Chapter 28 Natalia
Natalia
After my week off, it has become obvious I need more me time. More mental health days that require no energy and only rest. Turns out Sasha might have been right—per usual. It’s time to prioritize it.
And today, to honor some of that me-focused energy, I’m going to tell Rowan my plan.
Yesterday was my last day of “vacation” and sleep evaded me last night, especially when Rowan left after our too-intense sex.
Rowan visited me often, giving me too much to feel—it’s overwhelming. It’s so beautifully suffocating but it’s never enough either. More than anything, I want to just be in his arms and let the demons die.
Sometimes it feels like, maybe with him, they’ll just leave me alone.
They’ll see I’m not alone anymore and I have backup, and they’ll surrender.
But unfortunately, they don’t give a single fuck.
Rowan cannot fight my battles, slay my dragons, and burn my demons—that’s up to me.
And it’s taking a lot more time than I thought it would.
I hate it; I hate this. I want it gone. I’m so tired of fighting, but there’s no other way through it seems.
It worries me that maybe I can’t keep up the fight unless he’s with me. He’d help me, but he’ll get tired eventually, won’t he? Everything goes well until your backup is gone and there’s a man down, no one to cover your back.
So this date-other-people idea I’m about to propose will be able to separate us—to separate him from me. Something to cut the string.
No, don’t do that. Please don’t do that.
Someone put an end to my misery, please.
It’s me. I’m doing this to myself. Why? What the fuck are these tendencies and why can’t I just love myself enough to accept his love? I thought I was growing, working through this. But the voice in my head thinks otherwise.
He isn’t a babysitter and I’m not his responsibility to fix. That’s on me, and that’s why I have to do this. He needs the space to move on and find someone else that better fits the future he deserves. And I’ll be happy for him even if it means he can’t be happy with me.
“Hey,” someone says from behind me, forcefully pulling me out of my head
I jump, my heart hammering loud in my ears. I turn with a hand over my heart and see a familiar face. “What the fuck, Rowan? You can’t scare a girl like that.”
“Sorry.” He chuckles. “I just didn’t see you this morning. How are you?”
I nod. “Fine.”
“Back to fine then,” he mumbles.
I force a grin and stand taller. “I’m perfect.”
Rowan shakes his head, his eyes softening. “You don’t have to pretend with me.”
“I’m…fine,” I say. “Are you? Fine?”
“I’ve been better,” Rowan mutters, a frown threatening to pull at his lips. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and rocks on his heels, nodding slowly—awkwardly. “So you’re here now?”
I hitch a shoulder. “I came in late.”
“You worried me, sweetheart.”
I chuckle. “You’re always worried about me.”
“You worried me,” Rowan says again, frown in full effect and breaking my heart.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly. “I was taking a mental health morning, I guess. Um, did you need something?”
This hurts already.
“Did I need something?” His brows furrow as he blinks at me. “What are you doing right now, Nat?”
“Nothing. I don’t know why you’d think something was wrong.” I scoff, anxiously reaching for a rag to wipe a table.
“I didn’t before, but now I do.” Rowan takes a few more steps into my deserted bakery that I’m cleaning, on my own, to clear my head. “What’s wrong?”
I shake my head fast enough to give myself a headache. “Nothing.”
“Natalia, sweetheart—”
I flinch at the term of endearment and drop the damp rag on the round, back-and-white checkered table. “Rowan—”
“Look at me, at least,” he begs quietly. “Please.”
I do as he says because it’s the least I can do, I think. Or maybe it’s for selfish reasons like seeing his face before he officially hates me.
“You’re about to break my heart, aren’t you?” Rowan whispers.
I’ve just broken my own heart.
“I think we should go on dates,” I whisper, slightly turning away from him.
“Oh. Okay,” he says. I see the boyish grin on his beautiful face. “Where do you want to go?”
“No, um,” I say softly and I watch the way his heart begins to crack down the middle across his face. “Not with me—not together, I mean.”
A ridge forms between his thick, dark blond brows. “Then—”
“I’m going on a date and you’re going on a date,” I clarify—lie. “Separate dates with different people.”
Rowan blinks down at me. “Why—”
“We’re only having sex,” I mutter as I pierce the knife through my chest and twist it over and over again.
I think if I look down at my feet, I’d be standing in a pool of my own blood from a self-inflicted wound.
“And I don’t…I don’t want you to feel like you have to be exclusive with me if you don’t want to be. ”
“Only having sex,” Rowan echoes. “Right.”
I nod, shuffling on my feet, wanting to run away from this situation and take back everything I’ve said. “It’s a…a buffer.”
He blinks, again. “A buffer? What the hell does that mean?”
“You know…” I shrug. “So that way we remember that—”
“That you can’t have feelings for me?” Rowan asks, acid and ice on his tone. “No, wait.” Another dry chuckle. “That you won’t let yourself have feelings for me.”
It’s too late to take back every stupid word I’ve said. To erase the most idiotic idea I have ever come up with. A buffer for what? For who?
“Rowan—”
“Do you not want me to exclusively fucking you?” he asks, his voice dripping sharp shards of ice. “I don’t get this.”
