Page 66 of All That Glitters

Anxiety claws at my chest. I shake my head and walk around him toward my desk. Somewhere deep down I feel a tug to hear him out, but it’s hard to listen when fear has its hands around my neck.

“I told you we can talk about the paper, and that’s it.”

“We need to talk, Goldie,” he insists.

“No, we don’t.” I start throwing things in my messenger bag, preparing to run.

“Yes, we do. Just let me get a few things out—”

“No!” I whip around. “I don’t want to hear what you have to say. I want to work together and–and that’s all.”

Hurt flashes across his expression, and it feels like I’ve sliced open my own chest.

“Well, that’s not what I want,” he replies in a terse tone. “And since we’ve been doing things your way for the past few months, I think it’s my turn.”

“Your turn? This isn’t a game, Jameson.”

“I’ve never once treated our relationship like a game, Goldie. Don’t accuse me of that.”

Anger runs hot in my blood. All of the emotions I’ve been pressing down explode out of me.

“You don’t get to dictate how this goes. You hurt me. That means that if I want you to leave me alone forever, that’s what you do.”

I pull my bag onto my shoulder and start toward the door.

“I know why you won’t talk about things,” he says, making me pause a few feet away. “You’re afraid that what I have to say will make you want to be friends again, and you can’t stand that thought after what happened that night—”

I spin around to face him again with burning eyes.

“You promised not to talk about it!”

“And you promised we would be friends forever, no matter what. Remember that?” His voice cracks. He shakes his head. “I don’t want to fight. Please, Goldie.”

“Nothing you say will change what you did,” I tell him, though the words sound hollow in my ears.

“I’m in love with you,” he blurts out.

My stomach swoops. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. We’ve said I love you in the past, but never like that. He can’t mean that. Is he lying? Would he stoop so low to lie about something like that?

“I wasn’t supposed to say that first. It’s not—” Jameson pushes his hands into his hair. “It’s not a bargaining chip, okay? You don’t have to forgive me because of it, but I needed you to know. I’ve been in love with you for a long time, Goldie. It took me a while to realize it, but once I did, I was consumed by it. The night we kissed wasn’t random for me. It was a moment I’d been waiting a long time for.”

My mind goes back to lying in the grass beneath the stars. The way he’d looked at me with such certainty … the pieces click together. He’s not lying, but that makes everything else so much worse.

“If you loved me, you wouldn’t have taken the internship,” I say, trying to sound angry, but it comes out more heartbroken than anything.

Jameson’s face twists with anguish, and my stomach twists with it. After all the sweet gestures from the past few weeks, it feels cruel to lash out at him. But this is what he incited by bringing up the past. We would have been fine. Not us … but fine.

“That’s not fair. I-I made a mistake. I was hurting because you’d pulled away, and my parents were pushing me to apply. That doesn’t negate my love for you.”

“So you punished me for needing space?”

“No, I would never intentionally do that. I’m not trying to make excuses. I just want you to understand how things happened. I know it doesn’t change the circumstances, but I didn’t set out to hurt you.”

I shake my head and take a step back.

“But you did. You betrayed me and then kept it a secret. Why should I believe that you love me?”

Pain like I’ve never seen floods his gaze. Shame strikes me, but I don’t know how to contend with it among my warring emotions.