Maybe Someday(83)

She diverts her eyes away and scoots off my lap. She stands and slowly walks the length of the living room and back. She’s thinking, so I give her a moment. I know my answer has hurt her, but I know a lie would have hurt her even more. She finally turns to me.

“I can spend all night asking you really brutal questions, Ridge. I don’t want to do that. I’ve had a lot of time to think this through, and I have a lot I need to say to you.”

“If brutal questions will help you, then ask me brutal questions. Please. We’ve been together five years, and I can’t let this tear us apart.”

She shakes her head, then takes a seat on the couch opposite me. “I don’t need to ask the questions, because I already know all the answers. I just need to talk to you now about where we go from here.”

I lean forward, not liking where this is going. I don’t like it at all. “At least, allow me to explain myself. You can’t come to a decision about what happens to us without hearing me out first.”

She shakes her head again, and my heart clenches. “I already know, Ridge. I know you. I know your heart. I’ve read your conversations with Sydney. I already know what you’re going to tell me. You’re going to tell me how much you love me. How you would do anything for me. You’re going to apologize for developing feelings for another girl, despite how hard you tried to prevent that from happening. You’re going to tell me you love me so much more than I know and how your relationship with me is so much more important to you than your feelings for Sydney. You’re going to tell me you’ll do anything to make it up to me and that I just need to give you a chance. You’re probably going to be brutally honest with me, also, and tell me that you do have feelings for Sydney but they don’t compare to how you feel about me.”

She stands and moves to sit next to me on the couch. There are traces of tears in her eyes, but she isn’t crying anymore. She faces me and begins signing again.

“And you know what, Ridge? I believe you. And I understand all of it. I do. I’ve read your conversations. It’s as if I was right there, sifting through it all while the two of you were attempting to fight whatever was developing between you. I keep telling myself to quit logging back into your account, but I can’t stop. I’ve read those conversations a million times. I deciphered every word, every sentence, every punctuation mark. I wanted to find the spot in your conversations that proved your disloyalty to me. I wanted to find the moment in your conversations where you became this despicable excuse for a man by admitting that what you felt for her was purely sexual. God, Ridge. I wanted to find that moment so bad, but I couldn’t. I know you kissed her, but even the kiss seemed excusable after the two of you had that open discussion about it. I’m your girlfriend, and even I began to excuse it.

“I’m not saying what you did is readily forgivable, by any means. You should have asked her to move out the second you felt compelled to kiss her. Hell, you shouldn’t have ever asked her to move in if there was even the slightest possibility that you were attracted to her. What you did was wrong in every sense of the word, but what’s so messed up is that I feel like I understand it. Maybe it’s because I know you too well, but the fact that you’re falling in love with Sydney is obvious, and I can’t just sit back and share your heart with her, Ridge. I can’t do it.”

No, no, no, no, no. I quickly pull her to me, wanting the comfort of her to subdue the panic building within me.

She can be heartbroken. She can even be pissed or terrified, but the one thing I won’t let her be is okay. She can’t just be okay with this.

Tears begin to sting my eyes as I hold her as if my embrace is somehow supposed to convince her of how I feel. I’m shaking my head no, trying to get her not to take this conversation where I’m afraid it’s headed.

I press my lips against hers in an attempt to make it all go away. I hold her face in the palms of my hands and try desperately to show her how I feel without having to pull apart from her again.

Her lips part, and I kiss her, something I’ve done on a regular basis for more than five years but never with so much conviction or fear.

Her mouth tastes of tears, and I’m not sure whose they are, because we’re both crying now. She pushes against my chest, wanting to speak to me, but I don’t want her to. I don’t want to watch her tell me how okay my feelings for Sydney are.

They’re not okay. They shouldn’t be okay at all.

She sits up and pushes me away from her, then wipes her tears. I lean my elbow into the couch and cover my mouth with my trembling hand.