“I would’ve killed that guard if I hadn’t been pulled off,” he continued. “I went to that same place my dad did. I snapped—and I could snap again.”
Something pulled deep in my belly. Manning didn’t just believe he was bad. He lived it. I could see it right there in his face, hear it in his words. He and I together would be explosive, and that was why he put distance between us. “Not with me, Manning. You don’t scare me, no matter how hard you try to.”
“I’m not trying to scare you—I’m trying to show you.” He began to pace. “I want to be a good man, Lake. I want to help people, not hurt them. I can’t do that for you, but I can for Tiffany. Getting lost in you could mean losing my control, too. I could do to you what my dad did to my mom and to—” He stopped and sucked in a breath, unable to say Maddy’s name. He didn’t need to. She was here between us, her presence strong like it’d been in the truck. “Always, in the back of mind, are all the ways I could hurt you just by loving you,” he said to me. “Not only because I come from a violent background, but because I’d be holding you back.”
In the distance, my friends hollered and laughed, probably taking beer bongs or fighting over the stereo. “That’s not true.”
“What can I offer you right now?” he asked.
“Love,” I said weakly, but I knew what he’d say.
It wasn’t enough.
His eyes darted over my face. “Do you want to keep up the same euphoric highs and crash-and-burn lows we’ve already put ourselves through the past two years? Because they’d only get more extreme, and that scares me. My greatest fear is becoming my dad. I can’t be the one who steals your future . . . or your innocence.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Okay. Maybe I can.” He squinted out toward the black horizon. “But would you let me?”
I opened my mouth to say, not only would I let him, but I’d beg if he wanted. Take me as I am, and we’ll figure out the rest. But the truth was, I didn’t know the rest. I couldn’t say with absolute certainty that we’d be okay. In my mind, the two of us were tangled sheets and big love and hours of tracing every part of the bodies we’d fantasized about. Where did school and money and work factor into all that? I realized that whatever guilt I felt when my family turned me out, Manning would blame himself. Whatever problems arose in our relationship, Manning would shoulder them, even though he’d warned me against them. And if we had those blow-out fights, and Manning did anything to say or hurt me, even by accident, he’d convince himself he’d become his dad. Ironically, in the end, it was me who could turn Manning into his father, and Tiffany who’d helped Manning believe he was a good man.
I didn’t know what to say but the only thing that made any sense to me. “You’re what I want.”
“But I can’t be what you need. Still, after everything I just said, knowing all the ways it could go wrong, knowing the man it would turn me into to love you and to ruin you . . .” He ran his hand over his face, as if forcing the words out. “If you ask me to choose you, I will—even if it could ultimately destroy me.”
I remembered the night we’d almost gotten caught in the truck, how childish I’d felt for how I’d acted. He’d asked me not to do it, but I had. He’d been led away in handcuffs, he’d stunted his future, because I’d wanted something and hadn’t considered the consequences.
“You don’t care how hard it’s been for me.”
Of course I cared. The only thing I wanted more than my happiness was his. A lump formed in my throat as everything I’d known to be true shifted. These past two years, I thought I’d been brave. Strong. Loved. I’d only been selfish to think Manning wanted me to fight for him, when instead, pushing him only hurt him.
I turned my head and tried in vain to hide the endless stream of tears streaking down my cheeks. My sister stood by the fire, arms curled around her waist, watching us. Tonight, he’d be walking back to her. I covered my face, my world crumbling.
Manning let me stand there and cry into my palms. He didn’t comfort me, and I finally understood how it would be unfair of me to ask him to. Through my fingers and the blur of my tears, I noticed my missing anklet. The bracelet I’d made for Manning had fallen off, probably with the licks of the ocean. It was done. We were done. Only my pain persisted.