Chapter 13 Say It #2
"You don't understand what I'm dealing with."
"Then let me understand."
"I can't."
"Why?"
"Because it's complicated."
Orm laughed.
"Everything with you is complicated."
"Because it is."
"No."
Orm stepped closer.
"It's complicated because you make it complicated."
Ling stared at her.
"You think I don't know that?"
"Then stop."
"I can't."
"Why?"
Ling's expression hardened.
"Because I'm trying to protect you."
"There it is."
Orm laughed again.
"The same excuse."
"It's not an excuse."
"It is."
"You don't know what you're talking about."
"I know exactly what I'm talking about."
Orm's voice broke.
"You push me away every time this becomes real."
Ling looked stunned.
"You did it after the kiss."
Silence.
"You did it when Ariya came back."
"Orm—"
"And you're doing it now."
Ling shook her head.
"I'm trying to keep you from getting hurt."
"I don't need you to decide that for me."
"You don't understand."
"I understand perfectly."
Orm's eyes filled with tears.
"You are terrified."
Ling froze.
"You are terrified that I'll become like her."
"I never said that."
"You don't have to."
Orm wiped her cheek angrily.
"You look at me like you love me, then you act like loving me is some kind of disaster you have to prevent."
Ling couldn't answer.
"Do you know what that feels like?"
Her voice became quieter.
"It feels like being wanted only when you're standing far enough away."
Ling's face changed.
"Orm..."
"I can't keep doing this."
Ling swallowed.
"I know."
"No, you don't."
Orm stepped closer.
"Because I'm not asking you for perfection."
She shook her head.
"I'm not asking you to promise me forever."
Her voice trembled.
"I'm asking you to stop making me feel like I'm something you have to run from."
Ling looked at her.
"I don't want to run from you."
"Then why are you?"
Silence.
"Say it."
Ling's breathing became uneven.
"I don't know how."
"How what?"
"How to love someone without being afraid."
Orm's heart broke.
She stepped closer.
"Then be afraid."
Ling looked at her.
"Be afraid with me."
For one moment, it looked as though Ling might finally give in.
Then she stepped back.
And something inside Orm broke.
"See?"
Ling closed her eyes.
"Don't."
"You always do this."
"Orm."
"You tell me you care."
"I do."
"You tell me I'm important."
"You are."
"You tell me I'm your present."
"You are."
"Then why can't you stay?"
Ling had no answer.
Orm's tears finally fell.
"I can't keep guessing."
Ling's voice was barely audible.
"I know."
"No."
Orm shook her head.
"You don't know."
She wiped her tears.
"You don't know what it's like to love someone who won't let you love them back."
Ling's eyes widened.
The word had slipped out.
Not yet.
Not the word she had been carrying for weeks.
Orm looked at her.
Her heart was pounding.
She could still take it back.
She could laugh.
She could pretend she hadn't said anything.
Instead, she stepped closer.
"I love you."
Silence.
The world stopped.
Ling didn't move.
Orm's voice trembled.
"I love you."
Ling stared at her.
No answer.
No movement.
Nothing.
Orm swallowed.
"I know you're scared."
Her voice broke.
"I know you have reasons."
She laughed through her tears.
"I've spent so much time trying to understand you that sometimes I think I know you better than I know myself."
Ling's eyes glistened.
"But I can't keep pretending I don't feel this."
She took a breath.
"I love you."
Three words.
Simple.
Terrifying.
Irreversible.
Ling looked at her as if she had just been handed something precious and fragile and had no idea where to put it.
Orm waited.
One second.
Two.
Five.
Nothing.
"Say something."
Ling opened her mouth.
Nothing came.
Orm's heart sank.
"Please."
Ling looked away.
That hurt more than silence.
Orm nodded slowly.
"Okay."
"Orm—"
"No."
She stepped back.
"It's okay."
It wasn't.
They both knew it.
Orm forced a smile.
"You don't have to say it."
Ling looked at her.
"I can't."
Orm nodded.
"I know."
"No, you don't."
"Then tell me."
Ling's voice broke.
"I don't know how to say something that would change everything."
Orm stared at her.
"It already changed everything."
Ling closed her eyes.
Orm took another step backward.
"You don't have to love me back."
