Slowly, my hurt, wounded feelings are converting to anger. It feels like he never listens to me, and it’s also almost like he’s looking for reasons to be mad at me when there isn’t a need for him to feel that way. So he doesn’t want me to meet his mom. Is it really that hard to just simply answer my question and leave it at that?
“I don’t want to hear it,” he says.
I swallow hard. “Why not?” I ask.
“If it’s not safe to tell me, why bother?”
“Maybe because it would help you to understand me more.”
“Maybe I don’t want to understand someone who would stab me with a dagger and twist the blade.”
I can’t help it. I gape at him and shake my head. “Are you kidding me? All you had to do was say no. It was a simple question, and I respect no. It’s a sentence. You don’t have to explain yourself.”
“Why would you want to meet her? I left her. I abandoned her to her drugs, and she might even be dead for all I know.” He scowls.
Some of his anger, I think, isn’t really directed at me. He’s not comfortable with his abandoning her, and he might even regret it. If she does die, he’ll never forgive himself.
I should probably push this, but he’s not ready. Not now, and he honestly probably won’t be ever, and it’s not my call. It’s his choice. It has to be.
“I wish one of us had a normal parent,” I say bitterly. “Not even my mom is completely with it. I mean, the money she’s using to get away from my father… it’s money that they had in a shared account that she drained, and you want to know how he got that money? It’s—”
“It’s from that secret that isn’t safe to tell me, isn’t it?” he asks.
“Ah, yes, actually.”
“So don’t tell me. I’m not interested. I don’t want to be sucked into your darkness.”
I curl my fingers into tight fists. “I am not dark and twisty inside!”
“Are you so sure about that?”
“Zac thinks…”
“What about Zac?”
I clam up.
“You never had to avoid them. Do you know that they didn’t care for that? I figured you would come around, come over, see them, that we could all hang out, that my friends could be your friends, but it’s rather telling, don’t you think, that you felt like you had to avoid them to make sure you didn’t do something… like your father?”
“It wasn’t like that at all!” I blurt out.
“Really? Because that’s what I think, and your face… your expression… I don’t know. I don’t think you’re as good of a liar as you think you are. Or you’re only good at lying to yourself.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. When I open them, I’m even more furious. “You have no right to say that to me.”
“No? Look. I think we need to…”
I rub the back of my neck. Here it comes.
“Don’t be a coward, Rob. Say what’s on your mind.”
He grits his teeth. “We can’t be together.”
“No?”
“No.”
"Why don't you reconsider? How about this? We can be more casual, maybe. Not exclusive. Move slower. Or not. We can still sleep together."