Chapter 9 #2
“Fuck my life! I’m dead! You hear me? D-E-A-D. Fuck me! You might as well buy me a plot and a casket right now and put me in it, Han-Han, because this isn’t something I’ll survive!”
“Stop being so dramatic. You said it’s in her ass not yours, and I hardly think that would kill anyone anyway.”
Just as the words leave my mouth, I catch a flash of brown hair behind him; the room blurs in the background as he spins to face her.
“All good, Sunshine?” Aiden asks her.
A deep laugh rumbles from Sean, startling me and drowning out the woman’s response in the process.
“Why are you laughing?” I hiss.
Sean clears his throat, running a hand along his jaw. “Him . . . calling her ‘Sunshine’ . . . it reminded me of something he said at Cal and Aspen’s wedding . . . you know what? Never mind.” He waves it off.
Turning my attention back to Aiden, I ask, “Is she okay? Did it come out?”
“Please tell me you didn’t,” the woman groans, clearly embarrassed that he’s talking to someone else about their personal business.
“We’re all good here! Gotta go, darlin’. Love you-thanks-bye,” Aiden rushes out, cutting me off.
Confused, I stare at my phone as the screen goes black.
“Amateur,” Sean mutters, laughing under his breath and forcing my attention back to him.
Every time he laughs, my heart beats a little bit faster.
As I study him, his eyes lit up with humor, I have to admit he seems different—happy even.
My mind goes back to our conversation before Aiden called, when Sean said he loved me, and my resolve begins to crack.
The words he spoke to me? Never in my wildest dreams could I have conjured them up.
“You fucking haunt me.”
Denying that he haunts me too would be pointless, but there are so many factors to consider now, and looking at him in this moment, I realize I haven’t been fair about anything.
I tried to tell him about my condition, but then he cut me off, assuming I was about to confess my undying love to him when what I was really going to do was ask him to go somewhere private to talk.
And instead of letting him go to live his life peacefully, I begrudged him.
I’ve been incredibly hateful. Because even though telling him I love him wasn’t what I was going to say that day, I still loved him nonetheless, and his reaction crushed my heart into pieces.
The hypocrisy.
What kind of life is this for anyone? Constant doctor’s appointments, a mutilated body, and living in fear of positive test results? If I did end up with cancer, then what? And if I didn’t survive the treatment, the damage that would cause him is beyond the hurt I’m about to cause him now.
Sure, I have every right to be pissed at him for jerking me around, but he has the right to be pissed at me too.
If what he’s telling me is true and he loves me, then I’ve also led him on.
I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to stick around for the long haul.
What a narcissistic thing for me to do, and now he’s bulldozing his way back into my life .
. . I don’t have any business becoming involved with anyone.
“Where’s your head at, Sweetheart, hmm?” He asks, interrupting my rambling thoughts. His fingertips graze down my cheek, and I realize he’s closed the space between us. “You look like you’re somewhere else.”
“For the first time in a long time, I’m thinking clearly.” I step back, entering the passcode to my phone, and holding down the icon on the app until the little X appears at the corner. With Sean watching, I delete Life360 from my phone. “I haven’t treated you fairly at all, and I’m sorry.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I found out about this genetic mutation right before we got together and didn’t tell you. I’m saying that I’ve been selfish in wanting you to love me, knowing the risk of what could happen to me in the end. And I’m saying we can’t be together.”
“You know what’s selfish? What’s unfair?
” he asks, his voice raised in anger as he glares at me with raw emotion in his eyes.
“The fact that you’ve had a chance to make your decisions in this, but you’re trying to take mine away from me.
I don’t care that you knew about this diagnosis before we started our relationship and didn’t tell me.
I was a shithead, so I understand why you didn’t.
And I don’t care that this could end tragically.
The only thing I care about is being with you!
So go on and keep filling that head of yours with all the excuses you want, but I’m not accepting them. ”
“I don’t want you.”
Crowding my space, his lips crash against mine, and his fingers tangle through my hair.
I try to resist him, but I can’t. My hands clench his shirt, and my teeth clamp down on his bottom lip, ripping a moan from him.
That moan sends heat spiraling through me.
Instead of pushing him away, I melt into him, pulling him closer as his tongue caresses mine.
“I don’t want you,” I argue again against his lips, desperately trying to convince myself in the process but failing miserably.
His mouth skims down my neck to my collarbone where he swipes his tongue before sucking the spot that he knows makes me weak in the knees while his hand travels underneath my loose shorts.
“Your wet panties are calling you a fucking liar, Rebel,” he says, taking a step back.
I stand there panting, averting my gaze from his beautiful brown eyes to the floor.
“I need to shower,” I say, stepping around him and rushing off to my room.
Locking the door behind me, I move to the ensuite bathroom and turn on the shower, then head back into my room to gather all my things, throwing them into my suitcase in a sloppy heaping pile. I need to escape, to get out of here before I lose every ounce of willpower I have left.
Once my bag is packed, I lift the window and remove the screen, tossing my luggage out. My feet hit the ground next. By the time he realizes that shower has been running entirely too long, I’ll be on my way back to New York. He may not see it now, but this is what’s best for him.
This is what’s best for both of us.