Would he look at me differently if I told him?
20
Izzy
My gut wrenched, my heart breaking all over again at the thought of telling the man I was falling for about the first man I’d ever loved.
“It was just a way of him saying goodbye to me.” I tried to brush it off even though my body shook with the pain of remembering that day, his written words, his lifeless form.
“That all it said?” He stepped close, caging me in against the hallway wall.
“I can’t say it out loud,” I whispered, about to break. My body shook from trying to hold in my sobs, trying to overcome the emotion that fought to escape. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
This could have been the moment Cade broke me. He could have told me to buck up or said this was why he didn’t trust me with more at work.
He could have said so many things. But he didn’t.
As he stared at me, his hand came up to rub my cheek. He didn’t look through me or glance away from me. He held my gaze like he wanted more. He wanted everything. He wanted my soul, and he couldn’t hack into my mind to get it. Here, he had to ask if he wanted this side of me.
And I had to say yes.
He held out his phone. “If you can’t talk about it, put it in writing on a screen and let me read it.”
I took my time typing in his Notes app, tears streaming down my face. Yet, Cade wiped them away, one by one, over and over again. Patiently, softly, caringly.
Line 1: I won’t say this is a love letter, because it’s not.
Line 2: But if I were to have written one, it would have been about you.
Line 3: So, don’t blame yourself.
Line 4: You’re too good for this place by me.
Line 5: I probably should have let you go before all this.
Line 6: But I couldn’t. You were the only one who loved me.
Line 7: All that love around you. I just wanted a sliver.
Line 8: It fucked with my head and made me weak, so weak I held onto you.
Line 9: You think I’m strong to do this? Or a coward?
Line 10: Maybe if I tell you to move on, I’ll be strong but...
Line 11: I’m too jealous and our love ain’t healthy
Line 12: Get a love that isn’t dangerous like ours
Line 13: I’m sorry for the mess.
Line 14: But I’m letting you go now.
“He was dramatic and poetic,” I whispered as I handed him the phone. “I’ve memorized every line, and sometimes I just scramble them all up in hopes that it will mean something different.”
He did what he always did when he was avoiding words: he hummed to give us both a moment to digest what was happening.
I showed him my darkest secret, trusted him with a part of me I didn’t want anybody to see.He had the power now. I’d given it all to him.