Wanting to Remember,Trying to Forget(47)
“Are you really going to look me in the eye and lie to me again?”
His eyes widened. He knew. “When…How…Are you…Danny, I can explain.”
“Explain what, exactly?” She stood up. He stood up, too, rising head and shoulders above her. “Tell me, how can you explain the fact that you have been lying to me for months!” She shoved his shoulder. “What could possibly justify the fact that you took advantage of my situation? You’re sick, Max. So frickin sick!”
“Look…I’m…I’m sorry for lying to you, but just hear me out. I was—”
“I trusted you.”
“I know. I’m sorry.” Panic was setting in. He was talking faster, breathing erratically. “Just sit down and let me explain what happened.”
“Were you ever going to tell me the truth?”
“Yes! I was going to tell you tonight.”
“Oh, how convenient.”
“I swear…I swear I was gonna tell you tonight. I was just waiting for—”
Every word out of his mouth only irritated her more. “You’re a LIAR!” she screamed, shoving so hard that he took a few steps back.
His jaw clenched, but panic swallowed his anger. “Don’t push me. Just calm down and we can talk about this.”
“Talk?” She pushed him again, resentment building with every second she had look at his deceitful face. “The right time to talk would have been when I asked you what you were hiding. We were supposed to be friends. You were all I had and I trusted you!”
He lowered his head, ashamed. “I’m so sorry, but please…just let me explain. We can work through this.”
“We? There is no we. Everything that happened between us was one big, colossal lie. It wasn’t real.”
“You don’t…you don’t mean that.” His voice lowered to a tremulous whisper. “You can’t mean that. You’re just angry and upset. You can’t possibly mean that.”
Those words were wasted on her. It was meant more for his own benefit. He was trying to convince himself that maybe they could find a way forward, but in her mind, there was no moving past this.
“What were you expecting, Max? You can’t build anything with someone who only knows half the facts. And the fact is: we were nothing more than friends. If I was in my right mind—”
“Stop! You need to calm down. This is dangerous and it could get very ugly, so I suggest you watch what you say to me. Because once it’s out, you can’t take it back.”
“The only thing I wish I could take back was the last eight months.” He cringed, pain creasing his forehead, but she continued with her attack. “How could you do that? How could you look me in the eye and not feel an ounce of guilt, create this entire relationship, force me into your bed with your lies?”
“F-forced?” It came out as a stutter because she had literally knocked the wind out of him with that statement. His face dropped, devoid of any emotion. “Really? That’s the word you gonna use? Forced? Danny, we both know that’s not how it happened.”
“Nothing would have happened if you had told me the truth from the very beginning. Why, Max? Why would you do that?”
His jaw clenched again and she saw only agony in his brown eyes. “After everything we’ve been through, how can you still not see it?”
The words caused images to flash in her mind. Rain. Bathroom. Screaming. Kissing. She stopped it dead in its tracks, pushing it out of her head before she remembered what it felt like to kiss him. She didn’t want to think about kissing him. She killed every feeling because it was all a fabrication and only allowed herself to hold onto the anger she had felt that day.
“I don’t see anything except the liar standing in front of me.”
“Danny, please.” He reached out to take her hand but she yanked it out of his grip. He let her go and clasped his hands together behind his head. The panic on his face evolved to desperation. “Will you just listen to me for a second? Please…let’s just talk this through. Let me explain my side and then after—”
“There’s nothing to explain,” she derided. “You took advantage of me. You can’t explain that away. I can’t believe you would do that when you know how I feel about Richard.”
His hands balled into tight fists, his breathing became shallow, like he was on the verge of crying. “Richard?” He looked away for a few seconds before his pain-filled eyes met hers again. “All of this is because of Richard? Danny, the words know and feel aren’t past tense. What are you trying to say?”
“I’m not trying to say it. I’m saying it. You and I never should’ve happened. I’m in love with Richard.”
His breathing stilled. His face drained of color. She noticed his Adam’s apple move as he swallowed and the amount of times he blinked told her that he was trying to pull the tears back into his body. When he finally looked at her again, he was a different man. She never thought she would see the day that those brown eyes would look at her like that. It was something to behold, almost devastating to witness.
The exact moment he stopped caring.
“Danny…” His whisper was filled with so much hurt, it was unbearable to listen to what he said next. “This is where we part ways. If its Richard you want, I won’t be the one to stop you.”
She watched as he silently walked away. About twenty minutes later, she saw him carry two suitcases to the front door. Another cold sweat seeped through her pores and she realized that she was the one who was panicking now. He was going to leave and she would never see him again, never see that dimple, never feel that kiss on the side of her head. An overwhelming urge to throw herself in front of the door came over her but she resisted, reminding herself over and over again that he couldn’t be trusted. He betrayed her and she didn’t want a liar!
* * *
Max sat on a beaten-up, old bed in a beaten-up, old motel room, staring at pictures that were scattered all over the mattress. Although all the windows were open, it still smelled dusty. He didn’t care, though. In fact, after a week, he had become accustomed to it. He had a good few hours to kill before his flight and then he could use the happiness of his family to bury the ache inside him. A short-term distraction, but at least it was something.
Every day he sunk a little deeper into depression, torturing himself with all the things he could have done to prevent the demise of his relationship. He should have told her the truth before she found out herself, but he realized that telling her the truth would have only lessened the impact. It wouldn’t have changed the result.
Danny was the past now. He would have gone back. He would have begged for forgiveness. He would have looked past every ugly thing she said to him if she said it because he lied. But she wasn’t angry because of his lies. It all came down to Richard. It always came down to Richard.
She was still in love with him.
Even if he had told her the truth, the second she regained her memory, she would have realized that Richard was the one she wanted. It was better that it happened now instead of years in future.
Eight months was minuscule in the bigger scheme of things yet to him, eight months had felt like an eternity. Days had turned into weeks and weeks turned into months, but it felt infinite because all his happiness lived in that short frame of time and at that point, it seemed endless.
But it did end. Because it wasn’t real. Everything was a lie. And he wasn’t the only liar.
His mind recounted all their conversations. She had told him she loved him so many times and he believed her, stupidly and completely opening himself up to her. She was right, though. It was foolish to think he could build a relationship with one person only knowing half the facts. And here was the fact, hard and cold:
Seven years was a fuck long time. 84 months. 364 weeks. 2 555 days. 61 320 hours. 3 679 200 minutes. 220 752 000 seconds.
And not for one of those seconds had she ever felt anything real for him. Every look of affection. Every kiss on the cheek. Every hug. Every slow dance. Every playful nudge. He used to obsess over all that and none of it was fucking real.
All this time he had wanted her to choose and another cold, hard fact was that her choice was Richard. Eight months of drowning in guilt. Eight months of holding up a façade. Eight months of a relationship evolving from strangers to lovers and she still fucking wanted Richard.
He just wanted to forget. Forget her taste. Forget her smell. Forget every fucking thing that had happened in the last seven years.
If he could just forget about how amazing it felt to make love to her the first time, he could simultaneously forget how much it hurt to know that he was her first regret. If he could just forget about how good her lips felt pressed against his, he could forget about the ache he felt knowing that those lips were never meant to be his. If he could just forget about the fact that he was so completely in love with her, he could forget about the lump that formed in his throat every time he thought about her being in love with someone else. If he could just forget about the dreams of them becoming more than friends, he could forget the pain of knowing that—for a brief, indescribable moment in time—those dreams had actually come true.