Love Sick

Grace

MARCH, YEAR 2

Love.

An interesting concept from the outside.

On the inside, it’s like standing in a diamond while sunlight shines through. Facets of light reflect in every corner. Dazzling rainbows sparkle over each surface.

All is warm and bright and endless.

I don’t trust it.

Diamonds are beautiful, but hard. They can break under pressure.

They can be faked.

Julian wouldn’t do that, though.

You’ve thought that before.

Two months have passed since he claimed he loves me, yet I can’t silence the voice in my head. It reminds me of the last man who declared himself in love with me.

He lied.

Love doesn’t leave scars.

It doesn’t humiliate.

It’s not conditional.

That man’s “love” broke me, and I wish I’d healed. I wish I could forget him. I wish I could trust myself and this gut instinct that says Julian isn’t lying.

But I don’t. It all feels too good to be true.

I roll over in bed and kiss Julian’s shoulder. He’s deeply asleep, one hand laying on his chest, the other curled around my wrist. Even in sleep, he finds ways to touch me. The silver March moonlight lines his face. His jaw and nose cut sharp edges through the dark, but sprinkles of moon dust settle on his cheeks and eyelids, highlighting his eyelashes. He’s silver-lined.

I love you.

In my mind, the words are easy. In my mouth, they disappear.

I’m selfish not to tell him. He opened himself to me. I should give him the same courtesy. This adoration deep in the marrow of my bones is unmistakable. I love him, but if I say the words, it’s real. If I say them, I relinquish all power.

I need to trust him, and I can’t figure out how.

Tears spring to my eyes. Trusting someone with the most vulnerable part of myself nearly destroyed me once. How do I find the capacity to risk it again? How do people fall in love over and over again? How do they heal their broken and betrayed hearts? How do they erase pathologic beliefs buried in their minds?

My finger drifts down Julian’s chest, over his hand to his stomach. He stirs with a deep scratchy rumble in his throat. It’s hours before either of us need to wake, but I roused from a nightmare not long ago, and this man is human perfection.

I can’t say it, but I can show him how I feel.

Pressing my naked body against him, I kiss his chest, then his neck. He grunts again when my lips brush across his throat, over his pulse, the turn of his jaw. The rumble in his chest vibrates against me.

My teeth close around his earlobe. “I want you.” I love you.

“Yeah?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Because I love you. “Is that something you can help me with?”

His hand slides to grasp mine, linking our fingers, and he tugs me on top of him. “Like this?”

“However you’ll give it.”

Take me.

Own me.

Please.

The remaining space between us vanishes as we meet in an urgent kiss. He tightens beneath me. Every muscle wakes and clenches, and his arms become iron bands around me.

My insides melt into liquid heat. His hands slide down my sides and cup my thighs. He pulls and I obey, spreading my legs around him.

Magic sparkles between us, both of us struggling to get closer, taste more. He strokes and caresses everywhere he can reach with the ultrafine, barely there touches he’s learned turn me on the most. In his arms, I’m a live wire and he’s my ground.

Our connection is breathtaking—it always is—and I’m whispering his name with the little air I have. He hums his agreement, and grasps my hips, thumbs digging into the little divots beside the bone. I sit straight and let him guide the rhythm.

He knows this part of my body far better than I ever have. His hands are gifted at so many things, but this…this is my favorite.

One hand drifts over my chest while the other slips between us and ensnares me with pleasure. Heat unfurls. I brace myself on his chest. The moonlight glints in his eyes. They’re fixed on me as I ride him.

It doesn’t take long.

It never takes long.

He fractures me every time—a task I’d previously believed impossible.

Ecstasy dawns. Golden light breaks over my horizon, then scatters inside my body like a lens flare. Sunstars sparkle deep in my belly, and I barely have a moment to breathe before he flips me to my back and starts all over again.

I whisper his name into his skin, hoping he can hear the love and devotion, the reverence, the tenderness and affection.

Afterward, when he’s asleep and I’m nestled in his arms once more, the brave, head-over-heels woman in my subconscious lurches forward.

“I love you,” I whisper.

He doesn’t stir.

* * *

Maternal Fetal Medicine is a subspecialty of obstetrics that deals with high-risk pregnancies. Everything from diabetes to congenital anomalies are followed in the MFM clinic. It should be fascinating. Instead, I spend my days standing in a dark ultrasound room, watching a tech scan babies. I then sit in the consultation room with the patient while the attending explains said ultrasound.

