Page 165 of The Clinch
“You are managing me, Leo.”
He says my name again, low this time, but I cut across it.
“Stop it. Listen.”
The words come hard now. “I’m tired of waking up to a car I never asked for. I’m tired of walking into my day and finding half of it already arranged. People showing up at exactly the right times. Dinner decided. My schedule coordinated. All of it wrapped in care until I’m the one who looks irrational for feeling suffocated.”
His expression shifts.
Barely.
Enough.
“I feel handled. Watched. Folded into a system I didn’t agree to. I feel small again, standing in front of a man who has started making decisions around me as if that’s his right.”
“Liz.”
“That shape matters.” The words burn now, but I keep going. “Even when the man inside it is good. Even when he means well. Even when what he feels for me is real.”
He holds where he is, taking it.
“You don’t get to organize my life around me.”
His mouth hardens. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“It is exactly what you’re doing.”
A thick, airless silence opens between us.
Then he says, “Drake is still around. You’re overloaded. I was trying to make your days easier.”
“Exactly.”
The word cracks out of me sharp enough to make him flinch.
“You were trying to make things easier for me without asking what any of it would feel like inside my skin. You decided what I needed. You built my days around it. You put people in motion. All of it without talking to me. Without asking.”
His stare doesn’t move. “It was to keep your days easy. To keep you safe.”
“And there it is.” I press my lips together, force myself to keep my voice level. “The instant you sayeasyorsafe, I’m supposed to shut up. The instant you sayDrake, I’m supposed to stop feeling what I’m feeling and hand you the wheel.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No.” The word comes out quiet. “Maybe it isn’t. Maybe another woman would call this support and feel cherished. Maybe part of this is my damage. I know that. I know I’m not neutral in this. But I cannot keep standing in a life that makes me doubt my own reactions.”
He takes another step toward me. “Liz, look at me.”
I do.
“I’m not Travis.”
The sentence lands so hard, it empties the room. Something raw breaks through the control in his expression.
“I know you’re not him. That’s not the point. The point is that you can explain every inch of this, and I still feel myself disappearing inside it.”
He takes the hit of that in silence, one hand going to the back of his neck. “What do you want me to say?”
“You don’t need to say anything.”
