Unbearable (the TORQUED trilogy Book 2) (32 page)

In my head, I do the math, because I’m weird like that. I’m trying to figure out if it’s been six weeks since New Year’s and he’s wrong, it’s been almost eight but I’m not going to correct him on his math. “I can’t believe you’re bringing that up now.”

He stares at me as if I’m missing something obvious. I can see the war waging inside of him because he knows he’s not getting anywhere. “Why
wouldn’t
I? Have your feelings changed that much that you don’t love me anymore?” I can tell by the wavering in his tone those words were some of the hardest he’s ever had to say.

Do I still love him?

So fucking much it’s sickening.

Tears sting my eyes but the last thing I want to do is cry in front of him. “You don’t’ get it, Tyler. It’s not a matter of not loving you. It’s me not wanting to be hurt again.”

Disappointed, his head drops and he shakes it back and forth. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know, but this is me protecting me for once.” The words burn in my throat. “My feelings haven’t changed but neither has our situation. I’m still in college. You’re still you. Twenty-six and
not wanting
drama.”

He grimaces with every word. His jaw hardens.
That
hit home.

“Why are you coming in here acting like this is about Holden kissing me and not what it’s really about? You’re here because of your agenda and getting what you want. Well tough shit because my twenty-year-old drama filled life has no room for you anymore.”

Holy hell I’ve got some balls this morning.

“Jesus!” he says through gritted teeth in a shouted whisper, his tone harsh and louder than before. “Why does it always fucking come back to this? I told you I was sorry for what I said and I fucking meant it.”

I’m slow to respond to him. Stunned by the way he’s staring at me. “Keep your voice down,” I warn him. Pressing my finger to my lips, I point to the door. The last thing I need is people hearing this and calling security.

Tyler lowers his voice and stares at the wall. After a moment, he shakes his head. He sighs. “What the fuck are we doing?” His chest expands, his darkened eyes meeting mine. “Do you wish we would have never started? Is that what this is? Do you regret it?”

His eyes burn into mine, waiting for me to answer him.

Looking away, I say, “No. I would never want that. I don’t regret it.”

He’s silent for a moment, his arms crossed over his chest, his head hanging and eyes on the floor.

“What I regret is that you can’t see our problems are so much more than this.”

He says nothing. Because he knows.

I shake my head, completely worn out by this and him. “I’m so tired of having this same argument with you.”

“Then stop having it,” he says, as if it’s that easy for me to let go of this.

“You would say that.” I can feel the resentment burning behind my words.

“Yeah, I would, because you’re forgetting I asked you for more.”

“And I
begged
you for more way before you pulled your head out of your ass,” I seethe back at him. “Have you ever stopped to think about what
you’ve
done to me?” I can tell by the look on his face he hasn’t. And still hasn’t. So I let him know. “
You
made me into the insecure girl who considers herself not good enough for someone like you. How do you think that made me feel? You committed to Berkley but yet me, no,
never
. You never even gave me the option. And now, because you’ve suddenly decided, I’m supposed to consider forever because you’re feeling shitty about it?”

His face hardens, a flood of anger coming with it. His finger points accusingly at me, his breathing so heavy he can barely get out the words. “You don’t know a fucking thing about what
I’m
feeling!” He shakes his head again, grabbing the back of his neck, his eyes on the floor, as if I don’t deserve their depth.

“So tell me then! You give me nothing, Tyler. Nothing to go on. It’s like you’re a fucking lock and I’m supposed to know the right combination but I don’t.”

I repeat my words in my head for a moment because I’m not entirely sure they made sense to him.

When he doesn’t answer me, I draw in a heavy breath, ready to explode.

I shift my stance, my hands thrown up in the air. “This is so stupid, Tyler. You tell me you don’t want drama but here you are creating it. We’re acting like kids.”

His mouth twists in a scowl delivered my way. His eyes are hard, lips parting as he speaks. “You don’t think I know that?” The bitter laugh returns when he looks up at me.

I find my voice. “Then stop.”

Opening the door to my dorm room, intending on getting air, Tyler catches it. His hand, up near the top, slams it closed with little effort, the sound echoing through the room. “You don’t say shit like that and walk away.”

“Shit like what?” Every time we disagree about anything, we come back to this same argument and these same reactions. “Tyler, we’re not even dating yet we fight like insecure high schoolers.”

When I turn back to Tyler, his eyes say a lot. “Fuck, Raven!” He starts pacing the place beside my bed. His all-too-cold eyes shift from the floor to me when he stops pacing. Hell, I couldn’t even tell if he was breathing at all with how still he’d become. “You think I want this? To be so obsessed with you that I’m fucking hanging around a college dorm hoping you’ll give us a chance? You’re the one who said you wanted more first, and then I came around to the idea and you tell me no. You’ve moved on. How could you move on so quickly?”

That’s a good question. But then again, it’s not all that complicated after what he said to me in the rain. He made me feel like I’d never be good enough for him. Why can’t he see what a slap in the face this was to me?

“Because you made me move on. You told me not to love you. What was I supposed to think? You made me feel like I wasn’t good enough to be yours. Apparently what we had didn’t matter enough to you.”

And I’m a fucking idiot. I want to slap my hand over my mouth so I don’t say anymore. I know what we had mattered to him. It had to have because he’s here now.

He gives me that nod, the one he gives when he was so angry he can’t speak. His stomach pulls in, a long deep breath as if to calm himself a little. “It fucking matters, Raven!”

“It matters that you’re just being a selfish asshole because I won’t put out anymore.”

Jesus Christ. I should have stopped at my first stupid comment.

