Page 109 of Your Fault

She stepped back, I stepped forward, and she repeated the words, “I said, get away from me!”

I cursed between clenched teeth as I heard her tell someone where we were.

“Noah, listen,” I pleaded as she put her phone away.

With fire in her eyes, she said, “Nicholas, this isn’t easy for me! I’m doing everything I can to try to be normal, to get our relationship to work, but you aren’t trying to understand me. All you do is throw stuff in my face; you don’t trust me, and I’m over it!”

Those words were like stakes being driven into my heart one by one.

“Noah, that’s not what I intended,” I replied, trying to get her to calm down. “I don’t think you’re sick. I never thought that. All I want is for you to get better, not to be afraid, to stop running from me—that’s it.”

“No, Nick, what you want is for me to get better according to your definition of what that means,” she said, hugging herbare arms. “This is nuts… You’re the one who needs help! You’re seeing threats where there aren’t any!”

I charged over, not caring that she was backing up or that her eyes were telling me to stay where I was. I grabbed her arms and crouched to look closely at her.

“You’re doing it again… You’re looking for any excuse you can find to distance yourself from me. Why?”

She shook her head. “I think we need some time,” she said, looking at the ground.

“You can’t be serious.”

A tear balanced on the edge of one of her eyelids, as though unwilling to fall.

“I think we both need time to look at things with a different perspective. We need to miss each other, Nick…because right now I don’t even recognize you. We don’t recognize each other. All I see is jealousy everywhere, and that’s not good.”

“Don’t do this. Don’t pull away from me.” I grabbed the sides of her face, came close, tried to touch her lips with mine.

“It’s just a few days, Nick. Give me time to assimilate everything that’s happened. I didn’t just leave home; I left my second home—your home—too… I’ve started talking about my past. I’m stirring up old memories. It hurts, and I’m worried there’s not enough of me for you.”

I pulled her in, hugging her tightly.

“You’re all I need, my love. Please don’t pull away from me.” I pushed her head back and kissed her as gently as I could, full of tenderness, but also full of passion. She quivered and pulled away.

“We’ve both got problems we need to take care of, Nicholas. Screaming in each other’s faces isn’t doing anything. You need to learn to trust me, and I need to stop running from the things I feel. I love you too much, Nick. I love you so much, it hurts.”

I couldn’t breathe, but I couldn’t turn around and leave, not without her, not as I watched her swallowing her own tears.

“That’s exactly why there’s no point in us being apart. We’re not made for that, you and I, remember?” I said, wiping away a tear that had escaped from her beautiful eyes.

“I need to think… I need to know what it is I want, what I’m missing, because right now, all I ever do is think about you, and even if a part of me knows that I need you, there’s another part of me that’s disappearing. Nicholas, without you, there is no Noah, and that’s not right. I can’t depend on you in that way because I’ll wind up losing myself… Don’t you see that?”

What I saw was a gorgeous girl destroyed, and it was my fault because I didn’t know how to make her happy. Why not, though? What was I doing wrong? What had happened to those days when Noah had smiled at me a hundred times a day? Where was that shimmer that used to overtake her as soon as we locked eyes?

Was she right? Was I changing her?

A sudden glare lit her up from behind. Noah looked back, and as I saw her face, I could tell she was about to fall apart.

I took a deep breath and tried to set my feelings aside.

“I’ll give you a week, Noah,” I said, looking straight at her to try to convince her of the seriousness of my words. “I’ll give you a week to miss me through your every pore, seven days for you to realize where you belong is with me and no one else.”

She stood still, and I bent over to kiss those sensual lips, that precious mouth, that mouth that belonged to me, and I hugged her close, sharing my warmth with her, my desire, my pain at letting her go.

We were panting when I pulled away.

“Seven days, Noah.”

I watched her get into the car. When I saw a flash of redbehind the windshield, I realized it was Briar who had come to get her.