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I—of course—follow after her. “What do you mean you can’t? We talk to each other, Declan. Always.” Well, up until the holidays, anyhow, when she slowly started closing herself off from the world. She was there physically, taking my calls and answering my texts, entertaining my presence during our visits, but she hasn’t been fully present for a while now.
A fact that’s been sanding, scratching, abrading at old wounds.
The sidewalk is wet and slippery from a few busted sprinklers, and she’s walking too fast, not paying a lick of attention to her surroundings. I catch back up to her in a few quick strides, grasp her arm, and turn her on her heel to face me once more.
“Fuckingtalkto me,Dec,” I grit, begging her to let me in.
“There’s nothing to talk about!” she cries. We’ve reached an intersection at the edge of campus, and she jabs at the crosswalk button. “Addy is leaving, you’re halfway across the country, and I’m just so fucking…angry!”
“With me?” I ease my tone. I know this isn’t about me, not really, so I try not to take any offense.Try.But this push and pull between us lately, this uncertainty, this rush of conflicting emotions, it’s all reminiscent of my relationship with Brenna, and it’s been messing with my head.
Andfuck me,for making the comparison, because Declan is nothing like Brenna was, but I’m so goddamn tired, too.
Something needs to bend, flex, shift, before it fucking breaks.
“No!” Declan bursts out with. “Yes! I don’t fucking know! All I know is everyone leaves. Everyone fucking leaves, and I’m always the one being left behind. I’m tired of feeling left behind. Like I don’t matter.”
“Of course you matter, Declan.”
The light turns green, and she takes a step out into the street, but I reel her back. With an arm snaked around her middle, I drag her into me, her back to my chest. “Please stop walking away from me. Talk to me. We’re not going to keep doing this shit where you shut me out. It isn’t us, and it isn’t you.”
“You think I don’t know that?!” She pushes herself out of my hold.“I know that!”she sobs, and steps into the street, not watching where the fuck she’s going.
A horn blares, tires screeching as a car swerves into the next lane over to miss Delcan.
I yank her back into my chest with force, breaking our fall against the asphalt.
The driver lays on their horn as they take off, and I throw my middle finger up at them as they pass. “Fuck you!” I shout in vain. Pushing up from the ground, I pull Declan with me. I scan her body from head to toe twice over. “Are you okay?” the words push from my mouth with an escaped breath.
She nods with a hiccup as heavy tears dive down her cheeks.
“Okay. Okay. Fuck. Okay,” I repeat, tugging the roots of my hair as I pace in front of her. Brutal memories crash throughmy mind without warning, Declan almost getting fucking wailed by that car flickering through each and every one of them. My rising frustration and anger grow stronger. A violent storm raging through my veins, surging through my muscles, until I can no longer contain it. “Fuck, Declan! You can’t just run out into streets like that, not paying any fucking attention to your surroundings! I know you’re upset, but you just nearly got hit, and I can’t fucking—I can’t—I can’t fucking do that again.”My voice cracks. Splits in half. Shatters the fuck apart.
“I’m sorry!” she cries, and she looks as shaken up as I feel. Tears trek down her face faster than before. “I keep messing up. Everything I do—every decision I make—I just keep fucking everything up, and I’m sodone,Jude.”
I gather her in my arms and crush her against my chest. The same one Brenna gripped onto as she took her final breath, laying in the middle of an intersection much like this one, nothing but apology and regret bleeding through her tear-filled eyes. I was minutes behind her. Minutes too late. Some days I find myself wishing I had been a few minutes more so I wouldn’t have the haunting feel of her final moments forever marked on my skin.
I hold Declan tighter with the thought. Willing everything else to recede. The fucked-up memories, the fear gripping my throat tightly, the hollow cavern in my chest where my heart should be.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Declan keeps repeating, but I’m not sure if she’s saying the words to me, or herself. Her hands are two fists in her hair, pulling violently. “I keep fucking up,” she cries. “You have to let me go, because I’m clearly not strong enough to let you go.”
The fuck? I rear back. “I have no intention of letting you go.”
“You have to!”
“I love you, Declan!” I holler back at her. My chest heaves, storm clouds bursting open within me and raining free, tears tracking down my own face now. “I love you, goddammit. That hasn’t changed, and it never fucking will. But this? This has to change. We can’t keep doing this shit. You can’t keep pushing me away. You’re so lost in your own head that you won’t let me in. It fuckingwrecksme.”
She winces, hurt and guilt contorting her features in equal turns.
More tears flood free.
Both hers, and mine.
My intention was to be here for her tonight, console her, begin to repair whatever went wrong these past few months, but I’ve only made things worse. Everything feels fucking worse.
My head is spinning, and I don’t know where the fuck we’re going to land.
“Please,” I settle on. “Let me in.”