TOO MUCH
ANDERS
“Hey,” I tell Parker when he comes down the stairs. It’s a little late for him to be awake on a weekend morning. Usually he’s up before nine, even on his days off.
“Morning,” he mutters, something feeling off immediately.
Parker heads straight for the coffee machine where I already have a mug waiting for him with creamer inside.
Exactly the way he takes it. Normally he’d tap the counter twice beside me in thanks.
It’s something small, but the acknowledgement goes a long way.
Today—nothing. My stomach tightens as Parker picks up the mug and fills it without saying another word.
“Are you feeling alright?” I ask, watching him over the rim of my own coffee.
“Fine.” The answer comes too quickly. “I just have a headache. Drank too much beer last night probably.”
“Do you need a Pedialyte or something?”
“I’m fine.” He still won’t look at me.
I stare at the side of his face for a second, replaying the events of last night in my head. We flirted at Verona’s. He brushed me off. Then he kissed me. We came home and Parker immediately locked himself inside his room for the rest of the night.
I push myself off the stool and walk over to the counter with my empty mug. When I set it down beside him, he shifts away before I can even touch him. It’s just a small movement, but the fact that he doesn’t even realize he did it is what really hits hard. “You’re acting weird,” I mutter carefully.
Maybe he’s still upset that I said I was going to Seth’s. I don’t know why I lied. I could’ve just told him the truth and said I was going to Lee’s for a debrief. But it got me the reaction I was fishing for.
Now that the next day has come, I completely regret it.
Parker exhales slowly through his nose like I’m already testing his patience.
“Are you feeling alright?” I ask again.
“I’m fine.”
I exhale through my nose. “You don’t seem fine.”
“I’m hungover.” His answer almost sounds rehearsed.
I stare at him for a minute, but Parker’s coffee suddenly becomes the most interesting thing to him. The silence grows more painful and awkward by the second. “You know,” I say carefully, “most people make eye contact when they’re talking to someone.”
Parker finally looks at me, but I almost wish he hadn’t. His expression is completely void of emotion. “Happy?”
“No, I’m not fucking happy.” The words slip out before I can stop myself. My pulse starts climbing. “What happened after last night?” I demand.
“Nothing.”
“Did I do something?”
“No.”
Oh my God. I can’t do this. I can’t do the one word answers. What the hell is happening here?
“Then why are you acting like this?” I raise my voice, almost yelling out of frustration. But because I'm also hurt that he’s treating me like we’re no better than strangers.
Parker closes his eyes for a second, huffing out a deep breath like he’s counting to ten. When he opens them again, he looks exhausted. “I have a headache.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Anders—”
“No.” I fold my arms across my chest. “Why are you being so cold to me?”
Parker immediately looks away, which honestly hurts more than if he’d yelled at me.
“Are you mad about last night?”
The knot in my stomach tightens when he doesn’t say anything.
“What happened?” I ask.
“I have a headache,” Parker snaps. The sharpness of it makes me flinch. His expression immediately changes, like he didn’t mean for that to come out the way it did. But instead of apologizing, he doubles down. “And you’re making it worse.”
The words hit me like a slap. I stare at him. For a second, I genuinely don’t know what to say. Parker has never talked down to me like that. Literally ever. “Pet’ka—”
“Jesus, Anders.” He drags a hand down his face. “Just stop.”
My stomach drops. “Stop? What do you mean ‘stop?’”
Parker doesn’t answer right away. His shoulders rise with a slow breath, and when he finally speaks, his voice is lower. Quieter in a way like he’s forcing himself to be a little bit more cautious. “You know you shouldn’t be doing this,” Parker mutters, low and painfully controlled.
The floor feels like it’s being pulled from beneath me. And he’s doing the pulling. “Doing what?” I ask.
Parker looks away. “With me.” The words barely leave his mouth. Then he shakes his head. “You know exactly what I mean.”
Is he blaming this all on me? Again?
“No.” I can hear my own heartbeat. “No, actually, I don’t know what you mean.”
“It needs to stop—”
“I’m not doing anything, Parker!”
“Come on.” His voice drags.
“No, if you have a problem with my behavior,” I say, “then you’re going to have to be more specific.”
Parker grabs his coffee and starts toward the back door, like we’re fucking done here or something. Like he can just drop a grenade in the middle of the kitchen and leave me standing here like a fool.
“Uh-uh.” I step in front of him. “Don’t you dare do that.”
“Anders.”
“No. Tell me what you mean,” I press.
His jaw flexes. “You know what I’m talking about,” I scoff, not surprised he’s being a coward. Again. “I don’t. I literally don’t.”
Parker looks at me like he’s made up his mind and shrugs. “You’re starting to forget yourself.”
I stare at him for almost a full minute before laughing thinly. “What does that even mean?”
“You know what it means.”
“No, I really don’t.”
His eyes close briefly, like he’s running out of patience. Or maybe it’s courage. I honestly can’t tell which.
“What am I doing that bothers you so much?”
For a second, I think he’s not going to answer. Maybe I’d prefer that, because him having a valid reason would just about crush me.
“You’re getting too comfortable,” Parker finally says. The words land like a punch to the chest.
