Page 112 of Into Pitch

“Alex,” I start carefully.

He turns his head, finally looking at me and I see the words there before he spits them out.

“I love you.”

The world doesn’t just slow down, it fucking grinds to a halt. It detonates.

My chest constricts so fast it feels like my lungs forget how to work. My heartbeat spikes, slamming into my throat hard enough to hurt. Heat floods my face and then quickly vanishes to leave me cold and shaking.

“No,” I whisper.

He blinks, shocked that I’ve pushed it down. But that’s not what this has all been about. We don’t love each other. Sure, we are connected in that fucked up way that makes sense. The way two different beasts can find solace in the same dark place, but we… we don’t love each other.

“I—” my voice cracks. “No.”

I scramble backward, my body reacting before my brain catches up to break the contact between us like a bad burn. I end up half-falling off the bed, the sheets tangling around my legs as I suck in air that won’t go deep enough.

This isn’t happening.

This is not happening.

“Sadie,” he breathes, sitting up slowly. “Breathe.”

“I didn’t ask for that!” I snap, panic spilling over into anger because anger is safer. “You don’t just—say that!”

“I know, and I’m not asking you for anything.” He states evenly.

That makes it so much worse.

“No, I didn’t expect this,” I rasp, my hands shaking as I press them to my chest like I can hold myself together. “This wasn’t—this wasn’t the deal.”

“There was never a deal, Sadie.”

Exactly.

My vision tunnels and my thoughts scatter into overlapping chaos.

Love means expectations and permanence and… staying. Love means I stop being able to leave. And I hate the thought of not being able to do just that.

“I’m not—I can’t—”

“You don’t have to decide anything. I just told you the truth,” he attempts to fix. But the damage is done. Because the truth feels an awful lot like a threat in this moment.

Truth is what kept me quiet and small, and truth is what people used when they wanted something from me.

“I can’t stay,” I blurt.

He goes very still.

“You can, but you don’t have to.” He whispers.

I laugh, almost hysterical as I search for my clothes on the floor. “That’s not comforting.”

“Sadie— fuck, it’s honest. I’m just trying to be honest. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“No!” I shout. “What—no. No, I—I don’t know what I want. But it’s not that.”

His brows furrow as he looks to where I’m already shoveling shit into the duffel bag he had cleaned out when he returned from wherever he had fucking traipsed off to for days.