Chapter 35
Thirty-Five
put yourself out there, even when it’s hard
Dylan
‘I think you think you’re a lot smaller than you actually are,’ I say, blowing on my coffee and peering down at Max lying
across the length of the sofa, his head on my lap.
He tightens his arms around me and it makes the flannel shirt I’m wearing ride up a little. ‘Do you want me to get off?’
‘I didn’t say that.’ There’s a smile in my voice. A smile in his silent reply.
‘It’s kind of nice to have a slow morning without having to spend it scurrying around trying to pack up all my shit,’ he says.
‘Who knew being organised could cut so much stress?’
‘Honestly? Everyone, Max.’
I brace my hand on his head while I set my mug on the coffee table and squint against the early-morning sun that’s starting
to shine through the clouds. I’m sure it’s a little brighter today. Sure the sea’s a little more blue. It might be our last
morning here, but it feels like it might be the start of something, too.
Because despite how my stomach coils with dread at the uncertainty of it all, I feel, deep in my bones, that these decisions about my life are the right ones.
For the first time in a long while, I’m not running towards something unattainable.
This place, this cabin, this man, eyes fluttering closed while I play with his hair, have cleared the path somehow. Everything’s mine for the taking.
I lean down to kiss him, and the angle’s too uncomfortable for it to last long, but it still sends butterflies through me.
Then a timer blares on my phone, so he picks it up off the coffee table to turn it off, but not before he sees what it was
for and barks out a laugh.
‘Did you really set a timer for hanging out with Max? Am I just a slot in your schedule to you?’
I try to grab the phone from him. ‘We’ve got a busy morning, okay?’
‘What’s next on the agenda? Wait, let me set one for you so that we can go out with a bang.’ He holds my phone out of my reach.
‘Hey, Siri, set a ten-minute timer—’
‘Stop.’
He gets louder. ‘No, a five-minute timer for Max to make you co—’
His voice is muffled through the hand I put over his mouth, and I’m part laughing, part yelling at him to stop, all while
he tries to grab my forearm and squirm out of my grasp. All it takes is one successful jab and he’s encircled my wrists with
his fingers and pinned me against the arm of the sofa.
Hearts pounding, the vestiges of our laughter shaking our shoulders, we look at each other. Max slowly releases my wrists
and weaves his fingers through mine instead, and those butterflies in my stomach take off, lifting me up.
It’s easy to fall into his eyes. They’re moonlight dancing on the waves. A waterfall plunging off the edge of the world. A
frozen lake beneath a sunny winter sky, melting around the edges. As dangerous as they are beautiful. They tell you to take
that risk.
Because I’ve known this for a while now. I want to know his moods and sit with him when he feels lonely in the dark. I want our clothes to smell the same and for him to reach for me at night and keep me warm and make me feel like I’m someone worth holding on to. I want to be his.
‘Max,’ I whisper. ‘I don’t want this to end.’
For a glorious second, dust motes catch hold of the sunlight, and I could believe it’s fairy dust pirouetting around us; just
one magical moment locked in time, like we’re a photo in a snow globe.
He gives a minuscule shake of his head, but I forge ahead. ‘I don’t want us to end, after today.’
It takes a few moments before the shutters go down, but I feel it in my chest when they do. He releases me and leans back,
and my cheeks flame with quiet mortification. Sadness sweeps across his face, those cracks deepening, and I know he’s already
too far away. I can’t build enough bridges to cross those chasms.
His eyes dart between mine, and for the first time, he looks uncomfortable. His lips part, but it takes another couple of
seconds for words to come out. ‘I’m sorry.’
Those two words are a lead weight. Maybe it was a bad thing to be floating as high as I was, because now I crash to the ground,
a tangle of broken limbs and hopes.
I fight to maintain eye contact, sure that if I move my gaze at all, my eyes will fill with tears. Embarrassed tears. Confused
tears. Heartbroken tears. ‘Do you not feel the same?’
He’s frozen to the spot, hands clenched tightly into fists, where moments ago they were intertwined with mine. ‘I thought
we agreed this was a short-term thing.’
‘And I thought,’ my swallow is painful, ‘I thought maybe you’d changed your mind. Because we’ve been doing . . . this.’
‘I really can’t, Dylan.’ His voice is desperate. ‘That’s not what we agreed.’
‘Okay,’ I say, instinct kicking in to accept it.
This has always had an end date. He does this kind of thing, and I don’t, and here’s proof of the reason for that. My voice
wobbles traitorously. ‘If that’s what you want.’
‘Fuck.’ He rubs a hand down his face. ‘I wish I could, but—please, you weren’t—I just, I’m sorry. I really am. I can’t do
this with you.’
With you.
I knew, obviously. He told me he’d never committed long-term and never would. But some na?ve part of me hoped that I’d changed
his mind. That I’d be someone a person would want to stay with. All I’ve ever wanted; all I’ve never got.
Suddenly, I need to get out of his shirt, need to get away from him, but I can’t, because he’s here and so am I, and in this place that’s been such a haven for weeks, the walls are caving in.
Hot tears sting my eyes, and when his hand twitches to reach for me, I pull away.
Why did I ruin this? Now I have to know he doesn’t want me like that, know that however real it felt to me, it didn’t feel
the same for him.
‘I need to finish packing,’ is all I can say, and it’s not even true, but he nods sharply.
‘If you don’t want me here, I can leave you alone.’
I want you with me all the time, that’s my whole problem.
Yet, even with chagrin flaming my cheeks, the pinching in my chest tells me I should be thrown off by Max’s response. And I don’t want to be left at all, not really, but being left confused might be even worse.
I chew the inside of my cheek, and that confusion forces me to say the single scariest thing I can. ‘I need some time by myself,
but after that, I’d like for us to talk some more. Can you give me that?’
He casts his eyes around the room but skips over me entirely. It makes me feel like I don’t exist. I want to wave a hand in
front of his face and tell him that I’m here, that I feel pathetic about it but I’d wait, if I had to.
‘Yeah. I can. I’ll be back in a bit.’
He nods once, puts on his shoes, and then he’s gone, leaving nothing but his empty mug on the coffee table.
He’s left my heart a little empty, too.