“Don’t leave.” He hangs his head on my shoulder, his heart beating wildly at my back, his scent engulfing me as angry tears emerge.
“We can’t work now. I’m not what you need.” He pulls at my arm, so I’m facing him and desperately tries to wipe my tears with his fingers. I jerk away from him. “Don’t touch me.”
“Don’t say that. Fuck. Please don’t ever say that to me again. I fucked up. Jesus, I fucked up.”
“I can’t watch you destroy yourself anymore.”
“It ends now. I swear. I’ll make it up to you. I’m still in here somewhere. I’m still the man you fell in love with.” He places his hands on his chest. “I’ll do anything, I’ll be anyone, Harper, don’t leave.”
“I can’t help you. You won’t let me. I need to save myself before you ruin me for good.”
“I won’t.”
“You just did. God, you bastard,” I sniff, wiping my nose with my sleeve, “you already did.”
Hot tears run down my cheeks as I try to steady myself. “You know, no matter how ugly it got, I was never afraid of you. Never, until tonight. And now I know what you’re capable of doing to me.” I cup my chest. “I can’t take it, okay? I just can’t. I’m not a worthy opponent, not at all. We agree on that.”
“Not true.” He rakes a hand through his hair, and I see freshly dried blood on his knuckles and know it has nothing to do with his fight with Mark. “This is the worst I can do. Harper, I swear it.”
“Move your truck.” He tilts my chin, and I rip it away from his grip. “Let me go.”
“Never. Never again. Fucking ever.”
“You’ve been humiliating me since I set foot here, dead set on pushing me away. Mission accomplished.”
I turn and open the door, and he closes it again.
“Don’t…” he chokes out. His chest at my back as he closes in, pressing me to the door, his arms capturing my lower half. I exhale as he wraps himself around me. Silence lingers, and then I hear the hitch of his breath. “Jesus…don’t go…I fucking… I n-need you.”
He’s beautifully broken, the floodgates opening as he cries out his apology. “I don’t deserve you,” he weeps against me.
“Lance—”
“I c-can’t do this without you, Harper. I’m just so fucked up. I’ve been a slave to money my whole goddamned life. It’s ruining me. The lack of it is ruining my family. Dad, I f-found him…” his chest bounces against my back, and it’s all I can do to keep standing. “I found him with a g-gun. He…if he gives up.” The lift of his voice followed by the agonizing sob that leaves him is too much to bear, and I grip his hands feeling every second of it with him. “I don’t…I can’t keep fighting if I can’t see the end. This is the worst I can do.”
He crushes me to him. “It wasn’t true. P-please don’t believe the lie. I w-want to marry you. I want to grow old laughing with you, Harper. I’ve never loved anyone so much in my life. No one can love me like you do. No woman could or will ever be you. That’s why I went to New York. God…I-I-I just never wanted you to see me like this.” He buries himself in the back of my neck, his tears soaking me, my heart. “Your opinion is the only one that has ever fucking mattered to me. P-please. Don’t, d-don’t leave.” He beats on the top of my rental. “I don’t have the words! I still don’t have the fucking words! Tell me what they are. P-please, tell me what they are.”
Defeated for the second time tonight, I turn in his arms and pull him to me before we slide down the side of my car. He’s still wrapped around me, and I lay drenched in his confessions, my mind reeling. “You just said them, Lance. You just said them.”
I pull him tighter to me, and he clings to me for life where I am his anchor, his face buried in my neck, his own body shaking with release.
“I’m so fucking tired,” he croaks, breaking me further along with him as I try to steady myself. He’s hitting rock bottom, and I’m relieved it’s happening. It was always going to happen. It was just a matter of when.
“I’m spiraling,” he whispers hoarsely, “And I can’t seem to come out of it. I’m so sorry. Please don’t stop loving me back.”
“I’m so mad at you,” I sob, thrusting my fingers in his hair and tugging at it until bloodshot eyes meet mine. We’re both hemorrhaging, the pain of the past eating us alive, our need for the other undeniable. And I won’t. I refuse to deny that a large part of my happiness is in his hands. And I gave it all to him. All of it, because he is worthy, even if he isn’t acting like it.
Nothing else matters but putting our pieces back together. Not my hurt tonight or those of the past.
He lashed out in anger, and I felt it. But I fell for a man with a horrible temper, and I knew someday I’d have to face his demons with him.
It stung worse t
han anything I’ve ever felt. But the hardest part of a fight is staying when it’s over, no matter the outcome. The sweep up of the aftermath, and then finding the will to fight again. He is my will, and I am his. This is where I show up if I want to prove it. I run my fingers through the dark locks on his forehead.
“I’m so fucking tired, baby. I’m so…tired.”
“It’s okay, Lance. Breathe. Just breathe.”