Our Way

If he cared, he would have saved it for me.

I picture the way he was looking down at me while he was kissing me.

But Nathan likes men. He’s always liked men. There has never been any doubt, whatsoever.

Even if he does have feelings for me, I couldn’t physically hold him for forever.

He would always need something that, no matter how much I wanted to, I just couldn’t deliver: a male body.

It hurts to come to this realization.

Because I do love Nathan, and now that this has all come to light, it’s put doubt into my mind about how I feel about him. It’s made me realize that maybe I always have had feelings for him, too. Maybe he’s the reason I have never found Mr. Right. I’ve compared every man I’ve dated to him, and nobody has ever stacked up.

He’s always come first.

I exhale heavily and toss and turn, trying desperately to go to sleep.

I can’t believe this, my most trusted friend on Earth goes to another woman right before he tells me he has feelings for me. How dare he put me in this position.

Selfish, that’s what it is. Nathan and I are too close to fuck around. It can’t be like that between us, and the way he was talking makes me think that he perhaps wants to try a relationship.

There are so many things wrong with that idea that I don’t know where to start.

There’s no denying that Nathan and I care about each other, and maybe in some ways, even love each other already. Could we work it out?

Imagine if we could. He would be the most perfect man for me. I smile as I imagine how happy we could be. I think, on some level, I may have always loved and craved a future with him.

But what if it turned bad and I lost him forever?

I can’t risk it. I can’t give my heart to a man who will break it one day, and even though he would never willingly do it, I know that he will. Nathan oozes sexual chemistry. Everyone wants to either sleep with him or be him.

I could never hold him physically…. He would, one day, eventually stray. And not because he would want to but because he would need to.

You can’t help who you are.

Sadness sweeps over me. If Nathan and I did ever fall in love and we broke up and never saw each other again, I wouldn’t survive it.

He is in every corner of my heart, and I can’t ever risk losing him.

I get a lump in my throat just imagining that heartbreak.

But he wants to try.

No.

Nathan Mercer has the ability to break my heart beyond belief. And I know that he can’t see it now, and would never intentionally hurt me, but he did already.

I get a vision of him with Stephanie. What face did he pull when he came in her mouth? Did she drink him down? A part of him is still inside of her now. Can she still taste him on her tongue?

My eyes well with tears.

His words from earlier come back to me. If you didn’t like me that way, too, Eliza, it wouldn’t bother you.

I roll over and punch my pillow in frustration.

This has to stop, now.

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