoughts. Meeting his family still felt like a daunting step.
“Riley, please tell me what you’re thinking.”
This was it. This was the moment that he would tell me he was tired of waiting for me. We had barely made it through five months of whatever this was we were doing. I leaned forward into my knees pulling away from his chest as much as I could. “You said you wouldn’t pressure me, that you would wait.”
“We can tell them whatever you want.” His arms fell away from me, and his hands rubbed his thighs. “You mean a lot to me, and I want to spend Christmas with you. I want you to meet my family.” He paused, his fingertips digging into his legs. “I don’t want another family dinner where all I can think about is how much I miss you.”
I shook my head and buried my face in my knees. I didn’t want that either. I belonged next to him. I hated how much just thinking about being apart for Christmas made me miss him when he was right here. “You mean a lot to me too,” I managed to say with a shaky voice.
His arms wrapped around me and pulled me back against him. “We don’t have to tell them we’re anything serious. Please, when I think about Christmas with my family this year I can’t stop picturing you there with us.”
“It’s not that simple.” I pulled away so I could turn around to face him. “I don’t just bring people to Christmas with my family. If you come with me, they’re going to think that we’re serious.”
His hands reached for me again, but I stayed curled up into myself and shrugged his hands off.
“Would it be a bad thing if they did?” His voice didn’t rise, but there was a sharp edge to it. “Tell me that this is still just casual to you.”
It wasn’t casual at all to me. I was head over heels in love with this man, I had been for a while. I wanted to spend Christmas with him. I wanted to show him off to my family. I want to meet his family and see how I fit with them.
But it all felt like too much.
We had only known each other a few months. I shouldn’t love him this much.
I shouldn’t feel like he was home, shouldn’t miss him so much when we weren’t together.
Maybe in a few more months I will be ready to tell him, but right now he was asking for more before I was ready. He wasn’t that different from everyone else. He was going to break my heart just like everyone else.
“Riley, please talk to me.” His voice was soft again. I looked into his eyes to see tears welling up. My heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. I loved him so much but all I was capable of was hurting him. “Tell me why Emery keeps telling me you want me there but won’t tell me you do.”
“You said you would give me time,” I repeated the words a few times against my knees. My voice shook more each time and tears clouded my vision. I closed my eyes tight enough to hurt. “You need to stop talking to Emery. She’s just being nosy and it’s driving me crazy.”
“I’m just asking for Christmas. Can you give me this one thing? If you’re really that uncomfortable with it, you don’t have to come. I just really wanted to ask you. Do you really want me there?”
“Are you breaking up with me?” I whispered the words.
“Jesus, Riley, where is that coming from?” He rubbed a hand through his hair. “I can’t break up with you if we’re not together,” he snapped.
I jumped and opened my eyes to see the tears running down his face. He scrubbed a hand over his face and looked over my shoulder. “What does that mean?” I made myself smaller, collapsing into myself as much as I could.
“Shit, I’m sorry, that came out wrong. I’m not breaking up with you. I just really need this one thing. We can tell everyone whatever you want to. Or we don’t have to tell them anything at all. Just, please, come with me.”
I bit my lip and rubbed my tears with the sleeve of my sweater. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
“What can you do?” He moved closer but didn’t reach for me. “Tell me what you want.”
I sat in silence with my sleeve covering my face. Deep breath in. Now out. Deep breath in. Now out. “I’m scared,” I finally managed to say.
“What are you scared of?”
“You mean so much to me. I don’t want to lose you.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” His arms wrapped around me from the side.
“You’re mad at me,” I whispered.
“I’m upset, yes. I just need you to talk to me. You’re important to me. I just want all the people that are important to me all together for my favorite holiday.”
He was upset because of me. He was crying because of me. I hurt him because I’m scared. I’m scared to leave this limbo he’s been letting me keep us in and have everything fall apart once we do. This limbo felt so safe, and I had no idea if leaving it would lead to somewhere else safe.
“I’m sorry,” I sobbed out.
“Please, sweetheart, all you have to do is talk to me.”
“I don’t know how.” I tugged the sleeves of my sweater over my thumbs and dug my nails into the palms of my hands. “All I know how to do is be scared.” I sobbed again and struggled to catch my breath. “Now you’re mad and you’re going to leave me just like everyone else.” My chest tightened and crushed my lungs. I took rapid, shallow breaths struggling to get enough air.
“Sweetheart, I think you’re having a panic attack.” He shifted again and moved my arms away from my face, forcing me to look at him. “I’m not going anywhere. Can you breathe with me?” He took an exaggerated breath.
“We’re fighting. Fighting always means someone leaves.” I couldn’t stop sobbing.
“Fighting means we have something we need to figure out. It doesn’t mean I’m going anywhere. Are you going anywhere?” He kept taking exaggerated breaths.
I shook my head even though all I wanted to do was run. Every muscle in my body screamed to get up and leave.
We were in my house, I couldn’t leave.
“Can you tell me what you need?”
I needed him, but if I told him that and he left anyways it would just hurt even more. Maybe he won’t leave today or next week or even next month. Eventually he would.
I shook my head.
“Do you want me to leave so you can have some space?”
“No, please don’t go.” The words were so quiet I didn’t know if he heard me. I shook my head hard. My chest ached.
“Riley, please, seeing you like this is breaking my heart. Tell me what to do.”
I was breaking his heart. I was the problem. I had always been the problem. All I did was hurt everyone that loved me.
“Hey, hey, don’t go there. I know what you’re thinking. I’m still here, I’m not going anywhere.” His hands bracketed my head and kept my eyes locked with his.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said.
“I don’t want to hurt you either,” he rested his forehead against mine and closed his eyes. My hands moved to grip his forearms.
We sat like that until my chest loosened enough for my breath to slow. I squeezed his forearms. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“Do you want to pause this and cuddle on the couch while we watch another movie?”
I nodded my head.
He pulled back a little. I could see the serious way his brows knit together. “We’re not done talking about it, just pausing.”
“Just pausing,” I repeated.
I wondered how long that pause would last. I wondered how long it would take me to stop being scared of the best thing in my life. How long he would keep trying before he decided I wasn’t capable of the healthy relationship he was pushing for.