Shadowing at its finest.

Two MFMs lord over this clinic, Dr. John and Dr. Hoffman. Constantly vying for my attention, the divas complain if I spend too much time with one or the other.

John is a large man with little personality. He’s bipolar in his attitude toward me, either mildly jovial or flat-out nasty. He has an unhealthy obsession with pointing out the baby’s nasal bone on ultrasound.

“See this baby’s nasal bone? Such a beautiful nasal bone.”

Every. Single. Time.

The quartet of harpies who serve as ultrasound techs naturally hate me as I am apparently a deterrent to all women who work in health care. Their saccharine smiles never touch their eyes when they look at me. Sweet to the patient’s face, the claws always emerge in the privacy of their computer room.

Mandy is the worst of them. “My arm hurts after that scan. The bitch needs to lose a few pounds. Couldn’t get a good picture of the baby’s profile because her fat rolls were in the way.”

I lean on the door since no chair has ever been offered to me. “God forbid you don’t get a shot of that nasal bone.”

I mean it as a joke—some commiserating camaraderie—but she turns her mouselike face in my direction and screws it into something resembling a sneer. “Weren’t you asked not to speak to us? You’re distracting me.”

I sigh and turn away. On March 1st, my first day in the office, John asked me not to speak with any of them during the day, so as not to distract them from their duties .

Sit down and shut up. That’s what MFM is about.

I follow Mandy to her next ultrasound. She adopts her usual falsetto voice to hide her malevolence from the patient. Reviewing my mental flashcards allays the annoying niggle in my brain every time she insists on calling the tibia and fibula the “tibia and fibia” while taking pictures of the baby’s legs.

Afterward, I head to Hoffman’s office to review the images before his consultation with the patient. Unlike John, Hoffman has too much personality and talks through his nose. Gossip is his favorite food, and he drools at the juiciest morsels. Today, his primary complaint is that he can no longer afford to buy the saltwater fish tank he’s been eyeing because recent storm damage has forced him to re-stucco his house.

Hoffman is the king of first-world problems.

He spins in his chair toward me when I enter, nasal voice on high power. “You know, I’ve got some beef to pick with you.”

That’s not the expression, you nitwit.

I perch on the sofa beside his desk, back straight. “Yes?”

“I’m a little ticked off you didn’t tell me you’re dating, Sapphire.” He crosses his arms. “I told you about my affair with my attending when I was a resident.”

He’d volunteered that information against my will, actually, but my stomach drops. “What?”

“I had to hear it from another resident.”

“Who?”

He waves a hand. “It slips my mind.”

Uh-huh. Sure.

“She said you’re dating a couple who are both radiology residents. Said you were caught in one of the call rooms.”

My mind goes still, followed swiftly by my body. Radiology? A couple ?

He grins and readjusts the glasses on his nose—glasses I’m in fact not attracted to. “Now that I know you’re into thrupples, I have a lot more stories to tell you.”

“I’m not.” I clear my raspy voice. “I’m not into thrupples.”

He snorts. “That’s not what I heard, and let me tell you, she was very explicit—”

“Stop.” My tone is honed to a sharp edge.

He jerks his head. “What?”

“None of these rumors are true. They’ve never been true.”

His demeanor closes off. His eyes shutter, and he flings his arm toward the door. “Fine. Go get me a Starbucks, will you?”

I hold out my hand for money to pay for his ridiculous drink—tall decaf Americano with one inch of nonfat foam.

He sneers at my hand. “Don’t you have money left on your meal card?”

Because we’re poor, each resident receives $150 on a meal card to pay for the myriad meals we have to eat when working at Vincent. Hoffman’s drink is $5 and he wants at least one per day. Three weeks into my month at MFM, and he still has yet to pay for a drink.

Half my money for food has gone to his Starbucks habit, but tears build behind my eyes and I don’t have the energy to argue with him. I flee his office and head to the sky bridge that leads to the cafeteria.

Another rumor.

Why does this keep happening?

I hear rumors all the time. Not just about me. Talk of residents dating who aren’t. People cheating when they haven’t. Interns screwing up when they never did.

Where do the rumors start? How do they grow?

My reputation is in such tatters that my name is dragged into any speculation about sex in the hospital. Witnesses immediately assume I’m involved.

Weird noise in the surgery call room? Probably Sapphire Rose blowing a plastics fellow.

Provocative laughter in a stairwell? Definitely Sapphire Rose leading a pediatrics resident to his downfall.

