I’m the evening’s entertainment, I walk up to Nick’s front door and knock.
He opens the door, his expression wary. “Hey.”
I clasp my sweaty palms behind my back and try to take a relaxing, mindful yoga breath without being obvious. “Can I come in?”
He doesn’t say anything, just steps back and lets the door swing open so I can walk inside. His house is spotless. His shoes are lined up by the door. His keys and wallet are in a small wooden bowl on the coffee table. There isn’t a speck of dust, stray takeout menu, or crumpled receipt to be found. How in the world can someone so together ever want to be with someone who is as big of a mess as I am?
Nick stands a few feet away from me, his arms crossed, looking way too good for my heart.
“Why are you here, Mallory?” he asks, sounding as tired as I feel.
I let out a deep breath, straighten my shoulders, and lay out my plan. “To say I’m sorry and to see if there’s a way that we can work something out. Maybe a friends-with-benefits type of thing again.”
There. It’s all out there. So why hasn’t that prickly nugget of misery disappeared from my belly?
He lets out a low chuckle that sounds anything but amused and shakes his head in disbelief.
“Let me get this straight,” he says, stalking toward me. “You came over here to offer up a quote friends-with-benefits situation unquote, and you think that is not only a solution but also an apology?”
I hold up my hands palms-first and he halts his approach. Okay, when he puts it that way, it doesn’t sound so great.
“I don’t want to lose you, but I just want to take things super slow,” I say, grasping for some way to be able to explain my idea without it sounding so cold and impersonal. “I’m still learning how to live this new life, and I can’t afford to get into another situation where all I’m doing is trying to please another person no matter what it costs me.”
“All of that seems fair,” he says, the muscle in his jaw throbbing. “But how does that get to us not being able to be more than a neighborly booty call?”
My chest tightens and it’s everything I can do to get the answer out past the emotion clogging my throat. “I can’t afford to fall for another Karl.”
Nick’s entire body goes slack, his shoulders drop, his gaze loses its intensity. The Nick I know, the one who cracks jokes and fusses about HOA violations, who has carried me up those stairs two at a time, has been replaced by a stranger.
“That’s what you still think of me?” He stares at me as if he’s looking at someone he wrongly thought he knew, too. “Really?”
“Nick. You know I don’t. Not really. But I can’t afford to be wrong—”
“Yeah?” He cuts me off with one harsh syllable. “I can’t, either, Mallory. I can’t afford to get involved with someone who is only willing to see the worst in me. I can’t afford to be in a relationship with someone who can’t see past her own baggage. I can’t afford to fall for someone who is never going to be able to trust anyone again—especially not herself.”
I stumble back, his words hitting me harder than a Mack truck and my whole body aching.
“That’s not me,” I croak out.
“How long are you going to lie to yourself about that?” he scoffs, walking to his front door. “Look, I was all in. I was more than ready to take a relationship—not a fuck buddy—slow, to get to know each other, to really give the idea of us a chance. But you aren’t there. You aren’t ready. I don’t know if you ever will be. So I’m going to do what you can’t.” He opens his door wide and stands to the side, leaving me no illusions about what he wants me to do next. “I’m gonna have the courage to watch you walk away because you don’t.”
Shell-shocked, hurting, and lost, I walk out the door, trying to process what in the hell just happened.
He shuts it behind me without another word.
I make it halfway across the street, going back to my house, fired up on indignation and pissed-off-ness, muttering “how dare he say that” and “what in the hell was he thinking” and “oh my God could he be more wrong?” before I shove my hands in my pockets