Chapter 48
LARISSA
I stood in my room, putting the new books into the bookcase just to have something to do while Jesse and Chris talked.
Jesse said Chris wasn’t responding to the group chat. I knew he wasn’t really talking to Mike, but I didn’t know he wasn’t talking to everyone.
This was my fault.
He was doing it because of me.
I think it officially wasn’t a good idea for me to be here. Maybe I did need to find somewhere else to live now. I knew there was going to be a limit on how long I could stay and I know he’d say not to go, but how much was I going to let him sacrifice on my behalf?
I didn’t want to ruin his life or be the reason he chose ruin. At some point he had to get back to it, these were his friends.
The idea of leaving made me feel like crying.
I’d known this living arrangement wasn’t going to be forever. I just thought by the time I needed to go, I’d be ready.
Something told me I would never be ready.
I sat on the edge of the bed, listening to unintelligible murmuring from the living room.
The copy of Cross Stitch that I got Chris was face-out on the bookshelf. The only book that was not chaotically discarded in a pile when I got here. There was a tiny white something sticking out of the bottom of it.
I got up to see what it was, thinking maybe I’d accidentally left the receipt in the pages. But it wasn’t the receipt. It was the napkin from the first day at the restaurant he took me to. The one where we’d rated the bread. His scores and my floral doodle around the edges.
He’d kept it.
I dropped back onto the end of the bed, staring at it in my hand.
He always knew.
It took me a year to get here, but Chris had seen it from the very first day.
I put my face into my hands. How did I not know him on sight? How did my heart not recognize his the moment I laid eyes on him, because I would recognize him now in the dark.
I had never wanted to change something so badly in my life. I was never going to stop regretting choosing wrong, and now everything was a mess. There was no way out and no way forward that wouldn’t destroy someone.
I heard the front door slam and Jesse’s car alarm chirp outside. I got up and peeked out the blinds and watched him get in and leave. When I went back to the living room, Chris was on the sofa with his head in his hands.
“Is everything okay?” I asked from the doorway.
He straightened. “Fine,” he said.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing—”
“Chris, can we make an agreement?” I said. “Right now. That we stop not saying the things out loud. I want to know the truth. Every time. If me staying here is a problem—”
“It’s not.”
“I don’t want to get in the way of your friendships.”
“We’re not doing anything wrong,” he said.
“Do they think we are?”
He paused. “Yes.”
I let out a long breath.
“They don’t like it,” he said.
No. Of course they wouldn’t.
“Chris, I think it’s time for me to leave—”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t want you to. I like you being here. And that’s the truth.”
I looked away from him. “I like being here too,” I said quietly.
I came over and sat next to him on the sofa. We stayed there in silence for a long time.
“What are we doing?” I finally whispered.
He looked so tired. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice low.
“Chris, I love you,” I said.
I watched the words hit him.
I marveled at how easily it came out. How that word that was so hard for me to say to Mike just spilled from my lips for Chris.
“I don’t want to hear that it’s not allowed,” I said.
“Because it is. You are so good at making me love you, I almost loved someone else simply because I saw you in them. If you want to pretend for Mike’s sake that this isn’t happening, then I’ll pretend with you.
But I want you to know the truth. And the truth is I’m in love with you. ”
He looked at me, his expression pained. “I love you too.”
It washed over me. Reached into my chest and squeezed my heart until the ache I’d been living with was in every cell of my body.
“I know we can’t right now,” I said. “But I can wait for you. I’ll wait as long as you need.”
“It will never be okay,” he said quietly.
“It’ll be okay eventually—”
“No one’s ever going to accept it,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how long. You just don’t do this—”
I shook my head. “So, what, then? We just love each other and not be together? Are you telling me you don’t want to?”
“Of course I do—”
“You’re fine with just not touching me? Not letting me touch you? Not kissing me? Mike gets to move on and date other people, and you and I just have to forget each other?”
“The only thing keeping him stable is the hope that one day he’ll get you back,” he said. “If we did this, it would kill him. I’ve seen how bad he gets. I don’t want to hurt him—”
“I don’t want to hurt him either, but who I date is none of his business.
And the fact of the matter is, we love each other.
Whether we act on it or not, it exists and it’s happening and it’s no fault of our own, and the only reason it doesn’t hurt him is because he doesn’t know about it.
And maybe that’s the course we have to take.
Maybe what we have can only be for us right now and we can’t share it with the rest of the world or the people we care about.
I would be okay with that because I’d rather have you in secret than not at all.
But I want more than this, Chris. I want to touch you and kiss you and sleep next to you.
I want to come up behind you and hug you and hold your hand.
I want to slow dance with you and cuddle with you on the couch—and I don’t want to wait years to do it until Mike’s beyond caring.
It’s your choice. All the stakes are yours, you get to decide.
But if we’re not going to be together, I don’t think I can keep living here like this because it’s too hard… ” My voice gave out on the last word.
Chris stared at me, his chest rising and falling just slightly too fast. But he didn’t say yes. He didn’t say anything at all. I waited for it and… nothing. Silence was no.
My heart broke.
It broke for what could have been and what should have been. It broke for Chris and it even broke a little for Mike.
I knew this was impossible. I knew what I was asking, and I didn’t blame him for not changing his mind. But at least I told him how I felt.
I got up and went to my room to start packing.
I’d stay for a few days in a hotel, then I’d find a place. Come back for my work stuff and move it all out, leave cash somewhere in the house to pay him back for everything he spent on the folding tables and racks. Try to leave him as whole as I could, even though I’d never feel that way myself.
I was putting my clothes into luggage when he came into the doorway behind me. “What are you doing?”
“Leaving,” I said, not turning around.
“To where?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll find something.”
I went to the bathroom and grabbed my makeup and hair dryer and tossed it in while he watched. I emptied out the last drawer and zipped the bag closed.
When I turned around, the look on his face was sheer panic.
“Please don’t,” he breathed.
“Don’t what, Chris?”
“Just stay. You don’t have to leave—”
“I cannot live like this. You might be able to but I can’t.”
“It’s better than nothing—”
“No, it isn’t. You and I will never be happy if we keep doing this. We’ll only make it harder on ourselves living together and make everybody mad in the process. What is even the point?”
He stared at me bleakly.
“You’re telling me that we can’t be together,” I said. “That it will never be okay. And meanwhile you’re ghosting your friends and for what? So I can live across the hall? Be your roommate? You did what you wanted to do, you got me on my feet. I’m okay now, get back to your life.”
“I don’t want that life—”
“Then what the hell do you want?!” I threw up my hands.
“Somebody is going to get hurt. No matter what we do, someone will lose.” I shook my head.
“I guess the least selfish thing would be for it to be us.” I took the handle of my luggage.
“Call me in a few years when you’re ready. ” I started edging past him.
He stopped me in the doorframe. “Larissa, please.”
He looked devastated. I peered up at him, my heart breaking.
“Maybe this isn’t the kind of love that deserves to exist,” I whispered. “Maybe it’s the kind that wars start over. The kind that topples empires and never leaves the world better than it found it.”
His gaze bore into mine and I saw the exact moment he gave up.
“Then let it all burn.”
He closed the gap between us and kissed me.