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means, you know where the line is, Anders.” His eyes finally meet mine, and for the first time in a while, I don’t recognize the man who wears them. It’s cold and distant. Nothing like the man I’ve spent the last year talking to. “And lately,” he continues, “you keep pretending you don’t.”
“You kissed me!” I snap. “You fucking kissed me, Pet’ka. That was you, so don’t do this fucking shit because I’m sick and tired of you brushing me off!”
Heat flashes through my chest, surging with anger and humiliation.
Every moment he let me think this thing between us was mutual has been reduced to something entirely different.
I think the part that hurts the most is that despite having every reason not to, I still gave him the benefit of the doubt.
I told him we could be friends because it’s obvious some part of him still refuses to admit how goddamn much he needs me.
The kitchen suddenly feels too small. I can’t tell if I’m furious or embarrassed. Maybe it’s both.
“Anders.” His voice softens, just a little. For one second he sounds tired instead of angry. Almost guilty.
I know this version of Parker. He says something cruel, gives me a second for it to fully marinate, then acts like nothing happened until I start believing it never actually hurt in the first place.
I wait for the other shoe to drop, because it always does, but this time it doesn’t. Whatever softness was there disappears. His expression hardens again. “You’ve gotta get over this,” Parker tells me in a voice that doesn’t sound or feel like his own.
Something sharp pulses behind my right eye. At first I ignore the pressure that’s been building over the last few minutes, but ever since I realized this conversation wasn’t going where I thought it was, the pain is impossible to ignore.
“It’s not going to happen.”
My breath catches. For a second, I don’t understand. But then I do, and the realization hits so hard it almost feels physical. The pressure behind my eye spreads. I squeeze my eyes shut. “Jesus, Parker,” I whisper beneath my breath.
“What?”
I shake my head. “You’re seriously fucking evil.”
The kitchen suddenly feels brighter, like the sunlight coming through the windows suddenly seems too harsh. Nothing is wrong. I know nothing is wrong. But I can already feel a migraine settling in behind my eyes.
“Anders?”
Parker takes a step toward me and I can feel his hand before it even reaches me. His hand barely brushes my arm, but I jerk away immediately. “No.” The word comes out much sharper than I intended.
Parker freezes. For a second, something flashes across his face. Guilt…regret. But I don’t fucking care. Not right now. Not when it feels like somebody is slowly driving a nail through my skull.
“Don’t,” I warned him. I hate how weak my voice sounds, and I hate how much I still want him to touch me even more.
Parker’s hand falls back to his side.
I just grab my mug off the counter, walking it over to the sink. “Whatever, Parker.” The words sound hollow. “I’m not doing this with you again.”
“Anders—”
I dump the coffee out with so much force that it splashes up against the backsplash. And then the ceramic fractures right down the middle the moment I drop the mug into the basin.
“Anders, what the fuck?”
I don’t let him get another word in before I turn around and walk out of the kitchen. The second I reach the stairs, the pain behind my eye pulses again. By the time I make it to my bedroom, I know I’m in trouble.
I shove the door shut behind me and lean against it, immediately letting out a sigh of relief and thanking the good Lord above for whichever genius invented black-out curtains.
No matter how many breaths I take, the migraine just keeps building and building.
Pressure blooms behind my eye and spreads across my forehead.
My heart is beating too fast. My hands are shaking.
I tell myself it’s the migraine. That’s all this is.
Just a migraine, which I get all the time when I’m upset like this.
I sit down on the edge of my bed, the mattress dipping beneath me.
Going through my mental check list, I press my palms against my thighs and focus on my breathing.
Of course, my lungs refuse to cooperate.
The next breath catches halfway down, and an unbroken stream of panic immediately floods my system.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I squeeze my eyes shut. The room feels like it’s shrinking around me, constricting the air until it’s just me and nothing else.
My fingertips start tingling. My chest tightens.
My heart pounds harder. When I bend forward and brace my elbows on my knees, the migraine throbs.
My panic grows, and everything fucking hurts.
I reach for my phone without thinking, the movement automatic.
My thumb immediately hovers over Parker’s name like it’s the only cure I could ever need.
The realization hits me a second later as a broken laugh escapes me.
Of course. Of fucking course. The one Goddamn person I want right now is the person who caused this shit.
I toss my phone onto the bed, fresh tears stinging behind my eyes. Not that the migraine cares…
My pulse keeps racing. I curl forward and bury my face in my hands.
The words in my mind betray me, making me feel absolutely pathetic.
I want him. I need him. I can’t get through this without him.
I want him rubbing my back and pretending everything is fine until I start believing it too.
But right now, I’m just fucking alone, because apparently I’ve gotten too fucking comfortable. The words make my stomach twist.
A small thread of anger travels through me and I grab onto it like it’s my lifeline, like anger is better than despair all of a sudden.
I reach for the journal sitting on my nightstand—sometimes if I can get the thoughts out of my head, the panic loosens its grip.
My hand trembles as I flip to a blank page. For a long moment, I stare at it.
Then I write two words:
TOO MUCH.
I look at them and something inside me snaps. With a frustrated noise, I hurl the journal across the room. It slams into the wall hard enough to send loose pages splaying open across the floor. The room falls silent again, except for my staggered breathing and my throbbing migraine.
And then the awful realization creeps through me that the one person who could’ve made this better is the one person I can’t have.