Reluctantly in Love (27 page)

“I’m fine.” I wanted to smile, but couldn’t. I leaned against the door because if I let go, I’d probably lose my balance.

The crinkles around his eyes were from concern. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head and turned around. In a few steps I made it to the queen bed in the center of the suite. I flopped down on the comforter and reached for the plastic cup I’d been mixing drinks in. “Not really. I don’t feel well.”

To be honest, I was too embarrassed to share any of it with him. Explaining what had happened would sound as absurd as walking in on my parents having sex had been.

“You don’t feel well so you’re drinking?”

I glanced up at him with a shrug. “You know me; I’m not normal.”

He ignored my flippant remark and planted himself at the foot of the bed, his arms crossed. “Are you going to talk to me, or what?”

My smile was stiff like plastic. “It’s really not a big deal.”

“Damn it, Roxanna.” The sharp edge to his voice made me flinch. “You’re trashed in a hotel room while your parents are at your house. It
is
a big deal.”

“Just let it go.” I couldn’t look at him; I kept my eyes on the television. “I don’t do this kind of thing.”

“What, talk?”

“Exactly.”

The muscles in his jaw flexed. “That’s your problem, Roxanna. You can’t keep all this stuff in.”

I set the cup down and sighed with exasperation. “I know it’s not something you understand, but I’m good with me.” I patted my chest. “This is who I am.”

“You don’t have to deal with this alone.”

A burst of panic hit me—I knew where this conversation was going. There was no way around it.
He deserves better.

“Why do you have to make this into a big deal? Just let it go.”

“Why do you have to treat everything like it’s not a big deal?” he shot back. “It is. Look at you.” His nose wrinkled up. “And you smell like an ashtray. You don’t smoke.”

My voice rose. “That’s just
it,
Chase. I
used
to smoke and tonight felt like a damn good night to do it again.” My heart clenched in on itself. “You don’t even know me.”

He stepped back and his eyes registered understanding. The muscles in his jaw clenched. “You can’t keep pushing everyone away.”

So this is what it’s like to have a fight with a boyfriend.
It was so foreign that my mind was blanked in trying to deal with it. It made me tired—or maybe that was the vodka.

“I’m never going to be the person you want me to be, Chase. The person you need.” I leaned my head back against the headboard. “I don’t do serious, remember? I told you that in the beginning.”

The silence was heavy—
and heartbreaking.

“Don’t do this.”

Don’t look at him. It’ll only make this harder.

“I think we both knew it wasn’t going to last.” I counted to five, taking deep breaths. “I’m not interested in getting married and having your babies and—”

“Yeah, I know, getting a minivan and a white picket fence.” His words dripped sarcasm and anger. “If this is what you want, fine.”

My eyelids snapped open in time to see him turn around and walk toward the door.

I should have let him go. My head told me to let it be. It was what I wanted, right?

But panic bubbled again.

I took off after him, but my feet caught in the blankets and I fell onto the floor with a
thunk
. Kicking my feet free, I said, “That’s right. I don’t want any of that. So if that’s what you need, you’ll have to find it with someone else.”

I held my breath, my body still where I lay. Silently, I begged him to take what I could give. To not want those things so we could be together. If he said right now that those things weren’t important to him, I wouldn’t have to push him away.
Take me as I am,
I begged him while my chest constricted.

He appeared above me, but all hope died inside because the pain in his eyes and written across his face told me this was it.
We’re over.

“I do want those things, Roxanna. I want them with you.”

I shook my head.
No, no, no.

“I love you, Roxanna. Just—”

I held up my hand. “No. Don’t say anything else.”

“Why are you so damn scared of
feeling
something?” His tone hardened and he spun around, sweeping his hands through his hair. “This is
life.
You can’t expect a relationship to just stand still forever. You can’t expect me not to
feel
anything for you.”

“You knew from the beginning I can’t have those things.” I shook my head.

He glared at me. “You can’t or you won’t or you don’t fucking want to, Roxanna? Why don’t you try being honest with yourself and
me
for once.”

