the condom and we put our clothes back on. It doesn’t take us long to drift off to sleep, wrapped in each other’s arms.
Everything is perfect when I wake up with her, the sun just barely making its way into the sky. She holds my hand as we drive back to town, but the closer and closer we get to the divide she focuses so much on, the looser her grip on my hand becomes. I try to hold on, but I know what’s happening.
She’s not just physically slipping away, she’s emotionally slipping away, too. The tension in the cab is thick. I grip the steering wheel tightly, frustration, fear, anger all battling inside me.
By the time we make it to her place, she’s sitting as far away from me as possible, staring at the window and no longer holding my hand. It’s killing me that she’s back in her head. That what we just shared didn’t affect her the way it did me. Or maybe it did, but she’s not willing to take that risk. I’m not worth the risk.
I watch as she wipes away a tear but know she doesn’t want me to talk about it right now. Fuck. That hurts. Bad. She’s in her own head, and when she gets that way, I have to let her be but it isn’t easy. There’s a weight sitting heavy on my chest, the pressure damn near crippling.
As soon as I put the truck in park, I panic. For another reason other than her fighting what we could have together. We were out all night and this is the first I’ve thought about it until this moment. My parents trust me, but I’m sure they’ll be pretty pissed. I don’t know what she’ll walk into, but that’s not my top concern right now. What is my top concern, is the fact that she’s not looking at me and I know I’m about to lose her, despite what we just shared.
I get out of my pickup and she does the same, meeting me at the front. When she lifts her gaze to me, what I see breaks my heart. Tears flood her eyes and she sniffs.
“I… I’m sorry, Reed.”
I knew it was coming but it doesn’t make it any easier to hear what she’s about to say. I try for a different tactic than the desperation that’s clawing its way out. “It’s okay. I pushed. It’s too early. We’ll slow down.”
She blows out a shaky breath and sniffles. “No. It’s not… I mean. That’s not… I don’t love you, Reed. Not the way you meant when you told me you loved me, anyway.”
I stare at her, looking for any clue that she’s lying. I don’t see that, though.
I swallow hard and pray I don’t start crying like a fucking baby. I’m close to it, though. I’m so in love with Sadie I can’t even think of being with anyone else. I don’t see another life for me other than her. Why is it this way? Why does she think that she and I don’t belong together? Why doesn’t she see what I see?
Licking my lips and sucking back all the emotion, I look away from her. My voice is thick when I finally speak. “It’s okay. I get it,” I tell her, even though I don’t. We’re best friends. Spend all our free time together. I don’t want her to see how much those words hurt or have her think that this changes anything between us. I made a mistake and tried for more but I can’t lose her completely. A life without her in it? Impossible to even fathom.
“Reed?” She places a hand on my forearm and I turn to face her.
She wipes under her eyes, mascara smearing against her cheek. “I can’t. I’m sorry. You don’t understand how different we are. We aren’t a match. You don’t see it. But I do.”
She’s right. I don’t understand and I don’t see it. I can only hope that one day, I can change her mind.
Sadie
I push aside the curtain in my bedroom window and watch Reed’s tail lights in the early morning light as they drive away. Telling him I didn’t love him was hands down the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life, and my life has been nothing but hard since the day I was born.
Reed doesn’t see it. The way the rest of the town looks at me as though I’m trailer trash. The trailer part might be right and the fact that I’ve done nothing to change their minds doesn’t help matters either.
If he stays here in Lakeside, he’d be staying because he loves me and wants to be close. He needs to move on from me, find someone to be with who the town would expect him to be with and can be by his side as he works on his family’s ranch.