46. TWENTY-FOUR #2
He looks so helpless right now, so dejected and miserable, even his hair limps sadly around his shoulders.
I can’t believe that with all the rage and hurt I was feeling just moments ago, this man has managed to incite sympathy in me.
Part of me wants to crawl up the bed and hold him until he stops looking like his entire world has ended.
The rest of me, though, wants to cling to what little anger I have left.
Because I refuse to go back to being the woman who forgave Sebastian again and again, hoping that next time things would be different.
That tomorrow, he might choose to cherish my heart instead of crushing it.
“That seems like a pretty unhealthy outlook to have on life.”
“Maybe.” He sniffs and dries his nose with the back of his hand. “But it hasn’t failed me yet.”
“Is this why you’re not interested in relationships?”
“Yeah.” He dips his chin, raising glassy, despondent eyes to mine. “I just… I can’t. I can’t do it. And I’m so sorry, because it’s shitty of me to do what I did with you and then tell you that nothing more can ever happen between us, but it just can’t.”
My stupid, stupid heart plummets into my stomach.
I know he doesn’t do relationships. He’s been clear about that all along.
But it didn’t stop me from hoping that he might change his mind one day, especially after the things he said right before he kissed me like I was everything he’s ever wanted in life.
Guess I’m still that eighteen-year-old girl, hoping for things that won’t ever be meant for her after all.
“I didn’t ask you for a relationship,” I say, praying the disappointment swirling inside of me doesn’t make it into my voice. “I didn’t expect anything of you except a little fucking decency.”
“I know.” He chews on his lip. “But in that moment, I think it was me who wanted more, and it terrified me.”
“And what about now?”
“I’ve cooled down a bit, got a bit of perspective back, I guess.” He looks down at my legs that are hidden beneath the comforter and tentatively curls a hand around my ankle.
Even through the bedding, his touch makes my skin tingle.
“You’re the coolest woman I’ve ever met.
I hope you know that. You’d be so fucking easy to fall in love with, and that’s why we can never have a real relationship.
Fuck, when we were looking around that house, I forgot that you wouldn’t be moving there with me.
And for a second, all I could see was Macon chasing the girls around the yard and you sitting at the island while I made dinner. ”
He can have that, though.
I had the same fantasy too. I pictured the three of us in that house someday, together, living next door to Leo and Brynn, all of us a mismatch of puzzle pieces that somehow just fit together.
A true home for my son with love, laughter, and more joy than I could ever hope for him to be surrounded by.
So, if Alex wants that, and I want that, why won’t he let us have it? What’s made him this way that the very concept of happiness is terrifying?
He releases a jagged sigh. “I’m too attached to you guys already. I wouldn’t survive it if I lost you.”
Slowly, like he’s a scared animal, I cover his hand with mine. “Who says you’d lose us?”
“You can’t promise that I wouldn’t.”
“Maybe not.” My eyes smart with fresh tears as I feel trembling in his fingers.
“But no one can tell the future. We don’t know what’s going to happen this time next year or, hell, even tomorrow.
But isn’t it better to not live in fear of everything that could happen and, instead, take it day by day?
To do the things that make us happy while we can. ”
It strikes me, as I’m talking, that I sound a lot like my younger sister, who is wiser about these things than I will ever be.
But it took her pushing me into this thing with Alex to realize that we all deserve more out of life than the shittiness of our circumstances.
That the sky can be blue, and the sun can be warm, and the birds can be singing, if only we have the courage to step outside.
His eyes soften as he takes in what I’m saying, and I think that maybe…I might be getting through to him.
“Isn’t the purpose of life to live it and not waste the privilege of our almost-impossible existence?” I whisper.
He shrugs. “Maybe.”
“I mean, I could die in a car accident tomorrow, and sure, it would suck, but at least I know that, today, I laughed, I sang, I felt the sun on my face, and I loved with all my heart.”
Metaphorically speaking, of course. I did none of those things today, but tomorrow, I might—if I’m not hit by a car, that is.
Alex pales. He drops my ankle and shoots from the bed. Tugging at the neckline of his t-shirt, like it’s constricting his airway despite being halfway down his chest, he paces in a small circle by the door. “I have to go.”
“Wait, what?”
“I’m not leaving. I just… I need a minute.
I’m gonna head to the gym, but I’ll be back later, and I’ll be here before Macon goes to school in the morning.
I’ll apologize to him, you know, for disappearing and everything.
” His words are garbled, his eyes sweeping manically around the room like he’s forgotten where the door is.
“And I’m sorry for what I put you through over the last couple of days.
Truly, I am. I’ve been an asshole, and I won’t do it again, I swear, but I just… I need… I…”
He finally locates the door and, like a bullet, fires himself through it.
My brain feels fried as I flop back against my pillows, covering my face with a long groan.
I’m too emotionally exhausted to unpack however that conversation has made me feel.
There are too many thoughts clawing at my brain at once, too many emotions tumbling around inside of me for me to do anything but switch off the light and lie in the dark with my eyes wide open.
But one thought screams louder than the rest of them.
All this time, I thought Alex lived in July. It never occurred to me that he might be trapped in February too.