8 #5
She looked at me for another second. “What if six days doesn’t fix anything?”
“It isn’t supposed to fix you.”
The word made her flinch, and I corrected it before she disappeared inside herself again.
“Nothing about you needs six days to become acceptable to me. I need you to hear that.”
Charm swallowed.
“This is about deciding, not fixing.”
Her eyes held mine. “Deciding what?”
“Whether you want me enough to stop letting everybody else help you choose.”
The answer moved through her hard enough that I watched it settle across her face. When I kissed her forehead, she leaned into me anyway, and that nearly undid every piece of control I fought to keep.
I opened the door because another minute with her standing there in lace and tears would make me stop caring about every reason I had spent half an hour defending.
Charm stepped into the hallway slowly, then turned back after only a few feet. Her arms folded around the jacket she had pulled closed over herself.
“I am going to miss you.”
The admission landed harder than I expected because I knew how much it cost her to say anything that sounded like need.
“I’m going to miss you too.”
For a second, she looked like she might come back.
I wanted her to.
I wanted to drag her inside, shut the door, peel off that jacket, and prove in every physical way possible that stopping had nothing to do with a lack of desire.
Instead, I stayed where I was and let her decide what happened next.
Charm swallowed, gave me a small nod, and started toward the stairs. I remained in the doorway while the sound of her heels moved farther down the hall. When she reached the landing, she looked back one final time.
Everything in me pulled toward her, but I held her gaze instead of calling her name. Chasing her now would erase the point I had been trying to make. I needed her to choose me without me always closing the distance before she felt the discomfort of crossing it herself.
After she disappeared down the stairwell, I shut the door and stood there longer than I should have. The apartment felt too quiet and still carried the faint trace of her perfume.
Her pink pen sat on the coffee table beside one of my books.
The Frost hoodie I planned to pack was half buried beneath the clothes inside my suitcase.
Every stupid little thing she worked into my space over the summer made returning to the bedroom feel like I was deliberately choosing the harder option.
I wanted to go after her.
I wanted to tell her none of this mattered and that I would take whatever part she was willing to give me while worrying about the rest later. Wanting Charm had never scared me.
What scared me was how much of myself I already wanted to hand over to a woman who still looked toward everyone else before deciding whether she was allowed to want something.
My father died before I was old enough to understand why drugs mattered more than staying alive.
My mother was taken from me four years later, and every home after hers taught me permanence was something people promised before circumstances became inconvenient.
I survived by refusing to need anyone badly enough for their leaving to destroy what remained.
Charm had gotten past every defense without trying.
She became part of my mornings, my apartment, my books, and the quiet picture forming in my head whenever I thought beyond the next hockey season.
She made me imagine returning to Kimball Falls and finding her waiting.
She made six days feel too long and my apartment feel wrong after a few minutes without her perfume inside it.
She also had the power to look at me in front of her father and decide I was easier to love when no one could see.
That was the crack I couldn’t ignore.
I returned to the bedroom and picked up the shirt I had abandoned on the bed, but my attention stayed on the hallway long after she was gone.
I could wait six days and handle missing her.
I had survived longer separations from people who mattered more than Charm should have mattered after six weeks.
That was the problem.
She already mattered enough that comparison felt like a lie.
I sat on the edge of the bed and looked toward the open suitcase while everything I hadn’t said pressed against my ribs.
Holding the boundary hadn’t made me feel strong.
It felt like handing the woman I was falling for the exact weapon she could use against me and trusting her to return without swinging it.
I needed Charm to choose me when choosing me became uncomfortable. I needed to know she could stand beside the Chicano foster kid with barrio ink beneath his clothes while Lance looked at him like every ugly assumption had finally walked through the door.
I didn’t need her fearless.
I needed her willing to be afraid and stay.
Waiting for that answer was the first thing I had wanted badly enough to terrify me, because Charm was already deep enough that if she decided I wasn’t worth the cost, I knew exactly where the loss would land.