I’m sure those radiology residents were caught alone, then someone joked, “I’m surprised Sapphire Rose wasn’t with them” and off flew the newest rumor.

I wipe my face.

Oh god.

What if Julian hears it?

I yank my phone from my white coat pocket.

Me: It isn’t true.

Julian: I know.

I stare at his answer. My chest hollows.

Me: you already heard?

Julian: it doesn’t matter grace

Me: what exactly did you hear?

The three dots appear, then disappear.

Me: what did you hear julian

Julian: grace

Julian: it doesn’t matter

Julian: it isn’t true, right?

Ice freezes my fingers as I stare at that question, and my steps slow to a stop. Texts lack tone. He could be stating that it doesn’t matter because it’s not true, or he could be genuinely asking if it’s true.

My gaze lifts to the floor-to-ceiling sky bridge windows, looking over a parking lot.

Does he really think I’d—

The screen flashes with his contact photo when he calls me.

I sniffle and hold the phone to my ear. “Hello?”

His tone is gentle. “y, listen. It isn’t even true, so why does it matter? It’s never mattered.”

Oh thank god. He didn’t believe it. Of course he didn’t believe it! What was I thinking?

“What did you hear?” I ask.

He’s silent for several seconds. “—”

My voice sharpens. “What did you hear, Julian?”

His sigh shreds through the speaker. “Maxwell heard you went down to the radiology reading room the other day and someone caught you with two fifth-year residents.”

I lean against the window. “Doing what?”

“What do you think, ? Do you really want the details?”

“Yes.” No.

“Well, I’m not giving them to you. I told him it wasn’t true.”

I surrender to the tears. “Hoffman asked me about it.”

Darkness overtakes his voice. “What?”

“The rumors will get to the attendings, then to my future employers. Medicine is a small world, Julian. This could ruin my life.”

“We’ll deal with it.” He pauses. “What if—what if we showed our relationship publicly? People would—”

I scoff. “The rumors would go nuts. Don’t drag yourself down into my mud.”

A long silence follows. A blue sedan circles the parking lot beneath me.

Lot’s full, buddy. I can see it from here.

“Maybe I want to be in the mud with you,” Julian murmurs.

At those words, a tiny bit of the ice inside me melts. He’s so sweet. So loving.

But it isn’t enough. People would talk about what we do together. Where we do it. They’d probably ask him how I like it. Then rumors would spread that I cheated. They’d pity him for staying with me. They’d laugh at him behind his back.

He thinks he wants to roll in the mud with me, but eventually bitterness would grow. Resentment.

This will be the thing that drives him away. With Matt, our lack of sexual chemistry—and his narcissistic tendencies—ruined us, but Julian…he’ll decide I’m not worth the hassle of having to scrub my shitty reputation, of constantly defending our relationship.

I swallow. “Let’s talk about it tonight.”

“All right, . Don’t cry about this, okay? Don’t catastrophize. It’s not worth it.”

Nodding even though he can’t see me, my voice shrinks to a bare rasp. “Bye, Julian.”

“Bye, Sapphire.”

That name pulls a laugh from me, and I hang up.

When I return with his Starbucks, Hoffman is cold and complains they put too much foam in it. I fantasize about pushing him out the window of his sixth-story corner office.

Mandy has descended past the level of Nasty and arrived at Satan. She turns on the fake falsetto and hands me a note from John. “Really nice you can take a coffee break in the middle of the day. Dr. John asked me to give you this. He needs records from your clinic EMR for this patient.”

I glance at the note to find a patient name and birthday. “Did he say wh—”

“I believe I asked you not to speak to me.”

Would her blood even be red if I stabbed my pink pen into her throat?

I march away without saying anything else.

In a corner of the copy room sits a janky computer on its last breath. This is the computer I’m allowed to use. I power it on and rack my memory on how to remotely access our clinic EMR. It’s such a complicated process that I’ve only done it one other time.

On the first login screen, I type my name and password. I’m redirected to another login screen. Security aside, I hate multifactor authentication. Without my laptop and its keychain of saved passwords, I can’t remember which login this screen needs. I try a few. No luck.

A waking bear growls in my chest, hungry for blood.

I have to call IT.

My fingers drum on the desk. Not even my mental flashcards can mask my hatred for this situation. My blood acidifies and heats to boiling.

By the time the IT help desk person answers, I’m ready for a massacre.

The problem: there’s an invisible space after my username.

“The username is SGROSE space?”

“Yes. Space after the E .”