I bristled. “I can’t change
who I am
because you—”

“Because I love you? Excuse me. You are something else, you know that?” He took a step back; the furrow in his brows told me how disgusted he was with me.

Glowering, I said, “This is just who I am.”

“Fuck that.” His voice shook, and my breathing became labored from the emotions rolling through me. Chase raked a hand through his hair. “You can’t tell me you don’t love me too.”

“I don’t.” My heart broke saying it—I broke saying it. It was a lie, though I’d never admit it out loud. A lie my heart wanted to call me on. A lie I needed to keep because love was a dangerous and fragile emotion.

His face settled into an expression of disbelief. Of disappointment. He sucked in a breath then said, “You’re lying.”

I lowered my chin to stare at my toes—anywhere but him. “I’m not capable of that kind of love, Chase. You deserve someone who can give you all the things you want.”

“You’re running from something that could be really amazing, and you know it.” There was sadness in his words. The queasiness in my gut intensified and I concentrated on slow breaths while my forehead broke out in a cold sweat.

“Maybe,” I whispered. “Or maybe you and I would turn into a really big mess, and the worst mistake we ever made. I’m not willing to take that gamble, Chase.”

The sound of my heart thrashing in my chest drowned everything else out.
Say it, and he’ll leave. Say it, and you’ll never hear from him again.

My chest caved and my shoulders hunched over with the effort it took to say, “We were just hanging out, Chase. That’s all it ever was. I got caught up in being with you because . . . you’re my muse.”

His eyes narrowed. “Oh, so all of this—” he threw out his arms, “—is because fucking me makes you write better. That’s it?”

I’d never seen Chase angry before. Cussing wasn’t something he did, and I flinched at the sharp edge to his words.
He’ll hate me after tonight.

I wanted the floor to swallow me whole. Everything coming out of my mouth right now was a lie. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Friends—that’s what we have to be.”

“Well, that’s not all I want.”

“It’s not fair to you to be with someone who doesn’t want the same things you do. You should be happy. I want you to be happy.” I pinched my eyes closed because tears were welling up in the corners—I didn’t want him to see.

“I was happy,” he said.

The door slammed and my body jerked as if I’d been hit in a gut with a baseball bat.

I choked on my tears, sucking them back in. It was stupid to cry.

Curled in a ball on the floor, I pictured my mother’s tear stained face:
“One day, anak, you will meet a man who will try to be your everything. Don’t let him. Love will ruin you.”

He deserves better.
Repeating that in my head over and over didn’t help, though.

Letting Chase go was the right thing to do.

So why did I feel like I’d been hit by a truck?

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Holy crap. You’ve lost it,” Gen said from somewhere nearby. I didn’t know where because I couldn’t move, or didn’t want to move—either was a possibility.

I was broken.

My head throbbed, my eyes hurt, and my body was a pile of goo. Where were my muscles? I’d lost them somewhere along the way while killing off the entire bottle of vodka.

“Go away,” I mumbled and rolled to my stomach, covering my head with a fluffy pillow. The best part about an indefinite stay at a ritzy hotel was the endless supply of fluffy things and amenities, which was nice, since I’d checked in with only what I’d been wearing, and slippers.

I’d spent the last two days drinking martinis coupled with shopping therapy.

“Richard said you were on a karaoke rampage last night.” Gen held up an empty bottle of vodka by the neck. “I don’t know how you drink so much of this stuff and still be alive.”

“I didn’t drink it all in one night.” My head pounded.

Hitting the town with Richard and his gamer friends had been more fun than I’d anticipated. Their gamer talk was easier to understand the more I drank. By the end of the night I knew what a 1v1 was. One of the guys promised to make me notecards. Not that I planned to take up gaming anytime soon, but I was a sucker for notecards and random information.

Most of the night was a bit blurry, but I had a vague recollection of promising to sponsor their team for the big tournament Richard had been raving about for months. I had no idea how much dough I’d agreed to, and the not knowing made me a little nervous. I was notorious for being overly generous while drinking. Usually my drunken generosity involved giving away a purse to a friend after they mentioned how much they liked it, not throwing around sponsorships for events I didn’t understand.
A tournament for video games? My mind boggled at the idea.

