Chapter Twenty-Six #3
“Did you say that?” she asked Max, wiping her eyes again. “Did you say all that about me?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, I did. But not in the way you think—” Max tried to argue, before he paused, swallowing heavily. “I said it.”
Bo looked down. One tear had leaked from her eyes and was treacherously making its way down her cheek, and she watched as it rolled from her and onto the carpet below.
“What’s the point in you being so deeply talented if you’re so fucking shallow?” she asked him, throwing his own question to her back at him, and she heard him inhale tightly.
“You don’t know the first thing about me, Bo. You don’t know why I said the shit that I did.”
“You don’t know why I said what I did too,” Bo argued, and Max stood. In two strides he was across the room, bearing down upon her.
“Did you ever do something, knowing it would fuck you up, but still do it anyway?” he asked, and Bo shook her head.
“What is that, an excuse?” she asked, but Max snapped at her.
“Answer the question.”
She thought for a moment. “I guess so.”
“Well, I have too, Bo. I did you, you see. I did you, knowing you would fuck me up.” Max gave that ugly laugh again, and it made Bo shift uncomfortably before him. “You think I don’t know how it looks?”
Bo was confused. “What do you mean?”
Max shook his head. “I’m not blind, Bo. I know the optics of our situation. A man who looks like me, with a woman like you.”
“What on earth does that mean?” Bo asked. “A woman like me?”
“You know what I mean,” Max said bluntly.
“You’re beautiful, Bo. You’re beautiful, and a thousand times out of my league because you’re beautiful.
You never seemed to care though. You never seemed to care, never seemed to even notice.
You always seemed so happy to see me and—” Max stopped, taking a deep breath.
“But you did care, and you did notice. Maybe you’re a better actress than you think, because you fooled me. You fooled me good and proper.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” Bo stammered. “The optics don’t matter. Who . . . who cares how we look? Who cares?”
“You care,” Max reminded her. “Mr Two out of Ten, remember?”
“I was just being . . .” Bo trailed off helplessly. Too late now to argue that she hadn’t meant it. Too late now to try and take it back.
“Yes?”
Bo shook her head though. There was nothing she could say. No words to explain. Max closed his eyes for a moment, running a hand through his hair.
“You fucked me up, Bo. Congratulations. You fucked me up, and now I have to go back out there into the real world with your parting words hanging over me. For the rest of my life, I’m going to look into mirrors and see myself the way you saw me.
For the rest of my life, I’m going to wonder how many of the women I’m with only tolerate me because I’m a good lay. ”
“Same,” Bo retorted bitterly. “You think the optics of us were bad just for you? How do you think I felt?”
Max stared at her, his gaze still stony. “I never know how you feel, Bo. That’s half my problem. So, tell me, how do you feel? It can’t be worse than I’m feeling right now.”
Bo laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant laugh. It was a laugh like Max had made. Ugly, bitter and awful.
“I don’t feel great, to be honest, Max. Look at the . . . what did you call it? Oh, yes, look at the optics of our situation from my side: a woman like me with a man like you.”
“What? Mr Two out of Ten with a beautiful woman?”
“No, not like that. I mean, me, a brainless and talentless out-of-work actress,” Bo couldn’t help a nasty tone from entering her voice, “with a man as clever and talented as you. No wonder you don’t think you can be serious about me.
I mean, you took the things I’m most insecure about and used them as reasons not to be with me.
For the rest of my life, I’m going to hear Raphaella’s voice in my head, listing the reasons I’m not good enough to be with you. ”
“I didn’t say that,” Max immediately spat back. “I never said you weren’t good enough.”
“That’s how it made me feel.”
“I didn’t say it.”
“Well, neither did I,” Bo argued. “I said an awful thing, but I never said you weren’t good enough.”
Silence fell again, and in the quiet, Bo noticed a wrinkle in Max’s shirt. She longed to reach out and smooth it away.
Eventually, Max sighed. “We’re going to keep going round in circles here, Bo. You realize that, right?”
“So, let’s not go round in circles then,” Bo replied, and she reached out to take Max’s hand, but he pulled away before she could touch him.
“No. We’re done here, Bo,” Max said flatly.
“We each got a hit in. We each hurt each other. Well done us. But now we’re done.
” For a moment, he gave her an odd look, as though weighing something in his mind.
Then he shook his head slowly, almost to himself.
“I should’ve known,” he muttered. “We were never going to be the kind of couple who got to walk off into the sunset together, were we?”
Bo felt that sharp pain run through her again, and she chewed down on her lip to stop herself from instantly protesting. She wouldn’t beg. She wouldn’t plead.
I want him to respect me, if nothing else, she told herself. So, I won’t beg or plead with him. I won’t say another word, in fact. He’s right. We’re done here. There’s nowhere left for us to go from here. I’ve hurt him too badly, and he’s . . . he’s hurt me too.
She nodded slowly, and Max watched her face carefully. For a moment he gazed at her, his eyes intent upon her own, and she knew he was searching for something in her eyes. What, though? I won’t cry, Bo thought. I can’t let him see how much this hurts.
She stood taller, wrapping her cardigan tight around her stomach, and Max at last sighed.
“You said you had something to tell me.” His tone was flat, almost tired.
“Did I?”
“When you first came in.”
“Oh.” Bo thought for a moment. All of a sudden, she felt exhausted, her mind worryingly empty and emotions flat.
What had she wanted to say? She couldn’t remember why she’d come here.
Couldn’t remember what she’d wanted to say.
The only thought she had now, circling again and again and again through her mind like a record playing on a rusty gramophone, was that she’d hurt Max, and this was the end for them.
“Bo?”
She looked up and into Max’s blue eyes and it all came back to her. She loved him. She loved him so much. She’d wanted to tell Max that but knew now she couldn’t. Telling him she loved him now would look like emotional manipulation in the extreme, and she wouldn’t do that to him.
I’ve hurt him enough already, she thought mournfully.
I don’t want to hurt him anymore. So, I’ll keep it to myself.
What good would it have done to tell him anyway?
He doesn’t love me back. He doesn’t want me and will never be serious about me.
I’ll keep it to myself, and eventually, one day, it will all go away.
I’ll fall out of love with him, move on with my life, and this will all feel like a bad dream.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Bo said, her tone as flat and tired as Max’s. “It probably didn’t matter in the first place.”
Max nodded.
“Are you going to be okay?” she asked.
“You really care?”
“Of course I care,” she replied, stung. “I don’t want us to end as enemies, Max. You said from the beginning you weren’t my enemy . . . I don’t want you for one now.”
“You’re right. Not enemies then,” Max agreed.
“Happily complicated,” Bo returned, but Max shook his head.
“Unhappily complicated.”
That stung too, but Bo did her best to hide her pain from him. “Unhappily complicated,” she agreed, in a small voice.
Unexpectedly, Max pulled her towards him, hugging her tight.
It nearly broke her, this embrace, and Bo felt a sob rise in her throat.
She swallowed it down though, allowing herself for one moment to burrow into Max’s chest, to luxuriate in the feeling of his arms around her.
He pressed a soft kiss to her forehead, and for one brief, wonderful moment, she felt oddly at peace.
“Goodbye, Bo,” Max whispered into her hair, before looking down at her. He briefly hesitated, before kissing her gently on the lips. His lips lingered against her own, soft and sweet and familiar, and when they parted, Bo couldn’t help the sad sigh that escaped her.
She couldn’t bring herself to say goodbye though.
She wasn’t that strong.