Page 111 of Isolation

“You’d smile at me like I was your whole world. Everyone joked about your crush on me. However, no one knew how I felt about you. I was older so I had to look the other way. Andheacted like you were his.”

Milo struts towards me, refusing to let me ignore his words or walk away from him.

“So, when your dad asked me to take care of you, I agreed. I thought if those lines could never be crossed, we’d outgrow the feelings. I bottled up my emotions, hoping to get over it. I didn’t. Then one day, you told me that you loved me and everything changed. I gave in, thinking that we both put a lid on our feelings for far too long.”

I inhale sharply and stop in my tracks in the darker part of the room.

Milo pauses as well, maybe to gauge my reaction. He is standing only a few feet away from me now.

“I saw you saynoto plenty of men before me. So, if you didn’t want me then why didn’t you also saynoto me from the start instead of leading me on? Why, Rave? Why did you do it? And why did you do itonlytome?” Milo throws my words back in my face, his voice finally at an audible level. “What did I ever do to you that was so horrible that you had to dothattome? Do you think I wanted to feel this way? Do you think this is the person I aspired to be?”

When I don’t respond, Milo steps out from the dark. I can see his face clearly. His face is resolute about the answers he wants.

“Answer me,” he demands in a low voice. “Why go along with it for as long as you did and let me believe I finally get to be with you? Why give me that hope only to rip it all away?”

Milo moves in, invading my space, demanding answers.

I push right back against his chest on impulse to create distance between us. My anger is boiling.

“How was I supposed to saynoto you?” I hiss. “I was seventeen and under your care.Youdictated my life. You made all of my decisions so how the hell was I supposed to choose differently when you chose forme.”

“Are you serious?” Milo says incredulously. “I treated you like a grown-up, You had every chance to make up your own mind from the get-go. I had faith that you were mature enough to make your own decisions.”

“God, just listen to yourself,” I bellow. “Why would you treat a high school kid like a grown-up? No one at that age is mature enough to understand adult relationships. If I bring you a seventeen-year-old, would you fuck her if she acts mature?”

“That’s ridiculous,” Milo shouts.

“No, answer me!” I demand more forcefully.

“Of course not. What the fuck do you take me for?”

“If it’s such an unthinkable act, then why did you do it to me? I am the same age now you were when we started. I recently hit my head, but I still wouldn’t have sex with someone living under my care. I’d have more sense than that.”

Milo crowds metill I start to feel suffocated.

“I didn’t have any sense left when it came to you. I didn’t see you as a high school kid. I saw you as my friend. My confidante. My everything. I can’t even say that I regret it. It’s better to have been with you than never knowing what it’s like. If you didn’t feel that way, all you had to do was tell menofrom the start.”

“And how would that have mattered?" I ask angrily. "Because when I did saynoto stand up for myself, you still went through with it.”

I spin around to walk away in the opposite direction, but Milo grabs my elbow to turn me around.

“Have you considered that by the time you saidno, I was already in too deep?” he hoarsely whispers. “You broke my heart. I didn’t know how to deal with it; I fucking lost it.”

I hold up a hand. “Don’t, Milo. Don’t tell me how I broke your heart when you used to treat me like your hooker. All we did was fuck. And all you ever said was,come to my room.”

The room becomes deafeningly quiet as he processes my words. We stare at each other in the dark, our chests rising and falling.

He knows that I am right. Milo never showed me the positive attributes of a relationship that he has so easily shown me in the last few weeks.

Minutes go by before he finally addresses my remarks.

“I was inexperienced with relationships,” he quietly admits. “And you were so non-confrontational that you ran away from all heavy conversations. Our physical connection was a reflection of our undeniable feelings so I let it be. But I should have tried harder.”

“I should have tried harder?” I seethe. “That’s all you have to say? Give me your honest opinion, Milo. Do you believe I deserved what you did to me because I made a poor decision in high school by not sayingnostrongly enough?”

“Deserve it?” Milo flinches. “Raven, no. I don’t think that. It’s… it’s not like that. There is just…” Milo looks around as if searching for an answer, “there is nothing worse in life than being in love with someone who doesn’t love you back. It’s torture. It makes you do awful things. I was looking for a way to connect with you. And you always physically responded…” his voice trails off with a glazed look.

We both stare at each other with a sadness that neither of us can decipher.