“I’m only sorry for not telling you. I should have said something a lot sooner. I’m not sorry for doing it. You have to understand.”
“Actually I don’t. I don’t have to do anything.”
My head drops along with my heart. I clear my throat in an attempt to reset my emotions. “I joined the forum three years ago,” I confess. Sydney gasps and her eyes widen. “We were eating breakfast and the notification popped up on your phone. It took me a while to figure out what it was, but once I did, I made an account.”
Sydney stares at the ground near her feet. I pray she’s listening to me and not busy planning my murder in her mind. There is no doubt that she could pull it off with the help of Lauren and Wren.
“I missed you. You were carving out a new life here at school with Lauren. I was running out of excuses to check up on you. I was desperate to feel connected to you in some way. I stayed anonymous until recently.”
“Why now? Why that screen name?”
I take a step toward her and she flinches.Fuck. I wince and my hands curl into fists. I inhale and exhale a deep breath, forcing my bodyto relax and find a peaceful center. I don’t want her scared of me now, or ever.
“I’ve left comments anonymously on your posts from the first day I joined. I needed that connection to you. Why now?” I shrug. “Why not now? I’ve spent a lot of time wishing I could be with you. This made me feel like I was.”
“And the name?”
“You said once years ago ‘I don’t want some average Joe for a boyfriend.’ It was right after your breakup with that idiot Wilson.”
“I remember,” she whispers.
“That’s all I could think of at the time. It was a silly name. The nineteen is for the first day I saw you. I’ll never forget that day. It’s also the password on my phone and why I wear the number on my back every time I step onto a baseball field.”
She inhales a deep breath and tips her face toward the ceiling. “A sweet username isn’t going to win you any points. You’ve had an unfair advantage. You knew you were talking to me and could manipulate the conversation. I told you things I’ve never said to anyone.”
“Unfair advantage.” I scoff, pacing the floor. “Do you know what’s unfair? Seeing you every day and not being able to talk to you.Reallytalk to you.”
I stop in front of her, allowing her warm vanilla scent to finally help me calm down. Not giving her the option to look away, I say, “Unfair is existing in the same world as you and not being able to enjoy all the benefits ofbeing yours. I couldn’t hold you, or comfort you. I didn’t get to know how your day was or the opportunity to help make it better.”
She swipes at the tears rolling down her cheeks. I hate that she’s crying right now. Taking a step toward her, I cup her face in my hands. Her lower lip trembles. “You wouldn’t talk to me but you would talk to him.”
“You could have come to me,” she says, removing my hands from her face. “You could have told me how you felt about me. Instead, you snuck around behind my back pretending to be someone else. You claim being near me was difficult because I wasn’t yours, yet you still did it. Why? Why not just let me go? We could have both moved on.”
“Moving on? That was never going to happen. We all had our ways of coping. You coped by dating other guys to getover me. This was how I coped.”
“What do you mean?”
“Mithridatism,” I state. I read about it in one of her books once.
“Mithridatism?”
“I tried to become immune to you. I took a little bit of you everyday to build up an immunity. Thinking eventually you wouldn’t have an effect on me. That maybe at some point in my life I would have one day I wasn't absolutely desperate for you.”
“Are you saying I’m a poison?” Her eyes narrow.
“No. Turns out there was no way I could become immune to you because you were the antidote. You’re the cure to everything that is wrong. You’re the light in the darkness. You’re the reason I have more good days than bad ones. Tell me what I have to do. We said we aren’t going to run anymore.”
“Don’t you dare throw that in my face.” She points a finger in my direction. “That was said before I knew you were lying to me.”
“Nothing I said to you were lies. It was all my truths said behind an alias. Would you have listened to me if it had been me? I’m lucky I got you to go out with me.”
“Yes, you are,” she snarks.
Her sass makes me smile. I take her hands in mine. “I feel like all I’ve been doing lately is begging you to forgive me and asking for another chance. You are it for me. I’m not going to stop, Syd. I won’t lose you again. I lo—”
“Don’t say it. Not now.” Her eyes close tight and leave wrinkles in the corners. “This is not love.” She releases a slow breath. “It’s too painful. I can’t keep doing this to myself. Today, the date in the park, everything, it was a mistake. We’re a mistake.”
My heart plummets to my stomach. I feel like I’m freefalling through the sky without a parachute. It’s not easy to hear words you said years ago thrown back into your face. “You don’t mean that.”