My fingers on my phone turn to claws. “How was I supposed to see it?”

“I’m not sure.”

I disconnect before I totally lose my cool. The records on the patient print without issue. I set them on John’s desk.

He feigns surprise. “I didn’t realize you still worked here. Haven’t seen you all day.”

“Here I am. Oh, but here’s my best part.” I point to my nose. “Don’t I have such a beautiful nasal bone?”

His bewilderment takes the form of a slack jaw and clouded eyes. “What?”

“I started my period and bled everywhere. I have to go.”

His face whitens. “Yes, of course.”

I don’t spare him another glance before flying out the door.

* * *

I’m halfway home when my phone rings, and Dr. Chen’s name takes over my car’s display. A ball of lead settles low in my stomach as I click the green button. Am I in trouble?

“Hello?”

“Hello, Dr. Rose?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

He coughs away from the phone. “I—um—we need to have a conversation.”

A pause follows while I try to make sense of that. “All right.”

“Can you come to my office now? Please tell your attending I’ve excused you from duties.”

Acid builds in my throat, but I swallow it away. “Yes. I’m on my way. What is this regarding?”

“It’s—ah—it’s better if we speak in person.”

Oh god. This can’t be good. Did I make some egregious mistake? Am I being sued?

The drive to the office is a blur, but the TCU Horned Frog smiles at me as I sit in the chair across from his desk. Dr. Chen hands me a Milky Way. It’s soon crushed in my sweaty fist.

“Dr. Rose, how are you?”

“I—um—what’s this about, Dr. Chen?”

“Right.” He glances at his computer screen and clicks his mouse a few times. “I was approached today by a director from another program, who had raised some concerns regarding your—um—professionalism.”

“My professionalism?” The weight in my stomach expands to encompass my diaphragm, my ribs. I can’t suck in a breath.

I’m not being sued.

I’m being slut-shamed.

Dr. Chen hands me a Baby Ruth. “Speculation has been made that perhaps you’re seeking unprofessional ways to complete your training.”

“I don’t.” My voice shakes. “I’m not. I don’t do any of these things they say about me.”

“I know. Trust me, I know. You’re a great doctor, and you work hard. I think it’s important that you hear this from me. Steps are being taken to squash these rumors, but as I’m sure you know, they’re—”

“Impossible to stop.”

He sighs and rubs his eyes under his glasses. “You’re an ideal resident, . I can’t remember the last time I had a resident so engaged in didactics. And your surgical skills are improving tremendously. I can see you making a great chief one day. You should be proud of what you’ve accomplished.”

“And yet I’m not known as a good resident. When people say my name, they don’t think good resident . They think slut .”

“I—” His eyes meet mine, true remorse shining in their depths. “I’m sorry, .”

The dream I once had, the one of myself finally reaching some pinnacle of self-actualization, of shedding my anxiety and becoming someone to be respected, falls to the floor and shatters.

I’ll never be that woman, will I?

I will always just be this.

Sapphire Rose. Anxious. Distrustful. Cold.

Unable to speak, I dip my chin in a jerky nod. Eventually, I swallow the tears that want to break free. “We could’ve had this conversation over the phone. Why’d you want me to come in?”

“Steve Langston has gotten involved. He’s planning to meet with each program director individually.”

My heart no longer beats a normal rhythm. I’ve developed a pathologic tachycardia. “Why? Isn’t that only going to make things worse?”

“He said it’s gone on long enough. He wants to discuss the role of gossip and the damage it can do, and what we can do to end it. I just wanted you to know that we’re doing what we can to stop this.”

It won’t work. It will only draw more attention to me, but it’s pointless to mention that. Nothing will stop a man with a bad idea and good intentions.

“Th-thanks.”

A tear slips past its barrier.

His voice softens. “You can go now, . Take the day if you need it.”

* * *

The bottle of IPA I pull from my fridge is zipped into its coozie and halfway gone before I remove my shoes. My white coat is heaped in a pile beside my coat rack. I fling my dress clothes across my unmade bed and don leggings with a med school T-shirt of Julian’s he left on my dresser.

Ravenclaw fuzzy socks perfect my outfit.

I pace my apartment.

A single rumor has spiraled into insanity. How have I become the poster child for sexual promiscuity?

Why do you care?

Because it isn’t true!

The people who matter know that.

Julian wants us to date in public. At some point, I thought we could do it, but now…

It will taint us. We won’t survive it. These rumors won’t stop because I’m dating him. They’ll gain traction, go haywire.

