“I’m s-sorry,” I stammer, “I’m so sorry—I never meant for this to happen—I wasn’t thinking—”
But he’s not listening.
He’s shaking his head over and over and over and he’s looking at his hands like he’s waiting for the part where someone tells him this isn’t real and he whispers “What’s happening to me? Am I dreaming?”
And I’m so sick, I’m so confused, because I want him, I want him and I want Adam, too, and I want too much and I’ve never felt more like a monster than I have tonight.
The pain is so plain on his face and it’s killing me.
I feel it. I feel it killing me.
I’m trying so hard to look away, to forget, to figure out how to erase what just happened but all I can think is that life is like a broken tire swing, an unborn child, a fistful of wishbones. It’s all possibility and potential, wrong and right steps toward a future we’re not even guaranteed and I, I am so wrong. All of my steps are wrong, always wrong. I am the incarnation of error.
Because this never should have happened.
This was a mistake.
“You’re choosing him?” Warner asks, barely breathing, still looking as if he might fall over. “Is that what just happened? You’re choosing Kent over me? Because I don’t think I understand what just happened and I need you to say something, I need you to tell me what the hell is happening to me right now—”
“No,” I gasp. “No, I’m not choosing anyone—I’m not—I’m n-not—”
But I am. And I don’t even know how I got here.
“Why?” he says. “Because he’s the safer choice for you? Because you think you owe him something? You are making a mistake,” he says, his voice louder now. “You’re scared. You don’t want to make the difficult choice and you’re running away from me.”
“Maybe I just d-don’t want to be with you.”
“I know you want to be with me!” he explodes.
“You’re wrong.”
Oh my God what am I saying I don’t even know where I’m finding these words, where they’re coming from or which tree I’ve plucked them from. They just keep growing in my mouth and sometimes I bite down too hard on an adverb or a pronoun and sometimes the words are bitter, sometimes they’re sweet, but right now everything tastes like romance and regret and liar liar pants on fire all the way down my throat.
Warner is still staring.
“Really?” He struggles to rein in his temper and takes a step closer, so much closer, and I can see his face too clearly, I can see his lips too clearly, I can see the anger and the pain and the disbelief etched into his features and I’m not so sure I should be standing anymore. I don’t think my legs can carry me much longer.
“Y-yes.” I pluck another word from the tree lying in my mouth, lying lying lying on my lips.
“So I’m wrong.” He says the sentence quietly, so, so quietly. “I’m wrong that you want me. That you want to be with me.” His fingers graze my shoulders, my arms; his hands slide down the sides of my body, tracing every inch of me and I’m pressing my mouth shut to keep the truth from falling out but I’m failing and failing and failing because the only truth I know right now is that I’m mere moments from losing my mind.
“Tell me something, love.” His lips are whispering against my jaw. “Am I blind, too?”
I am actually going to die.
“I will not be your clown!” He breaks away from me. “I will not allow you to make a mockery of my feelings for you! I could respect your decision to shoot me, Juliette, but doing this—doing—doing what you just did—” He can hardly speak. He runs a hand across his face, both hands through his hair, looking like he wants to scream, to break something, like he’s really, truly about to lose his mind. His voice is a rough whisper when he finally speaks. “It’s the play of a coward,” he says. “I thought you were so much better than that.”
“I’m not a coward—”
“Then be honest with yourself!” he says. “Be honest with me! Tell me the truth!”
My head is rolling around on the floor, spinning like a wooden top, circling around and around and around and I can’t make it stop. I can’t make the world stop spinning and my confusion is bleeding into guilt which quickly evolves into anger and suddenly it’s bubbling raging rising to the surface and I look at him. I clench my shaking hands into fists. “The truth,” I tell him, “is that I never know what to think of you! Your actions, your behavior—you’re never consistent! You’re horrible to me and then you’re kind to me and you tell me you love me and then you hurt the ones I care most about!
“And you’re a liar,” I snap, backing away from him. “You say you don’t care about what you do—you say you don’t care about other people and what you’ve done to them but I don’t believe it. I think you’re hiding. I think the real you is hiding underneath all of the destruction and I think you’re better than this life you’ve chosen for yourself. I think you can change. I think you could be different. And I feel sorry for you!”
These words these stupid stupid words they won’t stop spilling from my mouth.
“I’m sorry for your horrible childhood. I’m sorry you have such a miserable, worthless father and I’m sorry no one ever took a chance on you. I’m sorry for the terrible decisions you’ve made. I’m sorry that you feel trapped by them, that you think of yourself as a monster who can’t be changed. But most of all,” I tell him, “most of all I’m sorry that you have no mercy for yourself!”
Warner flinches like I’ve slapped him in the face.
The silence between us has slaughtered a thousand innocent seconds and when he finally speaks his voice is barely audible, raw with disbelief.