The words are quiet, like even he’s afraid of the answer. The softness in his tone colliding at me with the force of a tsunami.
My chest tightens around my ribs. Stalling, my limbs twitch on the handle, but I don’t move. I can’t.
“You’re never going to let me back in like before? Are you? No matter what I do, how hard I try. It’s never going to be enough for you.”
His mouth parts on a crippling breath, and it’s like he’s taken all the oxygen with him because I’m being pulled under. Sabotaged by his confession.
My eyes slam closed. A single tear manages to slip out against my will. The brokenness in his words killing me dead.
He chuckles, but it’s filled with only hopelessness. The material on his steering wheel groans as his hands tighten, gripping around the leather.
“Know what the crazy thing is, baby girl? You’ve always had me. Even before everything.” He hits something, and it’s loud. Another tear slips past. “I should’ve been the one you called tonight, and deep down, I know you know that too. You wanted to.”
That pitter-patter sound? That’s my insides slamming into my chest. Begging to push through. Cole’s desperation tearing me apart even as I cling to it like a lifeline.
“But you didn’t, did you?” The words were ghostly on his lips. “You chose someone else. You chose someone else when it should’ve been me.”
If it’s possible to feel stable but be completely lifeless, then that’s what I am.
My chin wobbles. Panicked because I know he’s right. Afraid because I barely survived letting him in once, and if I do fully let him in, all of me, I know I won’t recover if he hurts me again. And then there’s the fact that I’m downright petrified to admit that he means more to me than anyone else ever has before.
So, there you have it. The honest truth.
No callousness, hint of joy, nothing but the raw facts.
Cole lets out a winded, disappointed sigh. “Go inside. I’ll be back later.” His voice doesn’t shake once, but that’s all I can manage to do.
I’m already inside the house and nearly to my room before he can finish the sentence. Putting as much distance between us as I can possibly manage.
I go to my bathroom, desperately trying to put that much more length. Inches are miles tonight.
Even after I hear the rumble of his engine outside. Trembling, I know he’s gone and I’m relieved but also upset because he didn’t stay. I don’t want to be alone tonight.
What is wrong with me?
My throat clogs, stinging as more tears fall when I catch myself in the mirror. Ripping off my shirt, it ricochets off the opposite wall at my grunt. Snatching my hair back and pulling in frustration. The purplish-black marks on either side of my neck are worse than I could have imagined.
Suddenly, I don’t blame Cole for reacting how he had. I’m angry too.
If anything, it was mild compared to how I’d seen him before. Before, he’d obliterate the entire street corner until he found the culprit without blinking an eye.
The tears fall harder.
How have I not realized it before? In all this time?
The mirage I’ve been chasing has really been disclosing the truth.
While I’ve been giving up, Cole’s been changing. Becoming a better version of himself every day. A better manforme. The person I needed him to be.
My hand finds my mouth, fat drops breaking past as the walls of my once carefully constructed dam crumble. The high foundation obliterated before my very eyes.
The old Cole would have exploded. He was upset, but who wouldn’t be after seeing the marks on my neck? This Cole didn’t do anything but take me home when I asked. Doing so without repercussions. Without the answers he begged me for.
Same with giving me his blazer, my car, bandaging my ankle, setting up my phone? The list goes on and on. Doing these things for me without a hidden agenda or motive.
The intent behind every action moral. I’d been there for every single one, but I wasn’t seeing. Now I am.
My eyes are open, awake with their clarity.