Chapter 10
As the days pass, I can’t help but think about that night at the club—that guy whose name I don’t even remember, the sickness and suffocation I felt. And every time my eyes see Miles, I feel this immense guilt, a weight so heavy on my shoulders I feel like I’ll collapse.
So, I hide. Because looking at him hurts too much, I keep my head down and keep him at arm’s length. He doesn’t try very hard to get through to me, and I’m glad that he doesn’t. But soon after, he disappears for a few days, making work both acceptable and agonizing all at once.
For the days he’s vanished, he continues to torment my mind: Where'd he go? Who’s he with?
When’s he coming back? Will he be back? I hope so.
I mi— I have to catch my running, wild thoughts before they become too ludicrous.
The standard hefty feeling on my shoulders only grows heavier, more unbearable as I anxiously await his return.
And when he finally does, that weight becomes just a hair lighter.
I can hear the whispers that surround him—the ones that paint him out to be an obsessed fan.
I could stop them, clear the air, and start treating him the way that I did before.
But I selfishly cannot do that. Selfishly, my disposition could crumble easily if I utter just a single syllable.
So I can't; keeping strong is the only way I can shake him from my thoughts.
The workday slowly ticks by, my eyes continuing to catch Miles’s figure in the distance, and he rarely returns the gaze. I can’t wait to get home, get far away from him, and do something—anything—to feel normal.
I slowly swing open the metal door to exit the building.
“Are you ready?” Miles’s voice captures my attention as the door slams shut behind me.
I hold my silence, my feet staying firmly planted in the gravel.
“S-sorry, Mr. Ellis. I thought you were someone else.”
Someone else? Who could he possibly be waiting for? Who co—oh. I know who he’s waiting for. My chest feels tight at the realization, and I clench my jaw and fists. “Who are you waiting for?” I ask, though I know.
“Uh… Just a friend.”
I know which friend, and avoiding my questions is just making that dark feeling in my chest grow darker—angrier.
“Where are you going?” I continue to hammer him with questions, my mouth moving before my tongue can catch the words.
“Dinner.” Miles is becoming visually more annoyed, but I don’t care at the moment. The need to know scarcely outweighs my self-control. But I know that if I keep hammering him with demands, he’ll run away, and I don’t want to feel that awful anguish again.
So I just stand there, hoping that if I keep telling him what I want to say in my mind, that he’ll read my thoughts and understand.
But he doesn’t, and the rage he feels toward me feels like a bullet to the heart.
He screams at me silently, everything he’s been holding back, jabbing his pointer finger into my sternum, and I just take it.
I suppose I deserve it. All I can do is gape at him and let him get it all out of his system.
And when that “friend” of his arrives, feeling the tension between us, Miles just pulls on that sweet, fake smile of his and happily leaves me behind…and I’m shattered.