He swore and turned away, as if she’d told him to go to hell.
She didn’t want to argue. She didn’t want to be mad and confused anymore. She just wanted to lie down. In his bed. With him. “It’s just not something I want to talk about.” Maybe if she said it calmly, reasonably enough, he’d get it through his thick skull.
“Why not?”
“B-Because.” She knew it wasn’t an answer, but she didn’t have one. Because it would be too hard, too revealing, because it would make her cry and feel weak and stupid all over again.
“Because why, Mel?” he said through gritted teeth, his hands still in fists, everything about him tense and angry, and that damn hurt, she just…she hated it. Hated being at fault for it.
“I don’t know!”
“Bull. Shit. Why wouldn’t you want to tell me why you’re upset, why you’re hurt? What possible reason do you have to keep that from me when I’m on your side, when all I’d do is support you in whatever lame way I could? Why wouldn’t you want that? Do you think I can’t? I can’t understand? I can’t be there? You think sharing your hurt with me is somehow gonna break me?”
She wanted to laugh. Break him? If she was honest and told him everything that happened, she would break. Maybe he would see that she wasn’t the person she tried so hard to be. She wasn’t the person who stayed, the person who rose above all the hard things life threw at her. She pretended, and when that got to be too much, she walked away.
She turned away from him and his anger and hurt and demands and words and everything. It was too much. “Why does it matter?” Seriously, why did it matter? What she’d felt had never mattered before.
“It matters because I care about you!”
He may as well have punched her for the force of those words, and she had to grab on to the countertop to keep upright. She couldn’t breathe for a second. Care. Care. God, why?
“Why are you surprised by that? What the hell have we been doing the past few weeks if you’re surprised by that?”
I’m not worth it. The thought made her sick to her stomach. Was she really this big of a mess she couldn’t even handle someone being kind? That’s what this was. She had helped him build his ranch, and there was an attraction there, so he thought it was more.
He’d figure it out soon enough. When he went back to hockey and his other life, he’d realize this had just been a nice passing phase. She was never going to be the thing he wanted. She was too cold and brittle to be the thing anyone wanted.
He touched her shoulder, gently, and she had to fight against the ripple of pleasure, the warmth of comfort. The insidious belief maybe he could care, maybe she wasn’t untouchable, maybe she could be something someone stayed for or worked for…
She went cold, because she already knew that wasn’t the case. “That’s very…” Her voice cracked and wouldn’t go any further until she cleared her throat, until she dug her fingertips hard into the counter to find some strength. “That’s very nice of you.”
“Nice? You think I’m being nice? Caring about you is nice?”
“Yes.”
He laughed, but it was not an amused laugh.
“It’s nice that I care about you, but run along, Daniel. You’re not needed for the hard stuff.”
She puzzled a bit at that. But she couldn’t dwell on his hurt when hers was freezing her from the inside out. “I can handle it. And I wouldn’t mind having a little space to handle it.”
“Space? Space to handle it alone? Because you don’t need me.”
“That is what I said.”
“Fuck you, Mel.” She didn’t turn, but she heard his footsteps, the door wrenched open and slammed shut.
She slumped against the counter. What was happening? Why couldn’t she get a handle on anything? Where was she supposed to go now? What was she supposed to do?
I care about you!
Wasn’t that what she wanted? Someone to care? Except that hadn’t worked with Tyler. He had cared and it had been suffocating, because she hadn’t wanted to return it.
That wasn’t the problem now. That was the opposite of the problem right now. She wanted so badly to return that caring to Dan. She already had.
Even knowing it would somehow all blow up in her face, she cared. She wanted to confide in him, and maybe that was the worst part. She wanted to give him what he wanted, but she was so afraid that would be the thing that ended it all between them.
But it was going to end anyway, right? This wasn’t ever going to be till death do us part, so at least this way…at least if he walked away over who she was, it would be…well, it would be what it always was, and she’d never be able to convince herself it was just distance and different lives.