Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,251

were going to take an exit and that would be the end of it.”

Although that looked painful on her face, she said nothing in reply.

“It’s just that, well, I guess for me I went all-in with it a long time ago—being with you, hanging out with you, dancing even. Every time we were together, I was walking this tightrope of falling more in love with you and knowing it could end the next minute.”

Nodding her understanding, Taylor just sat and absorbed his words.

“I think it all started when we were at the student union on Wednesday.”

“Yeah,” she said with worry. “What happened there anyway? I mean, I know I said some stupid things, but let’s face it, I’ve said a lot of stupid things in the past.”

But he shook his head. “Not like that. Not like, with both barrels, point blank like that. I think up to that point, I had hope. When you sat there and said it like that, like ‘Greg, you’re worthless and all I want is Nelson…’”

“I never said you were worthless.”

He shrugged. “Close enough. I just… something snapped. I guess I realized that no matter what I did, no matter how close I thought we were, you were never going to feel the same way about me that I felt about you.”

“You gave up.”

Bouncing his eyebrows once, he sighed in acknowledgement.

“And you went tonight because…?”

“Because I’d told you I would, because I couldn’t let you down, because I knew it was my last shot at seeing you like this… like… that.”

Taylor nodded slowly. “And at the dance?”

Laying his head to the side and putting his fingers on the eye that was between them, he tried to thwart the question, the feelings, the memories. He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe through the surge of emotions. “I guess I finally realized it was all just a game to you, a show for everybody else.” He stopped her with a hard frown. “And don’t say it wasn’t either. I know… I know it was.”

“I didn’t…” she started but her words trailed off.

“You told that guy I was your boyfriend, didn’t you?” The hurt morphed into anger and slid back right back into hurt again. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she admitted.

“Why?” Greg asked. “Why would you tell him something like that?”

“Because I was scared, okay?”

“Of what?” he asked in confusion. “Of him?”

“Of… that. Of him thinking there might be a chance with us, of him… doing something about it, asking me out… whatever.”

“I don’t understand. Why were you scared? I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“I did too,” she said. “I thought that’s what I wanted. I told myself that’s what I wanted. But when it showed up, I don’t know. I just felt like ‘what’s the point?’ This one’s just going to end up where all the rest of them have before. I’m going to go out with him, twist myself into whatever pretzel he wants me to be, it won’t be enough, and eventually, I’ll end up right back where I started.”

“With me.”

She hadn’t meant that to sound like the bad thing it ended up being. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Nodding, he let his head fall.

“I think that’s what I’ve been missing in all of this,” she said, trying again.

“What? That I’m the fallback guy when nothing else is working?”

“No. That you were the one thing that was working.”

His gaze came up though it was still sideways. “Huh?”

“It was never hard with you,” she said. “Not for me anyway. We could talk and laugh, hang out, eat, study, whatever. It sounds crazy, but I really like who I am with you.”

Confusion marched across his face. “What? Yourself?”

Her laugh was soft. “Is that who that is? Myself?”

“I think so, don’t you?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure I even know who that is anymore.” She dropped her head. “Right now, I feel like I just walked through the looking glass and everything is backwards or upside down or something, like it doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’m sorry,” he said as exhaustion came back into his voice.

“No, it’s not that. It’s not you,” she said, frustrated at how easily he could turn what she didn’t mean into something she felt like she had. “I don’t want you to be sorry. I don’t want this to be weird between us. The last thing I can afford to do at this point is lose you too.” She sat back hard, slumping there with her arms crossed until her fingers fell and started