“It’s a fucking buffer! It’s what it means!” I try to reason.
He groans. “What the hell is a buffer, Nat?”
“A—A break? I don’t know—”
“Why the hell do we need a buffer? I thought—”
“Maybe if we—”
“So, you’re going on a date?”
I shrug. I’m not, but I won’t tell him that. He deserves to enjoy other things, right? Other people. Explore and what not. I’m not a damsel he needs to save; I don’t want to be. It started as just sex and now it feels like he’s coming to my rescue all the time.
But he was doing that before the sex…
“Are you?” Rowan asks again. “Are you, or are you not going on a date too, Natalia?”
I swallow past the lump in my throat but it remains there, blocking airflow. “Yeah,” I lie. “It’ll be good for us.”
“For us?” He laughs dryly, the sound scaring me just as the red in his eyes is doing now. “For. Us? For whom is it really good for, Natalia? Because it won’t be good for me.”
I blink at him, knowing his reaction is entirely valid. My reaction would be much worse if I’m honest. If Rowan came and told me he didn’t want to be exclusive and go on a date with a stranger, I think I’d lose my mind.
Because he’s mine.
But he isn’t, though.
“You don’t know that,” I say, digging a six-foot hole in the ground for myself. “I already set you up with someone, actually.”
“So, it is only me going on a date then,” Rowan says, but I’m not sure if it’s a statement or question.
“But it’ll be a good one,” I promise him. “She’s really nice; she’s one of my baker’s cousins. Her name is Shannon.”
“I’m sorry.” Rowan laughs dryly. “You set me up on a blind date with the cousin of one of your bakers. And you expect me to go?”
I nod, dragging my bottom lip between my teeth.
“I don’t… Natalia, what the fuck?”
“Please, Rowan.”
“Please, what, Natalia?” he asks softly, his voice raspy and broken.
“I…Just…” My eyes sting, my throat tightening. Oh god, I think this is breaking me. That look in his eyes…
Rowan has always been a patient man with me—kind and caring, always knowing exactly what I need. And then I do things like this. I ruin good things for myself and I wish I could stop because this is so good. What we have is so good even if I don’t know what it is or where it’s going.
But it’s me who’s putting that look in his eyes, making them red around the blue waves that soothe me. I’m breaking his heart while breaking my own.
Fuck me.
I take it back. I take everything back. I’ve ruined this.
“Rowan, I—”
“Are you serious?”
Tell him. Tell him no and that you want him. Tell him you need him, damn it.
All of the right words fail me though, staying trapped in my head and not once finding their way out my mouth.
“I… I, um. Rowan, I just think—”
“That what? Tell me, please!” His hands sift through his hair, tugging the strands to the point of pain I imagine, before he drops them. “What happened?”
“What do you—”
“Damn it, Nat. What happened this week? What’s been going on in your head that you need a buffer? Did I do something?”
“No, of course not—”
“Then what is it? Please, sweetheart, give me something here,” he pleads. “Don’t pull away from me now. Don’t do this. This is so—stupid.”
My lips part, my heart shatters, and I can’t see him clearly through my foggy vision. “Rowan, I’m doing this for you!”
“You aren’t doing it for me, because if you were, it would be you and me on that date.”
“You don’t want to date me!”
“Let me decide that for myself! You haven’t even given me the chance or the choice. You think you’re such a burden on everyone and everything, but have you taken a second to ask me if I think you’re a burden? You aren’t! You never have been—not for me.”
I shake my head, my throat tightening. “Rowan, it isn’t me. You deserve—”
“Don’t tell me what I do and do not deserve,” he says quietly, shaking his head. “I know who I want, Natalia.”
“Rowan—”
“You want me to go on a date—You know what, it doesn’t even matter,” he interrupts, sniffing and swallowing, his tongue running over his teeth. “I’ll go on the date.”
Rowan walks away from me, the muscles of his back tense even through the thick sweater. He pushes a rough hand through his golden hair and I can hear him growling and grumbling curses as he grabs his coat.
I stand frozen, watching an angry Rowan punch his arms through the sleeves and tug the jacket over his shoulders. My feet don’t manage to make a single move until he’s unlocking the door.
“Rowan, wait, please,” I say, my hand grabbing onto his forearm as I catch him just before he walks out the door. “Please.” My voice cracks. “Rowan…”
“Natalia, this is so fucked up.” He laughs dryly, ruining his hair further and running his hands down his face roughly. “I’ll go, just send me the details or whatever.”
My eyes and throat burn, and I can’t stop it.
I can’t take it back. It’s too late and I ruined something good.
I shouldn’t have ruined it. Oh my god. Oh my god.
Oh my god. My fingers go numb at my side and I ball them to fists.
Flexing and curling, flexing and curling.
I can’t even see him clearly, but I don’t have to see him to know there’s hatred in his eyes.
Me too, Rowan.
I sniff hard, my knees trembling and bones splintering. Oh god oh god oh god. What have I done? I can’t breathe.
“Rowan—” Please don’t leave me like this.
“Text me,” he says. And then he walks out, my heart bleeding on the floor.