Page 13 of The Time It Takes
“Oh, don’t give me the puppy dog eyes,” I tease him lightly as I cover my eyes with my hands. “You know that I can’t resist those.”
I hear a breathy laugh escape him. “That’s the point,” he states, dropping his forehead on my bare chest.
I let my hands fall from my eyes and run them through his soft dark hair. He lets out a content sigh and I freeze at the realization of intimacy. He lifts his head gently, staring down at me with wary eyes.
“Why do you always do that?” he asks, his head tilting in unwanted curiosity.
I chew on the inside of my cheek. “What do you mean?”
“Pull away from me.” His eyebrows twitch in thought as if recalling every moment I’ve done just that. I don’t know how to explain those small parts of myself to him. He’s never made me before. I say nothing as my eyes dart back and forth between his. I don’t know what to say or how to say it in a way that will make sense to either of us. All I know is that it gets harder to do every time I’m with him. I want leaving to be easy and most of the time it is, but he deserves someone who finds it to be the most difficult thing in the world.
No one deserves to be left like this. I never want him to feel used, though that’s almost exactly what this has always been—an escape from parts of our lives we wish to forget.
Those gray eyes drop down to my lips and my heart sinks to my stomach.
Slowly—so slowly, he leans forward as if trying not to scare me off. As if he wasn’t inside of me just hours before. My breathing picks up and this suddenly feels wrong. It feels wrong to want this. Just as his lips become a breath away from my own, I turn away. When a kiss is just a kiss it feels more intimate to me than when a kiss became sex.
He leans back on his knees, and I watch his jaw clench in frustration. I quickly sit up and look at him apologetically.
I reach out to grab his hand. “Julian—”
He doesn’t pull away, but his gaze flies up to meet mine. “What? You’re sorry?”
I swallow and my throat is suddenly full of gravel. “Yes,” I tell him because it’s all the honesty I can release. Julian traces his thumb over the back of my hand. I let him. I’m a terrible person. I don’t deserve him at all. I only wonder why he hasn’t left me behind yet.
He closes his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he breathes.
My eyebrows pinch together in confusion. “What do you have to be sorry about?” I ask him quietly.
He stares down at the tattoo on my pinky finger for a moment and I resist the urge to jerk my hand away. I watch as he brings my hand up to his mouth. His lips touch my skin there and it sends chills all over my body. Then what he says next, sends me into a complete frenzy, yet my bones turn to stone.
“For falling in love with you when you told me not to,” he whispers against my skin. Before I can say anything at all—not that I can move any muscle in my body right at this moment—he stands without looking at me. I stare at the now empty spot on the bed as I hear the bathroom door close.
It hits me then. He wants me to decide.
To stay or to go.
Suddenly I’m falling and I’m flailing my arms. I’m drowning in the shallow end because I don’t know how to stand. All I can think of is how angry I am with him right now. I’m angry that he told me. I’m angry that he did exactly what I asked him not to do when we started this thing. Mostly I’m angry with myself because there is one thing that I am most undeserving of—being loved by him.
With all the strength I have left, I push myself out of his bed, feeling the mistake of letting someone into my body cling to me. Suddenly I’m hyper-aware of everything as I search for the remnants of my clothing.
I find myself gliding my back down a wall until I’m sitting on his floor, the marble tiles cold against my bare legs. I rub my palms against my eyes, surely smudging whatever is left of my makeup.
I turn my head and stare at the door—my exit. Julian is giving me an out. He’s offering a zero-confrontational goodbye and it pisses me off.
What about our work? I wasn’t just going to walk away from it that easily. Not like this. Not because he thinks he’s in love with me. He’s fallen for some falsified version of the girl who forgot how to become anything else but this, someone always leaving before they’re the one who is left.
Despite all of this, after some time passes, I stand up on shaky knees. I walk to the kitchen and fill two glasses of water. When I walk back into his bedroom, I find him sitting on the edge of his bed. He’s now wearing sweatpants and I can smell his body wash from here. If he’s shocked that I’m still here, he doesn’t show it. I don’t know why it surges panic into my veins at the thought of him regretting the way he feels about me. I’m entirely too selfish because I’m tempted to pretend just to avoid losing him.
I want to say to him,this isn’t the real me. This version isn’t real. Not in the way that matters.
I take less than graceful steps toward him. Once I’m standing in front of him, I extend a glass of water. I hate that he’s not looking at me. He takes it, bringing it to his lips and tilting back his head. I watch his throat bob as he swallows.
After a moment, I chug the entire glass of water because I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to do with my hands or my legs. Everything feels awkward between us now, and I just decide to add it to the list of things I’m angry about.
I set my empty glass down on his nightstand before taking a seat next to him. I stare at the side of his face as he stares into his glass of water.
“You can’t love me,” I tell him softly.
