He doesn’t immediately speak. He doesn’t do anything. I don’t say anything else either, because now I’m crying into his chest. Slowly he begins caressing my back, holding me tighter. Trying to protect me from this damage I’m inflicting.
“Don’t cry, Mia.”
The softness in his voice only makes me cry harder. I don’t deserve his gentleness. I don’t deserve his affection. I don’t deserve this comfort, and I take it anyway. Not that it’s actually comforting. His willingness to comfort me makes this a million times worse. It means instead of lying in bed tonight thinking about my future with Mateo, I’m going to lie in bed and think about this. How even when he has to know what I’ve done, why I’m here, Vince is holding me and letting me cry into his chest before I push a blade into it.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper again. “I’m the worst person in the whole world and you don’t deserve this.”
“It’s okay,” he tells me, not even knowing what he’s forgiving me for. “It’s okay. Don’t cry.”
I finally pull back, because this is killing me. I was only braced for his fury, his pain. I wasn’t prepared for this and I don’t know what to do with it.
I still can’t say it though. I still can’t tell him what I’ve done. I’m a horrible person and a coward on top of it.
There are always consequences, I told Mateo. Time to face mine.
“I have to leave,” I tell him. It’s a sloppy beginning, inaccurate and unaccountable, and I hate it. I chose this. No one forced me to do this to him. This was my call. “I came here to end things. I came home to leave.”
“Then why are you crying?” he asks, unconvinced.
“Because it hurts,” I tell him, honestly. “Because I did love you.” My voice breaks and my stupid breath hitches, so I pause and take a breath. “Because you don’t deserve this. Because I don’t want to hurt you. Because you know I came here to break your heart, at best, and kill you, at worst, and you fucking hugged me, Vince.” I’m scrubbing at my cheeks now, barely coherent. “Why’d you do that? Why’d you have to do that?”
My emotion is shaking him. I don’t think either of us expected this kind of emotion when this day came—we had to know it would come. This has been building since the first time Mateo touched me, when neither of us even knew. Mateo has been playing the game, and now he’s won. And Vince loses. And that’s so unfair.
“But I have to go, and I’m sorry. There’s really nothing I can say to make this better. Just know that I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have to go, Mia,” he disagrees, shaking his head.
“Yes, I do,” I tell him, sniffling and scrubbing at my already agitated face. “It’s too late. It’s already done.”
“Nothing’s already done,” he says, shaking his head. “You’re still here. Maybe… maybe this is what we needed. Things have been shitty between us lately, and maybe now we can finally move past it. Things have to get worse before they get better, right?”
“No. It’s too late,” I insist, flashes of my nights with Mateo flickering across my mind. “It’s too late, Vince.”
“I don’t care, Mia. I don’t…” Shaking his head, clearly aggravated with me, he amends his words. “I care, of course I care, but I don’t want you to leave.”
“I was with him,” I say.
“I fucking figured,” he says, his voice rising. “You don’t have to say it. I fucking get it. It doesn’t matter. It was a mistake.”
Guilt brands my heart, but I shake my head. “No, Vince. It wasn’t a mistake.”
“Yes, it was. You are both in relationships, and not with each other. That’s a textbook example of a fuck-up, Mia.”
“I have to go,” I say, suddenly just wanting to leave. I can’t fight him on this.
“Don’t you dare,” he says, advancing on me, blocking me from the door. “I don’t want this, Mia. You don’t want this, I can tell. You wouldn’t feel this way if you knew you were making the right call. He’s engaged, for fuck’s sake. Think about this, Mia. You’re going to leave me to go be his side dish? You have more self-respect than that.”
I shake my head, unsure how I would explain it, but aware it wouldn’t change anything if I did. “That’s not… that’s not what this is.”
“Yes, it is. Is he marrying you? Did he leave Meg?”
I hesitate too long.
“Exactly. Fuck that. No. You aren’t leaving me. Not for that bullshit. Not for him.”
“You can’t reject my break-up, Vince.”
“Well, I just fucking did.”
I shake my head, a little calmer now, but drained.
“You fucked him. Fine. I kind of thought you were anyway, so… Now it’s out in the open. Now I know. We don’t have to lie anymore. I forgive you.”