Page 4 of Use Me

“Hey,” I greeted, throwing my keys in the dish on the table by the front door.

“Hey,” he replied back, not moving from where he sat on the couch.

“I thought you had to work tonight?” I asked, kicking off my heels.

He rubbed the back of his neck and sat up. “We need to talk.”

My stomach dropped. The dreaded four words that should never form a sentence. I didn’t move as I stared at him waiting for him to continue.

“Fuck,” he sighed. “This is hard, and I don’t want you to freak out.”

I still didn’t move. I couldn’t move. My heart had started to beat uncontrollably, and I was thinking the worst. Did he get fired? Did he want to break-up? Did he cheat on me? Was he sick? The questions swarmed around, but I couldn’t get them out of my mouth as my feet stayed planted across the room from him.

“Sit down.” Corey patted the cushion next to him.

I shook my head. “Just tell me.”

He took another deep breath and turned his head away from me, looking out the fifteenth-story window of my condo. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. It’s time.”

“Time for what?” I wasn’t sure why I asked the question. My gut was telling me the answer already.

“Can you sit down, please?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “Can you just spit it out?”

Corey groaned. “I saw your Pinterest board. You left it open the other day.”

I blinked, not understanding why Pinterest had anything to do with this. “And?”

“We want different things.” He shrugged.

“Different things? Like I want to make homemade biscuits with almond flour, and you want to make them with all-purpose flour?” I asked sarcastically.

He blinked. “What?”

“I don’t understand how my recipe board or my do-it-yourself Board have anything to do with wanting different things in life.”

“That’s not what I saw.”

“What did you see then?”

“You had a folder or whatever about our imaginary wedding.”

My heart stopped. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Every single woman who wanted to get married had a wedding board. Granted mine was a secret, and I wasn’t engaged, but I had pinned stuff here and there. I wasn’t necessarily planning my wedding with Corey. I was just pinning ideas for when the time came. I never expected Corey to see it.

“I’m confused,” I finally admitted.

“Are you going to make me spell it out?”

“Why is having a wedding board an issue?” We never spoke about getting married. I’d just assumed we were headed down that path since we’d been together for almost eleven months.

“It’s an issue because I don’t want to get married.”

My chest clenched. “To me?”

“Ever,” he stated matter-of-factly.

“So you want to break up?” I whispered.