You’ll have to go public eventually. You going to marry him in secret?

Why would he ever want to marry me?

He said he loves you.

Did he mean it, though? I can’t trust my own judgment. I’ve been so wrong before. I’m so sick of love.

He’s never lied to you.

Tears have stained my face. I down the rest of my beer and pop the cap of another.

I hate everything about this day, and it’s going to get worse, isn’t it?

Julian’s coming, and I’ll have to tell him the truth.

I can’t drag him down into my mud, and I won’t risk falling, then hit the ground when he decides he doesn’t want to be with the hospital slut.

Julian doesn’t love me.

He can’t.

Who would?

His familiar knock precedes him cracking the front door. “?”

I pause in my harried pacing of the living room. “I’m in here.”

He enters with a soft smile and kisses my cheek. “Hey.”

“Hey.” I stare into those dark eyes. So loving. So beloved. “How was your day?”

“Well, I should have been in surgery, but I was covering L&D instead, so…it sucked.”

A hollow laugh is my answer.

He leads me to the couch and slips the half-empty beer from my hand. “I’m glad Raven had a healthy baby, but covering for her the next three months will be pretty shitty.”

Scowling, I curl into my throw pillows while he sips my beer and sets it on the table. I’d forgotten about our increased workload over the next twelve weeks. This is just…the worst day ever.

His hand threads through my hair and gently massages. “Did your day get better?”

I let out a bitter chuckle, then reach for the bottle. Sitting up to take a drink separates us. His hand falls away. The hints of amber in his eyes when he looks at me strike deep into my chest.

He’s so open. So caring. So kind.

He deserves better than me.

The pain hits me like a sledgehammer. It freezes my veins, then slams into my chest. Shards of ice scatter over everything.

I’m cold. Broken. Emotionally unavailable.

I come with a crap ton of baggage in the form of rumors, anxiety and mistrust.

I am darkness and he is light.

I can’t even tell him that I love him. I’m too broken to say the fucking words.

Everything inside me goes numb. “We can’t go public.”

He nods like he expected that comment, then leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees. “Why not?”

I set my bottle on the table but say nothing. My throat aches.

He studies my face. A spark appears in the black of his eyes. “Are you ashamed of me, ?”

“What? No.” I reach for him, but he leans away.

His head tilts. “Then why?”

“We can’t go public—”

“Because people will think you’re slumming it with the stupid little DO?” He raises an eyebrow.

“What? No. That’s not—no one thinks of you like that. No one who matters.”

His expression tightens. “Do you hear yourself? No one who matters thinks these rumors about you are true, either.”

Tears burn behind my eyes. “It’s not about me. It’s about how it will affect you. People will make fun of you for being with me, Julian.”

“I don’t care—”

“You will . The girls will pity you. The guys will tease you. They’ll talk about me. About us .”

He lets out a sharp sigh, staring at the floor between his feet. “Maybe at first, but it will die down. It always does. And I—I just don’t care.”

“I do.” I touch his forearm. His muscles bunch beneath my fingers, so I pull away.

“You think things will get worse,” he says, “but I think things will get better. I mean…people just don’t talk about guys the way they talk about girls. I hate to say that, but it’s true. This isn’t going to affect me like you think it will.”

Maybe he’s right. It doesn’t lessen my fear, though. How will I survive if I let him all the way in and he leaves me? If not because of the rumors, then because of any one of the hundreds of ways I’m lacking? I never planned on falling in love like this, and Julian…he deserves better than my petrified love and tarnished reputation.

“I care what people think of you,” I say, “and I don’t want what we had to be stained by this.”

His head whips around. The darkness in his eyes sharpens to honed ebony. “What we had ?”

My voice drops to a whisper. “You deserve better than this, Julian.”

“No.” His body is frozen, every muscle tight. “Don’t do this.”

“I don’t think us being together is good for you.” My voice tightens, grows cold and clinical in a way I can’t stop. “Between the rumors, and my trust issues…and—and I heard you got the worst CREOG score in the program, Julian. You didn’t even tell me! I’m distracting you from training.”

“Fucking Maxwell,” he mutters under his breath, rubbing his face.

“Julian—”

“Screw my CREOG score, .” He stands and paces across the living room. “Now you’re claiming you don’t trust me?”

“I’m trying to do the right thing for you.”

He pauses to stare at me. “By breaking me in pieces?”

