Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 85228 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85228 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
I hate how easily he affects me.
I had my mind made up. I was going to leave the area, maybe move to some place where the air doesn't hurt my face. I was set on the idea, and now just the sight of him makes me ache for something I'll never have.
Nolan is mad at him. I'm sure the man believes that what happened between Roman and me is likely one of the reasons I feel the urge to suddenly leave town. I imagine Nolan followed him up to his room demanding that he fix it so I'll stay.
It can't happen. I don't think there's a way to fix any of it, us, me, him... we just... are.
"Roman," I say, my voice trembling as much as my breathing.
He takes a step forward, his hand reaching up to cup my jaw.
I nearly crack right down the center, and wouldn't the two pieces of me in the driveway be impossible to explain to the people inside?
Anger swells inside of me. The truth hurt me right to the center of my being, but any form of manipulation is enough to make me want to stomp on his boot and knee him in the nuts.
"Enough," I growl as I take a step back, hating the way he so easily looks saddened by my response to him.
"Caitlyn," he whispers, and I falter.
Only he's looking down at the ground rather than using his eyes to plead.
It seems superficial, another way he's trying to manage me.
"The other night," he begins.
"Was a big mistake," I interrupt. "I was trying to say goodbye. It was nothing more than that."
"It was—"
"A mistake," I repeat, swiping at tears as they fall from my eyes.
I truly went into his room knowing if anything happened between us that it was closing a door. It only made me want him more. Knowing about his loss made me want to cradle him to my chest and promise him that everything would be okay, but how narcissistic does that make me? Thinking I could ease any amount of pain after losing two children and his wife in a house fire was beyond egotistical.
"You were different," I manage. "I hate touch, but I craved yours. I wanted your hands on my body. I felt like I needed it as if I wouldn't survive without it, and I stupidly fed that need without consideration of how it might make you feel. I placed expectations on you without considering what your own needs might be. It was wrong. I can't make you care for me the way I care for you, and I don't even know if it's true care, Roman, or if I'm just clinging to someone who can touch me and not make me freak out for the first time in my life."
"I care for you," he whispers as if the confession pains him, as if it's a betrayal of the memory of his family, as if he hates me because he shouldn't.
I pause, waiting for him to continue, but he offers nothing else, and I've spent too much of my time imagining and wishing things were different. As humans, we tend to learn very early in life that we don't always get what we want. Things don't always work out the way we'd like them to. This is no different, no matter how much the realization hurts.
"It doesn't matter," I say, finally capable of locking my teary eyes on his. "I want to be loved and I know you can't give that to me."
I swallow down the pain of finally saying it out loud, feeling like a knife has been plunged into my chest when he doesn't correct me.
His care could simply be the same concern he'd have for any other person he helped. I could easily be someone on the side of the road with a flat tire, not a woman he has been inside of more than once. There's nothing special about me at all, and I have to be okay with it. My expectations of what I want in life aren't something I can drop at his feet and have hopes about. It wouldn't be fair the other way around if I were the one not reciprocating his feelings. If anything it would make me more like the man who followed me home, and that thought makes my stomach turn.
I do think I need to spend more time listening to my head rather than my body. Clinging to him just because he doesn't make my skin crawl seems like bottom-of-the-barrel expectations for myself, and do I know him well enough to care for him on more than a skin-deep level?
Different parts of my being want to argue both directions, and I’m not sure which one would cause me the least amount of pain.
"Zeus told me about your family," I say, hating to pull this out right now, but I know it could create enough distance between us that I could manage to take a full breath. "I know there are some things people just can't get over, and it isn't fair of me to be upset with you over how you process your journey with grief."