“I want you. I’ve always wanted you. I alwayswillwant you.” He looks at me with such intensity burning in his eyes that I have to look away before I splinter into a thousand broken-hearted pieces.
He shakes his head and exhales loudly, bending forward, dropping his head into his hands. “Are you saying it was all an act to you? Everything was… what?”
“No!” I cry suddenly, cursing myself for screwing this up so badly.
I can’t let him think that this was all fake for me. There’s no way anyone can do the things we have and not feel anything. It’s just not humanly possible. And even if it was, to have love and lose it is cruel enough. But to be told by the other person that they never truly had feelings for you at all. When you gave them all of you… Well, that’s vile.
I could never do that to him.
“Of course not… It’s just… I don’t know, all right? All I know is I can’t stay here with you.”
“Jesus Christ,” he hisses, straightening back up.
My mouth goes dry and all I can do is stand and wait, steeling myself for when his eyes meet mine again.
But nothing could prepare me for the shock and disbelief that’s clear in them as he lifts his head and stares back at me. The golden flecks are burning brighter than I’ve ever seen them.
Bright enough to see right through me and my lie if I stay here too long.
I fight to keep my voice even.
“I’m going to pack my things, Reed. And then I’m going to leave. This is what was always meant to happen. You are the mayor, just like you wanted. I got money to help my family, just like I needed. The rest was… a surprise… and I… I don’t know… It’s just all too much for me right now. It’s best if I go. I need some time alone. And you’ll concentrate on work better without me.”
I sound pathetic. I know I do. None of what I’m saying makes sense. How can you go from what we had to saying you want to leave? There’s just no logic to it. But then, relationships and emotions defy logic most of the time. The only hope I have of convincing Reed I genuinely need this time apart is for him to accept it makes no sense. But that it is at least, real. And I mean it when I say I have to go.
Because I do.
That much has never been truer.
“That’s it?” He jolts back like I’ve struck him. “That’s fucking it?!”
I wince, watching the flames take hold, as though they’re preparing to burn anything Reed felt for me straight out of his heart.
All I see is rage.
He hates me.
“I can’t stay here, Reed. I can’t be with you right now. I’m sorry.” My throat is thick, like I could choke on my own deceit at any second. Lie after lie, protecting the small truths that are mixed in. Preventing him from seeing what’s really going on.
That I’m leaving because I love him.
Because I’m in love with him.
“After everything, you just want to walk away?” His lips curl down as he sucks in a breath through his nose.
“I—”
“You’re supposed to be with me, Harley. You know that. Everyone who knows us can see it. They saw it months before we did. Where is all this coming from?” He moves toward me, and I hold a hand up, afraid that I will lose my nerve if he touches me. That I will crumble into him and confess everything.
About the video.
About his past.
About how being with me could lead to it all being used against him in the worst way.
That I will be the ruin of him.
“Don’t, Reed. Please.”