Chapter 22 #2
I know Coy loves me. I believe him when he says it. I feel it when he touches me, and I can see it in his eyes. But if what he tells me is true, he loved me the night on the boat. And look how that ended.
What is really different now except for the fact our lives are even more complicated?
Was I crazy to think this could work out between us?
He’s going to bolt out of here today, and I have no idea when he’ll be back.
He’s given me promises that he will, and that means something, sure.
But it leaves a wonky feeling in the pit of my stomach that maybe he’s saying those things to bide himself time because we haven’t made a plan. There are no plans.
Meanwhile, I’ll be here, dealing with my life and its messes, and, at the same time, checking my back for photographers at the hospital.
While he’s in Tennessee, hoping to just figure out his career … and not our relationship.
It’s too much. And it’ll be too much for Coy also. He doesn’t deserve to be weighed down with all of this either. Especially not with the months that I know are just ahead with Dad’s new medicine. Maybe he just realizes that too. Who am I to blame him?
My eyes well up with tears.
Maybe it already is getting to be too much.
Maybe that’s why he’s so quick to leave.
“What was that call about?”
“I have to take Dad for tests today.”
He nods, running his tongue around his mouth, obviously picking up on my trepidation. “I wish we had more time to talk this out. Or for me to take you and Joe—”
“Well, we don’t,” I say, getting to my feet. “We both need to get started on our days.”
He picks up on my tone. It’s borderline angry, but not at him—just at the world. It’s also sad. And frustrated. And if I had the luxury of time and space and selfishness, I’d take a hot shower and cry.
But I can’t do that because I don’t have those things.
“Bells …”
He reaches for me, but I don’t go to him. It kills me not to run into his arms. It causes me physical pain to keep from getting the much-needed—short-lived—comfort I’ve found in him.
I love him. I love him so fucking much. But .. .what’s the point?
Hope got me into this mess, and now logic has to get me out.
“Stop crying,” he tells me.
“I can’t just stop crying.”
He grits his teeth. “You told me you wouldn’t do this.”
“What are you talking about? What am I doing, Coy?”
“You’re pushing me away.”
“Well, you’re running away, and I think you told me you wouldn’t do that too.”
He twists his neck back and forth. “I have to go to work. You know that. What do you want me to do?”
“That’s the problem. There’s nothing you can do but go to work.” I shrug helplessly because I’m not going to beg him to sit down and really hash this out with me. If he wanted to, he would. “I love you. I do. I love you more than I ever thought I could love anyone. But we have to be real here.”
“I am being real.”
He invades my personal space and puts his arms around me, locking his hands at the small of my back. The contact causes a river of tears to stream down my face.
“Stop crying,” he tells me.
“I can’t just stop crying.”
“Then stop pushing me away, and this can be different.”
I want to argue with him, but he’s right. I am pushing him away.
A part of it is from fear. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that to myself. But the bigger reason I’m putting a wedge between us and a shield over my heart is because I know it’s the right thing to do.
“The past few days have been wonderful,” I tell him, my voice thankfully staying even. “You have been amazing. But I remember now why I don’t let myself have that level of hope. Because it’s … unrealistic.”
“What’s unrealistic is you discounting us without giving us a chance.”
“I gave us a chance—more than once. And I thought maybe this time would be different. But … you didn’t even ask me to weigh in on it, Coy. You didn’t even include me in your choice. Do you even realize that?”
He slow blinks.
“You came in here and told me what was happening. And that’s fine,” I say. “But it tells me what this is going to be, and I’d like to think I’d have some input about things.”
He stands in front of me. If I reached out, I could touch the side of his face. I could play with his hair or touch the lines in his stomach.
But that would make things worse.
“I’m sorry we waited so long to get on the same page. And I’m even sorrier that we fell off it so quickly.”
His eyes grow wide. “What are you talking about—sorrier that we fell off? What the hell, Bellamy?”
“This will never work.”
“The hell it won’t.”
His tone gets under my skin. It’s as if he doesn’t realize this is infinitely harder on me than it is on him.
Much to his dismay—and mine, I pull away.
“I really, really need you to go. What’s going to happen is inevitable, and it’ll be easier if I have fewer memories to process at three in the morning, okay?”
“I don’t want to leave you.”
My body stills as the tears move silently down my face.
Even though the words tell me he wants to stay, I hear the wobble in them. And I see something else too—a lack of actual action. Proof that he means the things he says this time.
I want to take him at his word, but I’ve done that before. And I can’t be stupid again.
I reach out and touch his face for the last time. My heart shatters, the pieces so small and jagged that it’ll never be able to be put back together again.
“You need to go,” I say, my voice clogged with emotion. “Now.”
I close the distance between us and press a kiss to his cheek.
With a final look at him, I turn and walk to my bedroom.
My back hits the wall as my legs give out. I try to control the sobs emanating from my chest as I shake violently.
I look toward the door through the mass of tears and hope—stupidly hope—that he comes for me.
But he doesn’t. And when I hear the loud thud of the front door shutting behind him, I know that’s what I need to do too.
Put him behind me. Get up. Move forward.
Alone.