“How long do you plan on staying here?”

“Until my parents aren’t doing
it
in my house, that’s when.” The bed covers shifted, and then were gone. I didn’t lift the pillow. “Give me back the covers; it’s freezing in here.”

“No.”

“Why are you torturing me?” I moaned.

“Because someone needs to.”

A wave of nausea hit me like a typhoon and I rolled from the bed and stumbled to the bathroom with my eyes half closed. I barely made it to the toilet in time. When I finished retching, I pulled myself up against the vanity and splashed cold water on my face to cool down; I was hot all over.

“Well, that was disgusting,” Gen said from the doorway. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you throw up like that.”

“Yeah, well, I was celebrating the night before my birthday. You know I like to celebrate my birth week.”

She raised her brows. “Okay, then.”

“I celebrated the hell out of it.” I dropped to all fours and crawled across the bathroom tile. When I passed her by the doorway, I said, “And now I am definitely not going out tonight.”

Plus, the Halloween costume I’d bought was a companion costume to Chase’s—he a zombie doctor, me a zombie nurse. I sure as hell didn’t feel like going out now that he and I were . . .

We’re over. It’s what you wanted.

“When did you have time to go shopping with all the drinking you’ve been doing?” She nudged a shoe box with the toe of her boot.

“You make it sound like I’ve been here for a month. I’ve only been here two nights.” I crawled between shoe boxes.

In times of high stress, some people gambled, others baked cookies, sometimes they went Godzilla in a gym—me, I was a shoe shopper. Usually, it cleared my head. Not this time.

“You can’t hide from your parents in a hotel room full of shoes forever.” Gen sat cross-legged beside me.

I curled up onto my side on the floor, hugging a shoe box to my stomach. “I’m not hiding. They know where I am. And they know I need time to process. I haven’t seen them in
months,
my dad’s barely talked to me since I told him I’m not joining his company, and then they fly here and hit me with all this . . . this . . .
crap.
They shouldn’t have
done
that.”

There was a hint of panic to my voice. There’d been a hint of panic to my voice for the last two days. I didn’t like surprises. Even presents made me wary. Weird, right? I just liked to
know
things. I got my surprises out of books and movies, during which I wracked my brain to figure out the ending. In real life, surprises were no good. Especially when they involved my parents doing things I never wanted to think about ever again.

And then ended with Chase walking out the door.

“I know . . . I don’t know what I would have done in your situation.” She glanced around the room. “I’d probably be in a hotel too.”

I nodded. “Yeah, you would.”

She lifted the lid from the box I held against my stomach. “Do you want to talk about it?”

I shook my head too vigorously. Bad mistake. “No.”

“You sure?” She held up a shiny red high heel.

The moment I saw those red beauties in the storefront window I saw stars, and there’d been a flicker of happiness. With my finger pressed to the window, I’d imagined the pair of heels matched with the naughty nurse costume I’d bought. Which made me think of Chase. Which made my chest ache with all sorts of emotions I didn’t care to stress about right now. I was no good with stress.

Sitting up, I pulled the shoebox onto my lap and pulled out the matching heel. “Aren’t they beau—” I sucked in a sniffle, “Beautiful? I mean, they’re perfect, aren’t they?” My breaths were short and shallow now. “I mean, I really love these stupid shoes.”

Gen’s eyes widened.

“
Yyyeesss . . .
” Her voice was full of caution. “They’re very nice.”

I slipped a heel on and stuck my leg out in front of me. “I just can’t live without these stupid shoes!” And then the tears came. I yanked the other shoe from her hand and clutched it to my chest. “They co-co-com-ple-ete me.”

“Roxie.” Gen’s tone was soothing. She set her hand on my bare knee. “Are we still talking about the shoes?”

“Ye-es?” The question sounded like an injured whale.

“Why don’t you call him?” Gen stood and stepped over a shoebox. She plucked a handful of tissues from the box on the table. “You can fix this.”