28. Amanda #3
His chest rises and falls erratically, air pushing through his mouth and nose and short, sputtering bursts.
“Nothing I’ve shared with you has ever felt like settling to me.” I take a wide step towards him. “You’re not a place. You’re my person.”
He drags his fingers through his hair, puts the beer down on the coffee table, and takes two steps toward me.
We’re close enough now that when he shoots his arms out, he slides them up my bare forearms, all the way up my shoulders.
The weight of his arms anchors me there as I step into him, until my belly touches his middle.
I snake my arm behind his waist, and he brings both arms behind my neck until we’re embracing.
Breathing each other in, I tilt my head up until I’m drowning in his gaze.
There’s no savoring anymore, I want to devour the question and luxuriate in my answer.
I stand on my toes and lean in. But Eric doesn’t. Neither does he drop his forehead to mine, or soften his gaze in any way. He just steps away from me, and my fucking ribs crack at the hit of his rejection. Again.
My own hurt spills out through the cracks of the composure he shattered. “You always do this,” I whine, and it slips out wild and loud. “You always turn me down.”
He freezes.
“You act like I’m the one keeping you at arm’s length, like I’m the only one who backs out. But every time I try, you’re the one who pulls back.”
He opens his mouth, but I barrel through, heat rising in my chest.
“You retreat.” I drag a hand through my hair, half-laughing, half-choking on it. “You withhold.” My voice cracks, raw and exposed. “You reject me.” I press my hand against my chest to make sure I’m not bleeding out. “And I’m left trying to figure out what the hell I did wrong.”
“I have the right to want, too.” His words come out strained, but they still hit my already bruised chest. The next words are warmer, even when he’s taking another step away from me. “I’m mad and jealous. And I want to be right for you, not erase someone else.”
Eric’s breaths come fast and shallow, his chest hitching with each inhale.
“This idea that I’m the only one making decisions here and you’re at my beck and call.” I shake my head. “You hold power between us, too, and you use it. That night—”
His eyes widen at how, after so many years not talking about it, I’m bringing it up again.
“—was your decision. You decided you weren’t good enough, and punished me for daring to want you.”
“Don’t,” he whispers. It’s not a warning, but a plea.
“No, you don’t get to ‘don’t’ me. Not now. You don’t get to stand there in your half-open shirt, showing off your over-the-top tattoo, and pretend I haven’t been trying to be with you for years.”
His eyes are red and raw, and my heart hammers in my chest.
“It’s taking a lot to move past that night.”
Eric swipes at the corner of his eye with his thumb.
“But I am here”—I take a step toward him—“wanting you. What else do you need?”
“I’m trying to be who you need,” he croaks out.
My anger falters, swallowed by longing.
“I don’t want to be your second choice,” he says.
“Tonight, when he touched your arm, making light of who I am, like Daray used to, like every man you’ve dated has before…
” His voice trails off. “It just hurts.” He exhales deeply, his torso shaking upward, then looks into my eyes.
“I know I don’t have a leg to stand on,” he adds, taking a step toward me.
He lifts his eyes up to mine, vulnerability swirling in his amber irises.
“When we kiss”—he trails his fingers up my arms until he squeezes my shoulders—“I can’t have it be because you’re afraid or because you’re making a point.
I need to feel consumed by your want for me, the way I’m consumed by my want for you. ”
My hands shoot out to his waist, and dig into his skin until I feel his hipbones. “And you don’t see how I already am?”
“How?” The word tears out of him, the same way his body does out of my grasp. “You didn’t tell him about me, Amanda. What the fuck?”
My ribs crack open with the weight of his truth. His voice and tone are steady, no matter how much his body twitches, unable to hold in his hurt. It’s as if Eric’s rehearsed how to survive me.
“There’s no word that holds everything you are to me. Friend. Boyfriend. Partner. Father of my child. It’s all—”
“I’ve got one for you,” he says, cutting me off. “Soulmate.”
“Soulmate.” I nod, licking my lips. “Yeah. That covers it.”
Tears blur my vision, and I finally feel like we understand each other. He feels second. I feel rejected.
Eric breathes out, his chest brushing my skin. “Okay.”
I take a step toward him, and when he doesn’t flinch, I wrap my arm behind his back and pull myself into him. He doesn’t hug me back, and that’s okay. What he said is enough that it doesn’t sting.
“You’re it for me, Amanda,” he whispers against the top of my head.
I nuzzle against his inked pec—this homage on his body to a future we both thought was lost because he didn’t think he deserved it.
If only he could see himself the way I do.