“But what?” Her voice takes on an edge, something different there I’ve never heard before. “But you can’t give me some time to work through my issues with my mother? It’s not easy for me, Warren. It’s not fair to push me this hard. You don’t understand what it’s like to want to impress someone—to want to have someone’s approval and love so bad that you work your whole life for it, and then when your life changes in the best way and they don’t approve, how much it kills me inside.”
I’m grateful that the boys are gone tonight, and I don’t have to do this with an audience, with their input, because that would make this ten times worse.
“I know exactly how that feels. My dad has never approved—”
“Your dad went out of his way to make sure he showed his support for you,” she says, her voice hard and determined and her words… very true.
I sigh, shaking my head. “Well, it hasn’t always been like that. I had to make it clear to my father that I wasn’t going to do what he wanted just because he approved of it.” Her eyes slip closed and I notice dark circles under her eyes.She’s not sleeping.I know the feeling, because I haven’t been either. “Do you love me?”
“Of course, I do.” She takes a step closer and I tense. She notices right away. “Warren.”
“I—” I blow out a breath and throw my hand toward my room and say, “I have a lot of work to do. Maybe… maybe after the show, we can regroup.”
“What? Regroup?” Her head tilts and her eyes, the eyes that had been glued to my face since she walked in, shutter and fall to the floor.
“I don’t mean break up.” I take that step toward her, the one I should have taken at the beginning and something niggles at the back of my mind when she’s the one to step back. Something akin to panic locks its claws into my heart.Fuck, I’m an asshole.
“You do, though. You do mean break up.” Her voice cracks.
“No,” I say sternly and take another step, all the while watching her feet dance away from mine, not letting me get closer. “We just have stuff to work out, Janie.”
“Don’t lie, Warren,” she responds and turns, gripping the knob in her hand.
“I’m not,” I insist, moving up behind her and caging her in. Again, her scent tickles my nose and I press a kiss to her hair. “I’m not lying, Jane.”
“You’re asking for a break,” she replies, keeping her back to me. From where I’m standing, I can see her eyes close, feel her body go rigid.
“Just… we’ve got to get your mom off our backs. But I need to get through this show.”
Even to my own ears I can hear how pathetic it sounds, but now that we’re here, with her walking away, I can’t seem to let her go. A life without her would be no life at all.
“I get it.” She turns the door handle and pulls it open; I step back to let her go. For now, just let her go for now.
When she’s halfway to the elevator, I call, “You’ll be at the show, right?”
She pauses and turns, giving me a half smile. “Of course. Wouldn’t miss it.”
Jane continues to the elevator and when the door closes, I realize how empty her voice sounded, how unlike Jane it was to not have the glittering smile on her face, a happy glow that surrounds her, and that pep in her step that always makes me smile.
I realize I may have just really fucked things up.
Chapter Fifty-One
“The heart wants what it wants – or else it does not care.”
-Emily Dickinson
Jane
There’s this weird switch that happens when you lose something important to you.
It’s like this tiny piece—or maybe a large piece—of you dies when someone you love basically calls it quits. I never saw it coming.
Though, I really, really should have.
It wasn’t often that I had people close to me, but over the last few months, Warren had seen every facet of me. Every flaw, every mark, every burden I carried. Add to that, I also felt like with him putting distance between us, I was also losing a group of friends that I had really come to love.
But I couldn’t think about that now. Not when I needed to face something else that was weighing on me, weighing on my relationship.