She reaches up to cup my face. “I know you’re scared, but—”
“Butwhat?” I’m so desperate I sound angry. She lets her hand fall away. “There’s no ‘but’ here. I shouldn’t...I shouldn’t have brought you with me. It was a mistake. It’s too soon.”
Her shoulders droop, like a flower giving up on the rain. She reaches for her shirt on the floor and pulls it over her head. When she speaks, her voice is hoarse.
“Are you ashamed of me?”
“No! No, it’s not that. It’s not that at all.” I shake my head, stepping past her so I can start to pace the room. I need to move right now. “I’m ashamed ofmyself.”
“I don’t understand,” she whispers.
“And I can’t explain!” I hurl back. “I just...I need some time.”
This room is too fucking small. I bang my knee on the desk chair and stop, cursing as I bend down to rub my leg. I hit it hard enough to bruise.
“What does that mean?” Molly asks me.
“Maybe we need to...” I pause to blow out a breath. “Maybe we need to take a step back, before we get hurt. We were good as friends—”
“No.”
I look up at her from where I’m still crouched on the floor. Her face is all hard lines, her body braced for a fight.
“That is not an option, JP. Don’t insult what we have by suggesting we can just go back to being friends. I know you feel this too, and I know you realize there’s no backing out of it. You either hold on or you let go, but there’s no going back to the moment you decided to jump. There’s just a cliff there, just rocks and a dead end.” Her fists are shaking at her sides. “I know something is going on with you. There’s more than what you’re telling me. It’s not just about us. You can trust me with it. We can take as long as it takes. You think I don’t know what it’s like to feel trapped, to feel like everything you need to say is stuck in your throat? I’ve spent most of my life feeling that way. Justtrust me.”
I couldn’t stand up if I tried. I feel paralyzed, drained—like everything that keeps me going is slowly seeping out.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I rasp, “and I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Youarelosing me. Youarehurting me.”
Not as much as I could, though. Not as much as I would if I let this thing keep going.
“If we just took a step back...” I’m practically begging.
“Fine.”
She whirls around all of a sudden and grabs her suitcase, flinging it onto the bed.
“Molly, what are you doing?”
“I’m taking a step back.” She starts tossing all the clothes she can reach into the case. “I’m taking a step all the way back to Montreal. I don’t want to see you anymore, not when you’re acting like this.”
“Molly, that’s not what I meant.”
She stops packing long enough to point a finger at me. “I told you, there’s no going back. I’m not going to let us both tear ourselves to pieces pretending we’re ‘friends.’ You need to sort yourself out, and I can’t be with you unless you’re willing to try.”
She disappears into the bathroom and comes out fully dressed, with an armload of toiletries and the rest of her clothes. They all get dumped into her suitcase before she zips it up and grabs her coat, then yanks her boots on.
I manage to pull myself to my feet. “Molly, you can’t just go all by yourself.”
“I can buy a bus ticket without you,” she huffs. “I can do things without you. I just...I justwantedthem with you. I wanted everything with you.”
Her voice breaks on the last sentence. I swear I see tears start to form, but she squeezes her eyes shut before they can fall.
“I still believe in you,” she whispers, “but you need to believe in yourself.”
Then she’s gone.
