Page 107 of Forced Into Your Arms
Eventually, Simone stopped waiting.
“You left,” I reminded her.
“After three years…”
“I didn’t tell you to.”
“No, you didn’t.” She gave me a sad smile. “You didn’t ask me to stay either.”
There wasn’t much I could say to that.
When Simone ended things, I let her. She told me she couldn’t keep waiting for me to decide whether I wanted the same life she wanted, and I respected it. I missed her afterward, but I never chased her.
At the time, I thought letting her go was the right thing to do.
Simone sat quietly for a moment, and I could tell there was something else on her mind. She looked down at her hands before bringing her eyes back to mine, and when she finally spoke, some of the confidence she’d walked into my office with was gone.
“Do you regret it?”
I slightly frowned. “Regret what?”
“Letting me leave.”
The question settled between us.
I stared at her, and for the first time since she’d walked into my office, I understood what she was really looking for. Maybe she wanted me to say that I’d changed. Maybe she needed to hear that losing her had hurt me as much as staying with me had eventually hurt her. After three years together, I couldn’t blame her for wanting to know if there had ever been a moment when I wished I’d gotten off my ass and stopped her from walking away.
There had been moments when I missed her. Times when I almost called just to hear her voice or caught myself thinkingabout something she would’ve laughed at. Three years didn’t disappear simply because the relationship ended.
Still, missing somebody and wanting the relationship back weren’t the same thing.
Simone deserved the truth, even if it wasn’t what she’d come there hoping to hear.
“I regret hurting you.”
The hope I hadn’t realized was sitting in her eyes disappeared, and she looked away for a second. When she looked back at me, the hurt was there, even though she tried to cover it.
“That’s not what I asked.”
The second the words left her mouth, something about them irritated me, though I couldn’t explain why. Maybe because lately it felt like everybody around me kept asking questions they already knew the answers to.
“I know what you asked,” I said. “But I’m telling you what I can honestly give you.”
She looked away without saying anything.
“I cared about you, Simone. You know that.”
“I wanted you to love me enough to choose me, though.”
“I did choose you…”
“For three years, you chose me as long as I didn’t ask for anything to change.”
That one landed hard.
I didn’t respond immediately because arguing would’ve been bullshit. Simone hadn’t asked for anything crazy. She wanted to know the relationship was going somewhere, and I kept giving her everything except an answer.
“I wasn’t ready,” I finally said.
