No means no, though, and I respect that. He doesn’t want to fuck, and yeah, the rejection stings, but I’m not going to be a little bitch about it. Guys can withdraw consent, too. He doesn’t owe me an explanation.
I tell myself it’s better this way. I was caught up in the moment, in my attraction to him. I don’t actually want to have sex with a guy who doesn’t—or can’t—feel about me the way I want him to. Being rejected still hurt my pride, though.
We pull back into town in silence, moving along the quiet streets the way we came. The air in the car is different, though, depleted of the charge that filled it on the way here. At last, Royal pulls up into the lot, driving to the very back, behind the factory. There are only a handful of cars left. On a little stretch of dead grass, someone has made a fire from pallets, and a few dozen people stand or sit around it on canvas chairs.
“You going to tell me what happened back there?” I ask, hating myself for needing to know, for not being cool enough to let it go and ask no questions, the way I could with Maverick. But Royal is not Mav. The way I feel about him is already deeper than anything I felt for Maverick, more explosive, more desperate. It scares me to feel this way, to want so much from someone.
“No,” Royal says, getting out of the car and slamming the door.
“Okay then,” I mutter, unbuckling my seatbelt. I take a deep breath and try to harden my heart, to remind myself I don’t need anyone, that I already know I can’t count on anyone, Royal least of all.
My door opens, and he takes my hand and pulls me up. He smooths my hair behind my ears with both hands, his fingers lingering on my cheeks until I look up at him.
“Don’t ask me questions I can’t answer, Harper,” he says.
“Can’t, or don’t want to?” I whisper.
“Onesyoudon’t want me to,” he says. “It’s the last night of Bye Week. You can accept that and spend it with me, or you can go home.”
“Does it matter?” I ask. “If I go or stay, nothing will be any different tomorrow, will it?”
He swallows, his dark eyes searching mine for a long moment.
“No,” he admits. “It doesn’t change anything.”
Now it’s my turn to swallow hard, suddenly sure I’m going to cry, and that will change everything. “I should go,” I say, tearing my gaze from his and sidestepping him.
He closes the door, his hand catching my elbow. His grip is gentle this time, and he doesn’t turn me to face him, doesn’t force me to look into his eyes. “Stay,” he says quietly.
We stand there a long moment, neither of us moving, neither speaking. I imagine going to the fire to join our friends, sitting on his lap like we’re a couple as mismatched as Cinderella with her tattooed prince charming, staying up until morning lights up the sky, holding onto this night until every minute is gone. I imagine drinking a few beers, joining the quiet murmur of voices like nothing is wrong, like there’s only tonight, a night when boundaries disappear. Tomorrow, it will be like it never happened, so none of it matters.
“Give me a reason,” I say at last, my back still to him. I try not to sound like I need it, but I can hear the edge of desperation beneath the hopelessness in my own voice. Tears press inside me like lava threatening to erupt, to rip me open from the inside out.
He’s silent a minute, and then he drops his hand from my arm. “I can’t.”
His own voice is quiet and flat, empty of the emotion that choked mine.
I take a slow breath, then square my shoulders and walk away. There’s no use in staying, in prolonging the inevitable. I let myself live in the moment tonight, and I’m already paying. Yes, there were beautiful moments. I went after what I wanted. I didn’t just have a good time. I hadfunfor the first time in too long. After that, when we were together by the bridge, I got swept away, and that’s something I don’t do.
And this is the price of that.
This moment is ugly and painful like the shards of broken glass digging into the mud in the ditch as I step over it and head for reality.
I tell myself I’m not making a mistake. I force myself not to look back.
I feel things for Royal that I’ve never felt before, complicated, terrifying things. But if he can’t give me a reason to stay, I can’t stay. There’s a gulf between us, a chasm of blackness that fills us both, and if one of us tried to step across, we’d be swallowed whole. We’re too much alike, with no light to balance out the darkness inside us.
I step into my silent house and pull the door closed behind me. For once, I’m not relieved to find Mom gone, probably passed out drunk on a friend’s couch or up all night smoking crack with a new boyfriend. The house is too quiet without the intoxicated snores of her and her skeezy men. I turn on every light in the house, but it still feels too dark, too empty. I turn off the lights again and lie in bed, pressing my fist to my chest, trying to crush out the ache of loneliness that grows inside me like a cancer.
“I don’t need him,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “I don’t need anyone.”
A tear creeps out the corner of my eye. I don’t even believe my own lies anymore.
He said nothing will change, but he’s wrong.
It’s already changed.
*