Not in Love

She was quiet, that silence full of stares and pulled strings simmering between them.

“Hyper-competent. Mysterious. ‘I scored better than you on the quiz, and I could kill you with a pencil’ energy.”

“Maybe. Or maybe some people are too broken. Maybe . . . maybe things have happened in their lives, in their past, that have damaged them so bad, they’re never going to get happy endings with the loves of their lives.” She pulled up her knees
and wrapped her arms around them. “Maybe some people are meant to be tragedies.”

“Maybe. Or maybe some people are too broken. Maybe . . . maybe things have happened in their lives, in their past, that have damaged them so bad, they’re never going to get happy endings with the loves of their lives.”

wanted to give you a heads-up so you know what to expect.

“It means that I’m not going into this thinking that there will be an ending. Do you get my meaning?”

He was on the ice, his first home. Standing across from the woman he loved, whose response to him declaring his love to her had been—nothing. Nothing at all. As much as he wanted to hope that she’d lured him here to announce that she could possibly see a future in which she loved him back, it was more likely—

Oh, shit. He knew the reason she’d wanted him here. She was going to spend the next twenty minutes dutifully spelling out her gratitude toward him for helping her fix her patent situation.

If she offered him a thank-you blow job, he was going to wail like a fucking baby.

But if what prompted you to break it off with Eli is not lack of interest, and what you’re worried about is more somewhere in the realm of…” She gestured inchoately, like a very enthusiastic painter. “You not being good enough for him, or not being sure that what you can offer him is worthwhile, or just being afraid that navigating a relationship with him might be too complicated, you might want to give him a call. We all have our baggage, and Eli’s not the type to hold anyone’s against them. Although, on my end, it would be better if it didn’t work out between you two.”

“Out of all the people I’ve met, the things I’ve wanted, the places I’ve been, none has ever felt as necessary as you do. Because I love you. I love you in a way I didn’t think I was capable of. I love you because you showed me how to fall in love. And I don’t regret it, Rue. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Even if you can never say it back. Even if you never think about me again after today. Even if you were right after all, and you’re not capable of love.”

oing. He knew it, and so did I. And now…what now? What did people do, once they acknowledged that they had something—someone—to lose? What was expected of me? What if Eli decided that he didn’t want me?