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Willow

M y heart stops.

Not all at once. More like a boa constrictor wrapping around it and starving it from what it needs to beat. To live. To love .

He makes the statement so calmly, so nonchalantly, like it’s not meant to gut me.

“What?”

He still doesn’t look at me. His shoulders are hunched. His jaw is clenched. The ice in his glass makes the perfect move and melts so that it drops to the bottom providing the only sound around us.

“Rocket. I don’t understand.”

It takes a few seconds for him to turn, but when he does, I see it. Defeat. Distance. The wall built back up.

“You don’t have to understand. In fact, it’s probably better if you don’t. All you need to know is that you deserve better than this. Better than me.”

I shake my head before he’s even done talking. “Don’t I get a say in this? Nothing has changed between us. Nothing that the outside world has done changes how I feel about you. About us. I don’t want better, Rocket. I just wantyou.” I want to stay. Please don’t push me away.

He chuckles under his breath, and I hate its bitter and broken sound.

“The outside world is trying to destroy you because of your affiliation with me. It shows no mercy. They’re trying to destroy you, tear you apart, for something I did, and if you think for one second that this is going to fade away, it’s not.

It has teeth. It’s staying. I brought this fucking shitstorm down on you.

The smearing of your reputation. The questioning of your qualifications for your education.

Any future job you interview for to work with kids, they’re going to look you up and see all of this. Because. Of. Me.”

My head shakes like it’s physically trying to reject every truth he just spoke. “That’s not true.”

“Open up any social media site. It’s true. It’s there, plain as day.”

“And me leaving here, you pushing me away, isn’t going to change any of it.

It’s already out there whether I’m with you or all alone.

It’s something I’ll have to deal with regardless.

Let it be out there while we stay in this bubble we’ve created.

Just don’t ... don’t do this to us, Rocket,” I plead.

“The paparazzi chased you on the streets the other day for Christ’s sake.

Almost ran your car off the road. Your social media accounts have been hacked, and then they posted shit that was vile.

How can you stand there and tell me you don’t care when your entire fucking life has been destroyed because of me? ”

The pain in his voice is raw and real and shatters every hope I had inside that I was misreading his distance. His indifference. The desperation in the last time we made love.

Because we did make love.

There’s no other word to describe it and so it makes everything hurt that much more.

“Let me make the decision about how much I can handle. Let me decide what my line to be crossed is.” I reach out to touch his shoulder, and he shifts away. That rebuke, I think, is harder than any of the verbal ones.

But he’s not wrong about the things that have been said about me.

It hurts. My God, has it hurt. But he’s also wrong.

Those things are out in the Ethernet now, never to be removed.

But if I stay, if we make this work, they will be proven wrong.

If I run, if I leave, then...I’ll literally lose everything.

“I don’t care what they say or what they do.

They’ll be proven wrong if we make this work. ”

“I care. What kind of man am I if I’m unable to protect you? And if I can’t do that, then what the hell am I doing?”

I reach out, but he rises from his seat and physically distances himself from me.

“I don’t need you to protect me.” I hate that it sounds like I’m begging .

.. but isn’t that what I am, in fact, doing?

“I just need you totalk to me. To let me stay. We can take a break if that’s what you need or whatever else, but .

.. I can’t lose both of you. Not in one fell swoop. I can’t ... Jesus, Rocket.”

“I’m better off alone. Can’t you see that?

Do you think I truly know how to love someone?

My own goddamn parents didn’t love me—one never even stayed around and the other didn’t fucking care—so .

.. I just can’t do this. I can’t give you what you deserve.

I can’t love you how you deserve because I don’t even know what that is.

Maybe the Whitmores are right, huh? I’m nowhere good enough for Poppy—even I know that—but maybe she’d be better off without me in her life, just like you will. ”

“No. Don’t talk like that. We haven’t worked this hard for you to give up now.”

“I’m not giving up, Willow. I’m doing what’s best for the both of you.

I’m trying not to ruin you because of all that comes with me.

I can’t let Poppy grow up thinking this is what love is—ruining the person you love and being so selfish, so afraid to let them go, that you just hold on tighter to them at their expense. ”

The determination in his eyes is something even I don’t think I can overcome.

“I hear you. I am trying to understand what you’re saying, but you have it all wrong. Staying together, working through adversity is what Poppy needs to see. Using each other’s shoulder to lean on when times get tough.”

His jaw sets and his shoulders square, but the look he gives me—a mixture of love and pain—will haunt me. I know it. “I want you out of here tonight. I won’t letyoudrown with me.”

It would’ve hurt less if he’d simply shot me in the heart. “What? What about Poppy—”

“She’s sleeping.”

“But she’s already lost—”

“I’m well the fuck aware.” His hands fist and his muscles tense .

“What happened to whatever it takes, huh?” I ask.

His eyes close for a beat and then open slowly, before he looks down at his fingers. “I promise I’m trying to do what’s best here. For everyone. Please—”

“You can’t even stand to look at me,” I whisper.

“It hurts too much.”

“It hurts too much.” Four broken words. He genuinely believes he’s doing the right thing and nothing will change his mind.

“I love you.” The words are barely audible but I can see when they hit him. Three punches one after another, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. He’s already pulled away.

And the next time he meets my gaze, his face may be blank, but his eyes are shattered.

“You’ll thank me someday.”

And then he turns and walks into the house. I track the sound of his footsteps down the hall until I see the light in his studio go on. His safe space. Where he’ll let himself feel. Where he’ll shut the world out.

I’m tempted to waltz in there and tell him I’m not leaving.

I’m tempted to scream at the top of my lungs so that he sees how much he’s just hurt me.

I’m tempted to beg and fight harder for what we have.

But I don’t.

I can’t change the world around us, and it seems he thinks the world has won.

So instead, I stand here, my hands curled at my sides, tears rolling silently down my cheeks.

He thinks this is protection.

He thinks pushing me away is saving me.

But what he doesn’t know, what he’llneverunderstand, is that I didn’t fall in love with the man who promised to protect me.

I fell in love with the one who held his daughter like she was his whole world. The one who wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable in front of me and cheered on each and every one of my strengths. The man who was confident and cocky to the world, but who was sweet and tender to me.

I chose him.

And I’ll keep choosing him.

Even if he won’t let me .

Even if it means walking to my room, packing up my stuff, saying goodbye to Poppy, and walking away.

You can’t make someone love you. Common sense says that.

But it’s even harder to know someone loves you but actively chooses not to fight for you.

I deserve better than that.