I exhale. Tears fight their way to the surface. That’s not what I’m doing. I’m protecting him. He just doesn’t see it yet.

Those dark eyes see straight through me. “The idea of not being with me—that does nothing to you?”

Giving him up will hurt. It will slice ribbons into me I’m sure will never heal. But a day will come when his infatuation with me will dim, and he’ll realize I’m an anxious mess with intimacy issues, and I can’t give him what he truly needs.

He’ll leave.

That will hurt so much worse.

I’m scared. Scared of how much I love him. Scared of what he could do to me. Scared he’s too good for me. Scared the rumors will follow me the rest of my life. Scared that I’ll never be the competent, respected doctor I always dreamed I’d be.

Then tell him that.

I open my mouth, but all that comes out is, “Julian—”

“Do you remember how I feel about you?” He crosses his arms, but his fingers tap a fluttery rhythm against his biceps.

“How you think you feel.” A tear slips down my cheek. My gaze falls to my lap so that broken look on his face doesn’t cut so deep.

“Now you’re telling me what I feel?” His voice scrapes over rough edges and valleys. “I love you. I want you . Why can’t that be enough? Why don’t you believe me?”

A tiny sob catches in my throat. “I just—I can’t be what you need. Being with me will hurt you.”

“More than you’re hurting me right now?”

I flinch.

“Oh, you don’t like hearing that? Did you think I’d be relieved that you’re breaking my heart? You act like you’re setting me free.”

“Julian—”

He paces again. “Would you prefer I pretend I’m happy about it? That losing you won’t rip pieces out of me? I’m way too far gone, and not nearly a good enough actor to manage that.”

I wrap my arms around myself and try to hold in the flood. “You told me you don’t want to be involved in scandals. Do you remember that? It was one of the first things you said to me. You’ll be happier unattached to me.”

His steps slow. The bewildered horror on his face guts me. “Happier? Do you know me at all?”

“Julian—”

“Do you love me? I need to know the answer to that. The truth.”

His face smears behind my tears. I love him so much in that moment that my heart cracks and crumbles, an aching pain I’ll never be rid of. My voice stutters over the word, but I manage to give him the truth. “Yes.”

The flash of relief on his face disappears behind a forced calm. His eyes grow bright and dewy. “Then why ?”

“For you.” My breath hitches and I rise to my feet. “For me. For both of us. God, Julian. You think you love me, but you don’t even know the mess that I really am. Things from my past have just—I don’t know. You are such a good man, and I’m…broken. I’ve been broken. I can’t trust. I don’t have faith in love.” I approach him, moving to stand close enough to touch, though neither of us reach out. “Even if you think these rumors won’t touch you, once you see who I really am, you’ll leave.”

The darkness sparks again. “I do know you, . I’m not perfect, either. Why are you so convinced that I’m not all in on this? What have I done that makes you think I won’t keep loving you even when it’s hard?”

“That’s not—”

“What do I do? What do you want me to do? I’m here, offering to prove it. How do I prove it?”

Don’t let me do this to us.

No words form.

He lets out a breath. “Wow. Seriously? Nothing to say?”

My arms cross, and I bite my cheek to hinder the tears.

“This is the way it ends?” He rakes his fingers through his hair. “When you wouldn’t tell me you love me, I thought I must have been a fling for you. Just a little bit of fun or something. I never thought you’d finally admit you love me, then tell me you don’t trust me in the same breath.”

The lump in my throat will no longer allow me to swallow.

“Just so you know, I do know you. I love you . What you’re doing right now isn’t you. This is fear talking, and I don’t know what happened to make you so scared, but I would never hurt you like this. You’re letting this thing from your past control your life. It’s taking things from you that don’t belong to it. I would have helped you heal, . All you had to do was ask. But sure, break us if you want. Just don’t think for one second that you’re doing it for me. I don’t want this, and you’re right. I don’t deserve this.”

“Please,” I say on a sob. “I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m trying to protect you.”

His dark eyes flash as they meet mine. “That’s some solid logic. Protecting me by shattering me? Why don’t you go ahead and cut me with all the broken glass left behind while you’re at it?”

I have no words.

His jaw clenches. “I can’t do this.” The door slams as he leaves, and I fall to the sofa, curling in on myself to cry.

This is the right thing.

I’m a wreck of a human with insecurities piled so high I can’t see the top. Julian deserves someone whole. Someone confident. Someone untainted by rumors.

Someone who believes in love.

I’m a coward.

An idiot.

And now I’m alone.