Hazed (Palm South University)

With a deep breath, I step more into the room, ignoring the small group of students who have stopped studying in the main room to listen, too.

“Look, I know what happened between us the other day was crazy and unexpected. You came to me when you were hurting over Gavin, and I should have just listened and comforted you. It was what I intended to do. But sometimes, our hearts take over. Sometimes we do shit we don’t understand. And in that moment, with you there crying over a guy who didn’t deserve even a moment of your time, I was done waiting.” I swallow. “I was done pretending that I don’t love you, that I haven’t loved you for years, and not as a friend, Erin.”

Her nose flares, and she rolls her lips together against the tears building in her eyes.

Keep going.

Don’t let up now.

“I get that it isn’t perfect timing, but at the same time, you’re either blind or in denial if you say there’s nothing between us, that there hasn’t always been something between us. And I think a part of you knows as well as I do that there always will be.”

Erin sniffs, and now, we’ve gained the attention of practically the entire library.

I take another step toward her, my chest heaving as I do. “Erin, I graduate one week from today. And then I have to decide — do I leave? Go to Pittsburgh and start a career? Or do I stay?” I pause. “And if I’m being honest, you are the only thing tying me to this place.”

I think a girl in the room says awww before someone shushes her.

“So, this is it. This is me coming to you with everything that I am, everything that I feel, no holds barred.” I step right up to her, then, my eyes flicking between hers, begging her to see that I mean every word. “I love you, Erin Xanders. So, if there’s even a tiny part of you who still wants me here, you have to tell me now. You have to.” I swallow with how urgent and consuming those words feel in my throat. “Don’t let me go if there’s even an ounce of you that feels the same way I do.”

Erin’s face crumples, her brows bending together fiercely, tears bubbling in her eyes as she watches me, her chest heaving just the same as mine.

It feels like the longest day of my life happens in the span of the next several seconds, waiting for her response, seeing it in her eyes that whatever it is, it’s killing her.

And finally, she says two words that ring out louder and clearer than anything I’ve said.

“I can’t.”

Her lips tremble with the confession, and I let out a long breath, taking a step back from her like I don’t know her at all.

“I can’t give you anything right now,” she says, shaking her head. “I have nothing to give. What little I did have just got obliterated and now I…” She looks away from me, squeezing her eyes shut and freeing the tears that had been building. When she opens her eyes again and looks at me, she doesn’t say another word.

I lick my lips, nodding, letting the meaning of what she’s said settle in. “It’s okay,” I whisper, even though it’s everything but okay. “I understand.”

Everything inside me longs to reach for her, to have one last hug, one last kiss, one last moment of pretending like she’ll ever be mine. But I know it will hurt more than it will help.

This is it.

I put my heart out there, I told her everything.

She doesn’t feel the same.

The only thing left to do now is to go, so with another nod in her direction, I turn, ignoring the heavy silence of everyone watching us. The group that had gathered at the doorway clears quickly, making way for me to pass through with sympathetic looks reflected in their eyes.

When I push past the doorframe, Erin calls out behind me.

“Bear, wait!”

I pause, slapping the doorframe with one hand and waiting, just like she asked, but I can’t turn around to face her again.

“I have nothing left to give,” she repeats, her voice strangled. There’s a long pause, so long I almost start walking again, but then she speaks again. “But whatever I do have, whatever is left of me… it’s yours.”

A flurry of gasps echoes in my ears as my head snaps back around, and Erin is standing there with her arms at her side, tears flooding her eyes and slipping down her cheeks. She smiles, and shrugs, and then her bottom lip wobbles again as she stands there and waits for my next move.

I shove off the doorframe and race across the room to her, and in a split second that feels like coming home, I sweep her into my arms and capture her next sob with my mouth on hers.