Ling opened her eyes.
"But I can't keep standing here hoping that one day you'll decide I'm safe enough to love."
Ling's face crumpled for the briefest second.
Then she recovered.
"You are safe."
"Then why?"
Ling looked at her.
"Because I don't know if I am."
Orm didn't understand.
Ling continued.
"I don't know who I become when I love someone."
She swallowed.
"With you, I don't know how to be careful."
Orm's tears fell again.
"Maybe you don't have to be."
Ling looked at her.
"I do."
"Why?"
"Because the last time I wasn't careful, I lost myself."
Orm whispered,
"You won't lose yourself with me."
Ling looked away.
"I want to believe that."
"Then believe me."
Ling couldn't.
Not yet.
And Orm finally understood.
Love wasn't always enough.
Sometimes love arrived before courage.
Sometimes two people could feel the same thing and still stand on opposite sides of a door neither knew how to open.
Orm wiped her face.
"I'm going home."
Ling nodded.
She didn't stop her.
That was the part that hurt most.
Orm walked toward the door.
Her hand was on the handle when Ling spoke.
"Orm."
She stopped.
Ling's voice was quiet.
"I am sorry."
Orm closed her eyes.
Then she turned.
"I don't need you to be sorry."
"What do you need?"
Orm looked at her for a long moment.
"You."
Ling's eyes filled with tears.
"But I can't keep asking for you."
She opened the door.
"I love you, Ling."
Then she walked away.
?
Ling stayed in the stairwell.
Alone.
She stared at the closed door long after Orm had disappeared.
Her chest felt hollow.
She had spent years believing that love was dangerous because it could hurt.
But she had never considered the possibility that refusing love could hurt just as much.
Maybe worse.
Her phone vibrated.
She didn't look at it.
Another vibration.
Still nothing.
Finally, she pulled it from her pocket.
A message from Fluke.
You okay?
Ling stared at it.
She typed:
No.
Then deleted it.
She typed again.
I think I just hurt her.
Deleted.
Finally:
I don't know what to do.
She sent it.
Fluke replied almost immediately.
Tell her the truth.
Ling stared at the screen.
The truth.
She knew what the truth was.
She had known for weeks.
Perhaps longer.
The problem wasn't whether she loved Orm.
The problem was that she was terrified of saying it.
Because saying it meant admitting that Orm had become something she could lose.
And Ling had spent years convincing herself that if she never allowed herself to need anyone, nobody could ever destroy her.
But Orm had already slipped through every wall.
She had done it without force.
Without demanding.
Without asking.
She had simply stayed.
She had laughed with Ling.
Argued with her.
Challenged her.
Made her coffee.
Made her angry.
Made her smile.
Made her feel seen.
And then, somehow, she had made Ling want something she had sworn she would never want again.
A future.
Ling closed her eyes.
She whispered the words she couldn't say to Orm.
"I love you."
The room remained silent.
She tried again.
"I love you."
It sounded strange.
Not wrong.
Just frightening.
She covered her face with both hands.
For the first time in years, Ling cried.
Quietly.
Not because she had been abandoned.
Because she had finally realised she had someone worth being afraid of losing.
?
Orm didn't return to her desk.
She went home.
She ignored the messages from Bow.
She ignored Fluke.
She ignored everything.
When she reached her apartment, she dropped her bag by the door and sat on the floor.
The room was dark.
She didn't turn on the lights.
She simply sat there.
She had said it.
She had actually said it.
The words she had rehearsed a hundred times in her head had finally escaped.
And Ling hadn't said them back.
Orm knew she shouldn't have expected her to.
She knew love wasn't a transaction.
She knew saying I love you didn't create an obligation for someone else to say it.
But knowing something logically didn't make it hurt less.
She lay on the couch.
Her phone buzzed.
She looked at it.
A message from Ling.
Please get home safely.
Orm stared.
That was it.
No explanation.
No confession.
No miracle.
She placed the phone face down.
A few minutes later, it buzzed again.
I'm sorry.
Orm closed her eyes.
Then another.
I don't know how to do this.
Her heart tightened.
She typed a response.
Then learn.
She stared at the words.
Then deleted them.
Instead, she wrote:
Goodnight, Ling.
She sent it.
Three dots appeared.