It seems like we’ve sidestepped another fight, but when my phone vibrates again—probably alerting me to a new voice mail—Derek pulls back and meets my gaze.
“I would appreciate if you would not pull shit like this going forward,” he states.
“I wasn’t pulling any shit. I was calling someone I used to talk to on a daily basis because I needed advice.”
“You were leaning on your crutch,” he says, immovably. “You don’t need a crutch, Nikki. I’m not gonna let you fall.”
“You’re literally the ice patch I’m afraid of falling on,” I inform him.
Derek nods, as if he understands that, then adds, “Thing is, Nikki, I haven’t given you any new reasons not to trust me. All the reasons you have are six years old. Can’t you give me a little credit here? I’ve grown up a lot since then. I’ve owned all my fuck-ups and I’m trying to make them right. I’m trying to make us right again.” Shaking his head, he says earnestly, “I don’t know what else I can do to prove myself, Nikki.”
Even as he opens up and shares his extremely valid feelings with me, he pours ice water right over my head. Not intentionally, but by triggering the old fear—that feeling of when he was just about to slip away. The panic of standing on the precipice of losing him.
All it makes me want to do is push him away so I can at least pretend I had some part in the decision.
I don’t move off his chest yet, but I want to. I want to curl up in a protective ball in the corner and wait for the sky to fall. “You’re right,” I tell him, in the interest of fairness. “You’re giving it all you’ve got, and I’m not giving back enough for you. I understand that. But that’s where I’m at, and if I’m not moving fast enough for you, then… then I don’t know, because I can’t guarantee I’ll ever move past this place. So, if you’re not happy, then we should stop this now, because the longer we hang on, the harder it will be—”
“Jesus, Nikki. Stop trying to break up with me.”
“We’re not together,” I point out. “There’s no breaking up if you’re not together.”
Derek covers his face with his hands and sighs. “Just forget it,” he murmurs.
“I don’t want to forget it,” I tell him, now rolling off him. “I don’t want to do this again. I don’t want a long, drawn out attempt at hanging onto something that will never be enough. I told you in the first place we had to keep it light.”
“And I told you I don’t fucking agree with you,” he throws back.
“Well, you can’t overrule me on this,” I say, shrugging. “You can’t force me to date you. You don’t have any dirt on me this time.”
“I did not force you to date me,” he states. “I may have slightly tricked you into dating me, but the only way to get past your walls is to sneak. Always has been. That sure hasn’t changed.”
“That’s right, it hasn’t,” I say, fixing an annoyed stare on his ceiling. “And it probably won’t. This is who I am now. I like who I am, and if you don’t—”
“Just stop, Nikki,” he says. “Just stop.”
I turn my head to look at him, narrowing my eyes. “Stop what?”
“This pushing me away bullshit. I’m not having it. You think I don’t know these moves? I invented these fucking moves. I’m not going anywhere, so you’re wasting your energy.”
“Why?” I demand, legitimately wanting an answer. “Why are you so insistent on fixing this? Why are you so insistent on being with me when I make it so hard?”
He sighs, staring at the ceiling, and I fill up with so many feelings. The worst is the helpless anger—at myself, for what I’m doing right now, at him, for teaching me to have this fear in the first place. I know I’m the one wrecking it this time. It’s not him. If I could be as open-hearted now as I was back then, this could work. He’s finally in the right place, and now I’m not.
“Why won’t you forgive me?” he asks.
Somewhere in the flood of helpless fear, my heart gives a little. Twinges with sympathy, because after everything, that’s not the problem anymore. “I have forgiven you, Derek. I just can’t forget.”
“She’s not even in the picture anymore, Nikki.”
“It isn’t about her,” I say, shaking my head. “I mean, I guess a small part of it is, but… it’s you. It’s the feeling that I can’t rely on you. Kayla didn’t hold a gun to your head and make you do the things you did, Derek. I’m not trying to bust your balls, I’m not trying to punish you, but… you jerked me around until I had whiplash, and you let me fight for you until my heart was in tatters, and then you let me lose. Why? Because it was too hard to hold onto me. There was no limit for me. I would have endured a million difficult things to have a life with you, and you weren’t there for me the same way. How do I unknow that, Derek? How do I trust you when you’ve already taught me that when it gets too hard, you bail?”
“By acknowledging I’m not the same dumbass kid I was back then, Nikki. Look how hard you’re making things now. Do you see me bailing? You’re holding things against me that I did in another life. Fuck that life. Fuck what we could have had. We can have something now. I’m trying to show you that you can trust me, but I don’t know what else I can do.”
“I don’t either,” I admit, shaking my head. “The thing is, it’s not like you’re doing a bad job, but the old insecurity you instilled in me is still there. Every time you want more than I can offer, every time we argue, I wonder if this is it. Is this the time he’ll give up on me? Is this the time he’ll quit
?”
“But it’s not. I’m sorry that thought even crosses your mind, but the answer to that question is always no.”