Page 289 of Tell Me I'm Enough
“Tank told me.”
My brain scrambles.
“So you know I didn’t—”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know what to believe. And that’s not the point anyway.”
“Then what is?”
“The point,” she says, stepping closer now, eyes shining with something that looks a lot like heartbreak, “is that I can’t trust you.”
“I didn’t cheat on you.”
“We’re not even together!” she shoots back.
“That’s because you won’t let us be!”
“Because I don’t feel safe with you, Mason.”
The words feel gut-wrenching. They make me hate myself more than I always do.
“Simone—”
“It’s like I keep acting like my body is some band-aid for both our wounds and then keep being shocked when we’re both still bleeding.”
I don’t have a comeback for that. Because she’s right, even if I don’t want her to be.
She starts pacing angrily. “I can’t do this anymore.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means whatever this is…we need to call it off.”
The words feel like someone punched through my ribs. I want her to take them back.
“No,” I say immediately. “No. You don’t get to just—”
“I do,” she says firmly. “I need space. It’s summer break anyway. I just…need time to think about what I actually want.”
“You want me,” I say desperately. “You and I both know you do.”
“I do,” she says, and my heart stops. “But that’s not enough.” She closes her eyes like she hates having to do this. “I refuse to be used and drained and hurt again.”
“I’m not using you.”
“You are,” she says. It’s not cruel; it’s just tired—she’s tired. “You lean on me for everything. And I lean on no one.”
I step closer to her. “Just give me a chance to make this right. All I want is you, Simone. You’re the only thing that makes my life bearable anymore.”
The second the words leave my mouth, I know it was wrong to say. That’s not something I can put on her. Even if it is true.
“That’s exactly the problem,” she says softly, and I hate the sadness in her eyes. “I don’t want to be the only thing keeping you afloat.”
I feel it then.
The weight of it.
The reality of it.
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