Page 22 of Venus
I don’t know at what point I lost all my dignity, but like always, my only way to see her was a promise of sex, even if that’s not really what I wanted from this. It’s the only way she’ll give me the time of day.
I’m still stupidly hoping that one day, I’ll open the door, and she’ll jump into my arms rom-com style and everything will be okay after that.
But it never is. It’s our same routine. She gets here, I lick her pussy, we make a mess of each other, and she leaves. She leaves like it’s so easy for her when it kills me each time she walks out of the door.
She didn’t leave last night, though. She stayed over, slept in my arms, and then woke up with that ‘this was a mistake’ look she gives me every time. I don’t really know when this shift happened.
Everything was going so well and then one day, it wasn’t. I don’t even think it was the forehead kiss that did it, either. I think she realized she was falling too, even just a little bit, and it scared her.
Now, she acts like I’m a stranger again, and I don’t know how much more of it I can take. How much more am I willing to put myself through for a girl who has told me time and time again that she doesn’t want me?
She gives me the grace of letting us stop for coffee together before our shifts, but mine has been cold for a long time. I haven’t touched it. It’s not like it would make me feel any more alive.
We sit in a corner booth, awkward silence filling the space between us.
The hiss of the espresso machine on the other side of the cafe does its best impression of white noise, but it does nothing to ease the tension.
I have my boot propped up on the opposite bench, absently but maybe purposefully locking her in the booth so she can’t run until we finally talk about this, because I can’t move on until I know for sure where we stand.
The coffee shop is mostly empty and everyone inside is half-asleep. But not me. I’m fully awake and aware of the woman sitting across from me.
She scans the room like she’s expecting to get ambushed, but it’s just me and her. The second she accidentally meets my eyes, she shrinks into herself like a puppy getting scolded by her owner.
She takes a deep breath. “Will you just tell me what’s going on with you today?”
I run my hands through my hair, jaw tight. I’ve been rehearsing this for a while, trying to remember everything I want to say, but suddenly, I can’t remember any of it. I default to the only thing I can truly remember.
“I’ve fallen for you,” I say, looking down as if how my heart feels about her is something I should be ashamed of. She straightens her spine—I can see it from the corner of my eye. I lift my head to examine her face, trying to find out what she’s going to say before it falls from her lips.
The curve of her mouth turns slightly down. Her fingers toy with the sleeves of her hoodie. Her eyes are beautiful but distant. I think at this point, I could fall in love with her a hundred times over and still notice something new and beautiful about her.
She gives me a look like I’ve just spoken a foreign language.
I sigh. “I know, V. I know this wasn’t the deal and you said no strings, but I can’t pretend anymore. You deserve to know how I truly feel and I need to say it, at least once.”
She doesn’t flinch away or grow any more stiff than she already is, but she does lean back against the sticky seat of the booth and stares ahead at nothing.
“You already know what I’m going to say,” she says, without meeting my eyes.
“Yeah. That you don’t want this. You don’t want me.”
Her head turns to me. “Don’t say it like that. Don’t make it seem like I’ve hurt you. We made the decision to hookup when we wanted.”
“We also made a promise to be honest with each other, and we both have been. When we started this, I had every intention of getting you to fall for me back, I did. But then you made it so clear that you didn’t want that, so I followed your rules best I could.
But…I can’t do that anymore. I don’t want to. ”
She looks at me, and her stare is brutal. Not because it’s hateful or cold, but because it’s…emotionless. “Okay. So what do you want to do about this?”
“The truth would be a nice start,” I answer. “I know you didn’t want serious a few months ago, but what about now? What about us? Doesn’t it feel like more than just a hookup to you? Don’t…don’t I mean more than that to you?”
She doesn’t answer. Just sighs.
Her silence is answer enough, so I add: “I’m not trying to get you to be someone you’re not, but you can’t ask for my body anymore and expect me to pretend I don’t care about you .”
She nods. “I know.”
And for one second, one fucking second, I thought she might meet me halfway.
“So I think we shouldn’t see each other anymore.”
Her words knock the air right out of me. I stare at her like I didn’t hear her right. Like maybe she said those words, but they came out wrong. She misspoke. I misunderstood.
Her voice goes quiet. “You’re a good guy, Carter. I’ve told you what I can’t give you and what we can’t have together. You deserve a girl who can give you those things. Someone who wants the same things as you, without all this…complication.”
My shoulders sag. “You’re not even gonna try?” I ask, and my voice cracking gives away the hurt in my chest. “You’re just…walking away from this? ”
“Carter, there was never a ‘this’ , there was never an ‘us’ . I told you from the beginning it wouldn’t happen. I respect you for being honest with me, and I’m sorry I can’t be that girl for you, but if you truly feel that way, then we don’t need to drag this out. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“V, please,” I beg, actually beg . “Don’t give up on this yet. If you walk away I…I just don’t want to look back on everything we’ve done together and the memories we’ve made and resent them. I don’t want to look back and realize that none of it mattered to you.”
She hesitates, and the silence between us turns from an uncomfortable tension to painful finality.
“It did matter. It did. But…it ends here.” She reaches across the table like she didn’t just rip my heart out and strokes her hand along my cheek. I lean in on instinct and she kisses me softly on the cheek.
Just enough to wreck me a little bit more.
“I’m sorry, Carter.”
And then with that, she stands up and leaves, sliding out of the booth and walking out the door without looking back.
I don’t stop her. Why would I?
I sit at the cafe for so long that I’m nearly late for my shift. When I get to the bunk room, I stare at the dusty ceiling with my arms crossed and my throat aching, trying to figure out how to let her go.
Not because I want to, but because I need to if I’m going to survive this heartbreak.