I followed her movements with my eyes. “You never said anything about needing space. You haven't said much of anything. What am I supposed to think?”
“So this is how it’s going to be? I’m going to spend the rest of my life worrying that if I withdraw a little from you, you’re going to immediately assume I’m fucking around on the side? I can’t live that way, Adam. I shouldn’t have to analyze everything I do for how it’s going to affect you. Sometimes I need to do things because they’re right for me.”
“Ignoring your boyfriend is right for you?” I stood, her coffee table separating us. “Christ, you are still so selfish. You only ever think about what you want. Well here’s a newsflash: maybe you should spend a little time analyzing how things are going to affect me. If you’d done more of that last year, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in right now.”
She just stared at me for a minute, her face contorting as if she were truly seeing me for the first time. And that was just fine, because as far as I was concerned, this was my first time seeing her as well.
When she finally spoke, her voice was low and calm, a complete contradiction to the fire and brimstone in her eyes. “You said you weren’t going to do that anymore.”
“Do what?” I ground out.
“Throw the past in my face. But you can’t help it, can you? I wonder, is it the first thing that pops into your head whenever you think of me? Or just when I do something you don’t like?”
“What are you talking about?” My voice was laced with incredulity, as if I thought she were crazy. But she wasn’t. I knew exactly what she was asking, and she wasn’t wrong for asking it. I had to get over these insecurities. And while I knew I put up a good front for Lily, I knew that the reality was I was far from over them. It sometimes felt like I was waiting for her to hurt me again. I resented myself for it, but I had to admit, a part of me resented her for it too.
“The pain, the betrayal, the bullshit. Can you even look at me without seeing it?”
The only sound in the room was that of our labored breaths, fuming like dragons. My mouth was suddenly arid, and my brain sputtered. I couldn’t ask her for the truth and not give her the same courtesy. Still, I had to force the word from my body. “No.”
Her shoulders sagged as though they were about to cave into her chest. I saw the glistening in her eyes, and both cursed myself for putting the tears there and celebrated that I had wounded her like she’d wounded me.
“Then why the hell are you with me?” Despite the fallen look on her face, her voice was steel.
“Because I love you.” I stated the words simply because they were that simple for me. They were the reason I’d put my pride aside and given her a second chance.
“You really think that’s enough?”
I couldn't tell if she was genuinely asking me or implying that I was naive. "Yes." Was she really telling me that my love for her wasn’t enough? After everything, was she saying that I wasn’t good enough? Where the hell does she get off? “Listen, you’re the one who broke us. What we had was perfect and you ruined all of that.”
“How can you possibly call what we had perfect? You basically hid me for the duration of our relationship. And I understand that you have a built-in excuse, not wanting to make things difficult for Eva, but that’s what it was, Adam. An excuse.”
Her words stung my ears as I heard them, and I hoped they hurt her just as much leaving her mouth. It was no secret that our relationship was anything but perfect now. But for some reason, I took comfort in believing that the problems we now faced were a direct result of her previous actions. That belief made our current struggles easier to swallow because I had somewhere to place the blame. It was almost as if the idea that we had been perfect meant that we could be perfect again someday. It was that hope that had kept me going, kept me thinking that this was all worth fighting for. I had never even considered that maybe we were never that perfect to begin with. And the thought of what that could mean for our current relationship scared me.