Today, he isn’t making demands of me.
Today, he doesn’t ask me to love him.
Today, he’s gentle with my mind.
But I’m so exhausted. This is getting so hard. I know I’m making it hard, but I can’t stop. I can’t stop carrying the guilt. Anytime I’m tempted to let go, to give Mateo the forgiveness he wants from me, I flagellate myself with memories. I remind myself that because of me, because of us, Vince doesn’t get to move on.
It’s not even about punishing Mateo anymore. I don’t want to punish him; I want to love him. But I can’t. I hate myself too much when I start to feel those feelings again. And that’s where we are—at an impasse.
“Would you forgive me if it was only you I hurt?”
He doesn’t usually ask me things like this when he’s being sexual, so I’m taken off-guard, but I turn my face to look over at him. “I always forgive you for hurting only me.”
It seems like that was the answer he expected, but he doesn’t like it. “It doesn’t make you feel bad about yourself?”
“No, not like this,” I answer, mildly. “It’s my experience. I’ll decide for myself how to respond to it.”
He moves in to kiss me, but I turn my face, not letting him connect.
It’s been a month today. One whole month without Vince. I think about it off and on, when he doesn’t have me thoroughly distracted.
He’s not trying to accelerate things right now; he’s just toying with me idly. Just wanting to touch me, to connect. Wanting to access me in the only way I always let him.
Only now he withdraws his hand and withdraws from me. He moves back to his own side of the bed and stares up at the ceiling. I steal a glance over at him, trying not to turn my head so he doesn’t see. It makes me miserable. He looks done.
It makes me ache.
It makes me want to crawl across the bed and kiss him. Apologize for not kissing him back. Touch him. Mold myself against him until he’s consuming me again.
I wish it could last. It could’ve lasted.
It’s sort of hilarious, in a karmic way. I couldn’t give myself to Vince because I was so hung up on Mateo, and now that I finally get Mateo, I can’t give myself to him because I’m too hung up on Vince.
“You’re never going to forgive me, are you?”
My stomach drops. I don’t want to answer that. I’ve already answered it, and I don’t want to do it again. I don’t want to tell him no, and I can’t tell him yes. I think I could forgive him, somehow, but if I did, I’d never forgive myself.
Swallowing the sudden lump in my throat, fighting the sting of tears, I tell him, “I wish I could.”
“So, this is the line. This is the line I couldn’t cross.”
“I tried to tell you that,” I remind him, quietly. I’m not trying to rub it in, I just wish more than anything he would’ve believed me. When you’re soft, people think you’re weak. He thought he could brush past this. He thought I was so flimsy, so workable. He overestimated my pliability.
Glancing over at me, he says, “You know, Adrian called your love unconditional. That’s what he thought. It’s what I thought, too. It made me more comfortable trusting you than Meg. I guess I was wrong about you.”
My heart nearly stops at this. I feel like he just socked me in the stomach. It takes a minute for his words to sink in, for the look on his face to register, because he’s never looked at me that way before.
When it hits me, I feel gutted.
I’ve disappointed him. I’ve let him down.
Mateo is disappointed in me.
I want to throw up.
My insides feel shaky, but I push myself up on my arm, moving a fraction of an inch closer to him. I hate how small my voice is, but I can’t seem to muster much volume as I say feebly, “You weren’t wrong about me.”
“I was,” he says. He offers me a little smile, but it’s a sad smile, like he’s already accepted it. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I expected too much from you. You impressed the hell out of me, took me by surprise. I thought you could handle me.”
He’s making me feel… I can’t even put into words how awful he’s making me feel. I reject all of this, every single thing he’s saying.
And then I’m surer than ever that he’s done when he sighs. “Oh well. We tried. Now we know. It was just a fantasy.”
He goes to sit up, and I shove myself upright, too. “It wasn’t a fantasy. That’s not true. Don’t say that. What I felt was real. It was so real. I’ve never felt anything so real.”