15-05-2021-052358It-Ends-with-Us

“Hah!” I say with a laugh. “Are you sure about that?”
He nods, so I prepare to let him have it. I push against his chest
and make my way around him so that he’s the one leaning against the
ledge now.
“I can’t tell what you want, Ryle! And every time I get to the point
where I start to not give a shit, you show up again out of the blue! You
show up at my work, you show up at my apartment door, you show up
at parties, you.. .”
“I live here,” he says, excusing the last one. That pisses me off even
more. I clench my fists.
“Ugh! You’re driving me crazy! Do you want me or do you not?”
He stands up straight and takes a step toward me. “Oh, I want you,
Lily. Make no mistake about that. I just don’t want to want you.”
My whole body sighs at that comment. Partly out of frustration and
partly because everything he says makes me shiver and I hate that I
allow him to make me feel like this.
I shake my head. “You don’t get it, do you?” I say, softening my
voice. I feel too defeated right now to keep yelling at him. “I like you,
Ryle. And knowing that you only want me for one night makes me
really, really sad. And maybe if this were a few months ago, we could
have had sex and it would have been fine. You would have walked
away and I could have easily moved on with my life. But it’s not a few
months ago. You waited too long, and too many pieces of me are
invested in you now, so please. Stop flirting with me. Stop hanging
pictures of me in your apartment. And stop sending me flowers.
Because when you do those things, it doesn’t feel good, Ryle. It actually
kind of hurts.”
I feel deflated and exhausted and I’m ready to leave. He regards
me silently, and I respectfully give him time to make his rebuttal. But
he doesn’t. He just turns around, leans over the ledge, and stares
down at the street like he didn’t hear a single word I said.
I walk across the roof and open the door, half expecting him to call
out my name or ask me not to leave. I get all the way back to the
apartment before I finally lose all hope of that happening. I push
through the crowd and make it through three different rooms before
I spot Devin. When he sees the look on my face, he just nods and
begins to make his way across the room toward me.