“Kacey—”
“No, let me finish,” she insisted and he snapped his mouth shut. “I am so proud of you for changing, for getting sober, and being honest,” she said, the tears falling quicker. “No one is as proud of you as I am, and no one loves you the way I do. I can promise you that. I’ve wanted this for you, I’ve begged for this for you. But Jordie, you didn’t want me to help you, and that hurts. You couldn’t even text me back and just let me know you were okay. You shut me out, and that pains me more now that I know the truth than it did thinking you were fucking around and I was just one of your many sluts.”
“I didn’t tell anyone, Kacey. I held it all in and drowned myself until I got caught. And even then, I still tried to say I didn’t have a problem. I can’t change what I did. All I can do is say it won’t happen again and that I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry,” he said, and she could hear the desperation in his voice.
Holding his gaze, she could barely see him through her tear-flooded eyes. She knew he was sorry—that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that she not only felt rejected, she felt used. Closing her eyes, her tears leaked out as she said in a shaking voice, “What do you want from me, Jordie?”
She opened her eyes, the tears streaming down her face, and all she could do was think what she was going to say when he said what she expected.
“You. I want you,” he said sternly, like she knew he would, though what surprised her was that his eyes clouded with tears. But she had to stay strong.
“That’s the thing you’ve always had—me. But you used me for sex and someone to keep you warm instead of loving me back the way I loved you.”
“No, I didn’t, and I never intended for you to feel that way. I was fucked up, Kacey. I wasn’t someone even I could love. How could I expect you to love me? I’m—”
“You’re sorry,” she said for him, and he nodded. “I know, and I’ve forgiven you, Jordie, I have. But it hurts and I need to process all this before I even try to decide to give you another chance. Because, with you, I don’t think, I act, and that’s how I get in trouble. That’s what leaves me heartbroken. I just don’t understand why you couldn’t trust me enough to help you.”
“Because I was spinning out of control and I refused to take you with me, so I pushed you away. I didn’t know how to admit to you how fucked up I was. I was already a gimp, if I admitted that I was thinking of killing myself, how would you have handled it? I couldn’t expect—”
“I would have loved you. I would have helped you, but you wouldn’t allow me to.”
“Because I was too prideful, too scared of how you made me feel. And, instead of doing the right thing, I always do the wrong. I know that. What I’m asking for is another chance to do all the right things for you.”
Shaking her head, she looked down, her tears staining her shirt as his words played over and over in her head. He was saying everything she wanted. Everything she had been praying for, but something told her to step back. She couldn’t just jump in and trust that he wouldn’t hurt her again. Too much had happened for her to be so careless. But how would she ever know? A relationship hardly ever played out the way someone hoped. Love wasn’t a Cinderella tale, it was hard and it hurt.