I want you to love me with that all-consuming, passionate, have a picture of me in a box stuffed in your closet kind of way.” She lifted her eyes, her cheeks wet now. “Not just because I’m better for you.”
Fuck, I hated myself. Loathed myself.
“I liked Dom, and then you kissed me…and I didn’t think about him again. There was no choice. It was always you. But then you dumped me, and it hurt…so much.” More tears came.
It hurt me a million times more to see her cry than it did with Catherine.
“It hurt because all she had to do was get engaged, and you were completely lost. You shouldn’t have cared in the first place—”
“You’re absolutely right. I don’t disagree with any of that. But you’re also forgetting a vital part of the story. You knew how I felt about Catherine before you made your move. You told me you didn’t care, that you were happy to take it slow, that you were fully aware of my situation and you wanted to be with me, regardless. I never would have kissed you if you hadn’t done that. You rushed it when you shouldn’t have. Then I rushed it too. Because there’s no denying that we’re great together, that we want to be together, that this could be damn perfect…if the timing was right.”
Her tears stopped, and she stared at me.
“I wanted you the moment I saw you, and I never acted on it because I knew full well that I couldn’t give you what you deserved. The only reason that changed is because you said you were okay with it—”
“Well, I’m not anymore…”
“Okay, that’s fine.” I just didn’t want her to portray me as some big asshole when I was more of a smaller asshole. “The timing…isn’t right.” If only I’d met her a few years later or met her before Catherine, it would have worked. “We both know it. Maybe we can try again later, when I’m in the right place to give you all of me, my entire heart, my soul. I can’t see myself ever wanting anyone the way I want you, so maybe when I’m finally in that place…we could have that.”
“You can’t expect me to wait around—”
“I don’t.” I didn’t want to think about her with Zach or somebody else. I wanted her to be mine, right now, but I didn’t deserve her…and I might never deserve her. “I know a woman worth waiting for doesn’t wait for anyone else.”
For being a smart guy, I’d fucked up my life pretty badly.
Quite the accomplishment.
After my conversation with Sicily, she left the research facility and went elsewhere. She clearly needed space from me—and I thought space was good for both of us. She didn’t even bring me lunch, but my mini fridge always had snacks that I could scarf down. But it was still a huge change in my life when she wasn’t there, not because she didn’t bring me food, but because I didn’t get to talk to her over lunch.
I looked forward to it every day.
I spent the next few days going through the motions, a little numb, just doing my job and then going home as soon as possible. Instead of replaying and reanalyzing my conversation with Catherine a million times, all I could think about was Sicily.
She was a woman who didn’t deserve to shed a single tear.
I lifted weights a lot, watched TV, and then did paperwork on my couch. My family gave me some space like they knew I needed it, and I spent a lot of time in solitude. When Derek asked me to get a drink, I couldn’t say no, because I was tired of being cooped up in my apartment. Sicily hadn’t talked much at the office, like there was an invisible barrier between us.
Derek must have had a hard day because he ordered a scotch and skipped the beer. “Just a lot of bureaucratic bullshit. The government says I can’t test my rockets here, so I have to transport them down to Florida. It’s so fucking stupid.”
“Why would they do that?”
He gave a shrug. “Maybe because they know I build better rockets than NASA and they don’t fucking like it.” He relaxed back into his chair and brought the glass to his lips. “Whatever. I got bigger shit to worry about.”
“Like?”
“Lizzie.”
“Everything alright?”
“Everything’s fine. She’s just graduating soon.”
“You’ve got a couple months.”
“Yeah, but I feel like she just started her senior year. Look how quickly that passed.”
“You’ll