She took a step away from the counter, and then another, moving toward me until only inches separated us. “I want you to say it.”
Voice rough as gravel, I asked a question I already knew the answer to. “What?”
I knew what she wanted from me. She wanted words I couldn’t fucking bring myself to say. Her closeness was goddamn intoxicating, messing with my head, with my reasoning and resolve. Making me question what the fuck I was doing.
Eyes blazing, she opened her lips. “I want to hear you say you don’t love me anymore.”
Fuck. My chest heaved as I looked down at her. Feelings and emotions battered me like a hurricane against storm shutters.
“Everything ends, Riley. Sooner or later. Might as well get it over with.”
“Eventually,” she agreed, running the tip of her tongue along her top lip, just to drive me to the fucking brink of my control it seemed. “But what about the middle part? You miss out on so much if you cut right to the end. I want the middle, Maddox. We deserve that.”
My lungs faltered at the unfamiliar sound of my given name on her lips. Fuck, I liked it. Too much.
“I already know how it ends. Everything in between is me waiting for the day you leave me.”
“Where am I going?” She breathed softly, pinkie finger reaching out to snag mine, interlacing them together. I swallowed roughly, that small touch sparking like a current. I withdrew my hand, severing the link.
“Anywhere. Nowhere. Doesn’t matter. You. Will. Leave.”
The affection in her gaze, in the light touch of her skin to mine, was unwavering and uncompromising. But I couldn’t look at it, didn’t want it. I wanted nothing else to lose. Stepping back, I broke the connection between us, my eyes hard, unyielding.
“I’m saving us both a fuck load of heartache, Riley. You’ll thank me one day.”
A light smirk touched her lips. The sight of it was so unexpected, I didn’t know how to react.
“You can’t say it, can you?”
Realization sent my head downward, hanging heavily from my shoulders. I don’t fucking love you. They were just words. I couldn’t say them. Not now, maybe never. But it changed nothing. Love was a weakness. One I didn’t want.
She drifted backward toward the door, still facing me as her hand closed around the handle.
“I realized something tonight. We’re both scared. Scared to give someone else the power to hurt us. But it’s too late for me. I’m already there. I meant it when I told you I loved you. I can’t just give up on that. Someone told me tonight that you might still feel the same way.” Her throat bobbed delicately as she swallowed. “If that’s not true anymore, then okay, I’ll walk away. But you need to convince me first. So, until you say it… I’m not giving up on you. One day, you will thank me for that.” She spoke surely, her voice and expression determined.
Her words rattled me, shook the cages of my resolve.
“You’ll end up getting hurt, Riley,” I warned gruffly, but with far less conviction than I’d intended.
Without so much as a batted eyelash, she declared, “I’ll survive.”
Then she whirled around and disappeared through the doorway, leaving my head in chaos and my heart in fucking ruins.
Twenty-Six
Riley
“What the...?” I sputtered as Liss backed into me, her heel smashing down on my toe. She hastily grasped my hand and led me away from the cafeteria doors.
“You know what?” she practically yelled, eyes extra wide. “We should eat somewhere else. We’re allowed off campus for lunch senior year. Seems a shame we haven’t exercised that right.”
My face twisted, bewildered. “Um, okay, that didn’t come out of left field or anything. But yeah, super idea, Liss. How about we do that tomorrow when I’m not effing starving to death and conveniently situated right outside the cafeteria?”
Patting her shoulder, I swerved around her. She muttered what sounded like a Jesus under her breath, before trailing after me. I felt her mouth close to my ear as I pushed through the doors and my eyes landed on a sight I had neither wanted nor expected to see, ever again.
Liss spoke quickly. “He's back. Don’t lose your shit.”
I felt the bite of pain before I realized I’d clenched my fists so tight the nails were cutting into my skin.