“No, I don’t think there really is a suitable reason. Do you?”

“Not a single one.”

***

As we’re driving back home, I see a rental sign in front of an apartment block and get Jake to stop so I can take a look around.

By now I’ve saved up enough money for security and first months rent. The location is good, it’s close enough to campus I can catch a bus and soon I’ll hopefully have a car. The apartment itself is pretty awful but with some furniture and decent decorating I might be able to make it my home. It makes Jake's house look like a 5 star hotel.

***

We ended up leaving early in the morning to go to the cemetery, then spent most of the day at Jake’s parents. The two hour drive there, and then back, has us beat, so as soon as we get home we crash in bed.

We’ve spent every night in Jake's bed since the frat party. He still won’t kiss me and I don’t know why. When I get out of the bathroom he’s sitting up in bed, shirtless, blankets bunched at his waist.

I get in under the covers, head on my pillow, and look up at him.

He looks down at me and smiles. But it’s a sad smile.

I try to smile back, but there’s hurt in his eyes that I’m trying to decipher. So I just stare at him and he stares back. It seems like the longest time, us trying to communicate without talking.

I don’t know what he’s thinking.

I know it’s not good.

And I almost don’t want to know.

Because the longer I stare at him, the sadder he looks, until eventually, tears start filling his eyes and he has to look away.

I swallow the lump in my throat.

I don’t want to talk.

I don’t want to ask him what’s wrong.

Because I’m shit scared now. That this is the time when it all ends. That he tells me he doesn’t want me here.

Or want me at all.

There’s a pain in the back of my eyes and my throat and behind my nose from trying to hold in the tears and the sob that’s bursting to get through.

But I refuse to listen to his next words. I don’t want to hear them, because the second they come out it will all be over and I will have nothing left, not one fucking thing.

He clears his throat once, and I close my eyes. Wishing all the wishes in the entire fricken world that this is not happening.

“What are we doing?” He says it so quietly, I almost don’t hear him.

I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding.

“What?” I squeak out.

“I’m sorry, Kayla,” he says, and I move to get out of the bed, too embarrassed to be so intimate with him when he tells me that we, what ever it is we are, are done.

“Woah, where are you going?” he says, holding onto me. “We need to talk about this.”

I panic and get out of his grasp. “I can’t.” My eyes are still closed because I don’t want to see his beautiful face. “I don’t want to hear it Jake, please. I just don’t want to.” I’m begging, as I run to my room across the hall.

He follows.

“What’s going on?” Worry laces his voice but I can’t look at him.

“I’m just… I’m sorry okay. I know what you’re going to say and I don’t want to hear it. I just don’t… I can’t. Not today, Jake, please.” I’m almost hyperventilating.

“What are you talking about, Kayla?” His hands are on my face, pulling me up, making me face him but my eyes are shut tight and I refuse to look.

“Kayla! What do you think is happening here?”

“Jake, please…” I surrender to the pain and fall to my knees and he follows me. “I don’t want to be that desperate broken girl that needs you, that’s why I needed to find somewhere else to live, but I waited too long and now you don’t want me here and I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”

I’m a sobbing mess, tears are flowing so quickly I don’t have time to wipe them away. There’s a pounding in my head and my heart hurts so fucking much, I’m sure it’s going to break through my chest and fall to the floor. I’m sitting with my knees up and my chin resting on them, hands around my head just hoping the outside world would leave me alone for just one goddamn minute so I can gather the strength to get up and face it.

I sit and I cry, and sit, and cry some more until I don’t even know how long I’ve been sitting there crying, and then silence has finally taken over and the tears have dried up and I finally get the courage to look up. And he’s there, watching me, waiting. For this stupid little girl to calm the fuck down so he can get this shit over with. And then I start to cry again.

“Stop!” he says, forcefully enough that I listen and do it.

“What the fuck have I ever done to make you feel like I don’t want you here? Or that I don’t want you at all?” he asks. Hurt and confusion in his tone.

“God, Kayla.” he starts. “I kept my mouth shut because I knew it was important to you. You, being out on your own or whatever, but it’s not what I wanted. Not for a fucking second. And you should know that, without me saying a goddamn word, you should feel that. Have I not shown you how I feel about you? Have I not been clear in the way I act towards you? I don’t know how much more I could have said or done without actually coming out and saying the words.”

He moves to position us so I’m straddling him and his arms are around me and we can’t get any closer together.