Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 111165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 556(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 556(@200wpm)___ 445(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
“This,” he says, wiping his eyes. “Us.”
No. No, no, no, no, no.
“Laz,” I say, desperation reaching up from inside me like bony hands. I grab onto his arm, his beautiful, wonderful arm, because if I hold onto him like this, he won’t do what he’s trying to do. He can’t. He can’t.
I suck in a deep breath, trying not to shake. “Laz, every couple has their ups and downs, every relationship gets hard. It’s work. It gets scary sometimes but you just power through it.” I try to sound strong and brave and confident, like I can convince him if I try hard enough. “Jane…Jane said sometimes you just need someone else as complicated and fucked up as you are to make love work. And that’s what we are, Laz. We are fucked up and complicated and we’re equals.”
“No, we aren’t,” he says, voice gruff. “You’re wrong, Marina. I’m fucked up. I’m complicated. And I’m completely undeserving of your love. I am not your equal. You are beautiful,” he trails off, pinching his eyes shut, looking away and I can hear his pain, feel his pain, but it’s still eclipsed by my own. “You’re beautiful and you’re smart and you’re so good and so pure and so giving and you need someone who is your equal, who can give what you give. That someone isn’t me.”
Everything hurts, everything. I can’t let this be the end, I can’t let him do this.
“Don’t do this,” I warn him, my voice quivering. “Don’t you dare do this. Don’t do this with me. Okay? You don’t get to decide if I’m deserving or not. You just don’t.”
“But I am deciding it,” he says. “This can’t work.”
“It does work!” I snap at him, trying so hard to keep the waterworks at bay, to not break down, to not lose my mind, to not go crazy. “It is working. This is just your insecurities. This is what you always do and it’s a habit and you’re not going to do this, not today. We are going to work together because I love you and that’s what happens when couples in love fight. They work it through. They talk. They don’t run. They don’t bail when it gets hard. They don’t give up. Okay, you aren’t giving up on us.”
“I’m so sorry,” he says again. “I don’t have a choice.”
He turns around, head low, his back to me.
I’m speechless, dumbfounded.
How dare he?
How dare he turn his back on me, on this?
To not even want to fight…
“It can work if you just put in the effort for once,” I tell him, my breath shallow now, like I’m losing air, drowning, a slow leak. “It can work if you want it to.”
“Maybe I don’t want it to. Maybe I don’t love you. I don’t love you like you love me.”
Oh.
I…
The world begins to spin.
I am dead on my feet.
“You…” I start to say but I can’t go on. I can’t, my heart is breaking, sharp shards that obliterate the rest of my body. I’m empty and cold and hollow in seconds. Drained.
“I’m sorry,” he says, sniffing. I still can’t see his face. It’s better that way. “I love you as a friend. But I know that’s not what you want from me right now.”
“A friend?” I manage to say. “You love me as…a friend? Just a friend? After we’ve been fucking each other for a month, you love me still as a friend? That’s all I am to you?” My voice is getting higher, shriller, with each note. “You’re a liar!”
He glances at me with bloodshot eyes, swallowing hard, and shakes his head. “No. Marina, please. Don’t make me hurt you.”
“Don’t make me hurt you?” I yell, grabbing the sides of my head as if that will contain the rage, the hurt. “You’re telling me you don’t love me! You’re…you’re breaking up with me. Right? Right, this is what this is, you dumping yet another girlfriend of yours because that’s what you fucking do, you fucking coward!”
“Hey,” he snaps at me, eyes wild. “This hurts me as much as it hurts you.”
“Oh my god! Oh my god, did you seriously just say that to me? How fucking dare you? This hurts you Laz? Then don’t do it!”
“I don’t have a choice. I don’t fucking love you!”
Dying.
I am dead on my feet, dying inside.
His words have acted like a knife, straight to my heart, and now the serrated edges are slicing down, ripping and tearing and shredding everything good inside me.
The pain is…
indescribable.
I want to fall to my knees, curl up into a ball and shove something deep inside my chest, reach into the cave it’s become, wrap a tourniquet around the wound until I feel whole again.
“Marina,” Laz says quietly.
I can only stare at him, the tears flowing down my cheeks in rivers.