Tyler’s anger, when pushed far enough, is a sight I’ll never forget. I’ve heard about it from Red, but never seen him this out of control.

I hear the crash first, my bookshelf on my desk hits the ground and then my laptop smashing against the wall beside me. “You think you’ve got it all figured out, don’t ya?” His words come out in a growl but he keeps his distance from me, pushed back against the wall as if he’s needing the separation now more than ever. “You know me, right? I fucked you all summer just for the fun of it and then keep coming back to hurt you more. That was my fucking plan all along. I’m fucking here, right now, trying to get you to see it was more than sex to me!”

We weren’t these people. We weren’t. I didn’t say things like this, and he didn’t react this way. Love can make you do some pretty stupid shit sometimes. It’s the words you never say that mean the most. The ones on the tip of your tongue, screamed at the top of your lungs to be heard, it’s those words that sometimes
need
to be said. Like an “I’m sorry” or an “I love you.”

They matter. They really do.

Tyler tips his head to one side, his hands clasped together behind his head. “So is that it? You’ve decided we aren’t going to happen no matter what I say? Do you want me to leave?” he asks, his blue eyes intensely staring at me knowing he crossed the line.

I know what my answer is but I can’t manage any words because I have no air supply, but I nod.

While we stand there staring at each other, no words are spoken because none are needed. With one stare, he says all he needs to say. The moments gone, but his eyes are anxious. He’s not sure what I’m going to say next, and it scares him. He blinks, and when he opens his eyes again, the depth of his blues are somewhat guarded now.

“Why does it have to be like this?” He moves toward me, coming to stand in front of me.

There’s so much I want to say right then, but the moment passes and part of me feels like maybe it’s too late. I want to reach up and touch the side of his face. I want his eyes to soften into the blue I know and not the ice that freezes the breath in my lungs and the black consuming his pupils. I want the gentle sensation of his body against mine and the heat it gives me.

I don’t have any of that right now. I have this, a situation we both created.

When I don’t say anything, his hands find my face, his hair falling into his lashes. I fight my own urge to brush it away from his face and as I watch him, searching his face. I wish I could get inside his mind and understand him better.

His hands are shaking, a slight tremble to them and I can’t tell if it’s the adrenaline wearing off, whatever he drank before he got here or if he’s that nervous of my denial. His eyes seem different too, darker, their depth unreachable.

He brushes his fingertips over my lips, lips that have just been kissed by another. Breathing deeply, he lets his shaking hands drop. He looks completely worn out, with dark circles under his eyes. His face says it all. He’s tired of this. We both are.

How does something so simple turn to this, a stream of resentful harsh words spat at one another?

“You shouldn’t even be here.”

A sadness enters his eyes and when it does, he says, “Believe me, I wish I could leave but I can’t.” Letting me go, he draws in a deep breath leaning against the wall, it’s as if he’s been dying to take the breath since he came in here and only able to now. “But that’s my problem. I told myself to leave you alone when you told me to, and now here I am, fuckin’ angry at your ex and waiting for you to finally put me out of my misery.”

I don’t even know what to say to that. Am I really causing him misery?

He blows out a shaky breath and then brings the back of his hand to his neck, squeezing. Tyler stands, staring at my ceiling as if he’s hoping it holds all the answers. When it doesn’t, he drops his stare to the floor and shakes his head.

He turns and heads for the door, stepping over my broken laptop when there’s a knock and then a voice.

“Campus police.” Of course someone called campus police between the door being slammed and the noise Tyler made when he knocked over my bookcase and threw my laptop.

Knowing he’s in trouble, Tyler sighs and takes a step back against the wall letting the officer step inside my room when I open the door.

“We received a noise complaint, Ms. Walker.” The officer looks past me and to Tyler, assessing my room with a scan of his eyes. “Do we have a problem here?”

Tyler looks at the ground, and then me out of the corner of his eye. “No problem.”

The officer takes a look around my room surveying the mess. “Did you do this?”

“Yeah.” He’s not hiding anything, but he’s also not making eye contact.

“Why?” The officer leans into the door frame, relaxed with his arms crossed over his chest. He doesn’t seem too concerned, but he’s also not letting Tyler leave and blocking him in the room.

By the way Tyler’s hands are shaking, it’s obvious he wants to leave. He’s had enough and can’t even look at me.

“Just a misunderstanding.”

I let the words sink in as he speaks them. A misunderstanding? Is that what we were? A misunderstanding? The impact of his words take over and soon tears pool in my eyes.

What was a misunderstanding? Me wanting to kiss Holden?

Yup! That was a big misunderstanding!

My feelings for him?

No, I think I’ve made myself pretty clear, but he’s getting me confused with Berkley.

Or is he referring to his feelings for me?

Every insecurity I have felt since the beginning of whatever Tyler and I had comes rushing back into my mind. I can’t believe something so simple as two friends having sex turned into this.

The officer must know there’s no immediate threat and backs up. “Is that what happened here or do we need to escort him off campus?”

My stare snaps to Tyler and we’re trapped in a moment, one where we see how easily this backfired on us. I breathe in slowly, gathering courage. “No, like he said, it’s just a misunderstanding. I’m fine. Just college drama.”

Jesus, I’m a bitch!
Tyler’s jaw tenses at my words. He knows that was a dig at him.

The officer nods. “You know how to reach us if you need anything, right?”

Again, I nod and he leaves a minute later.

I think maybe Tyler might choose now to go, but he doesn’t. He lingers by the door like he’s struggling to leave just like I’m struggling to let him go.

I watch as he slowly slides down the wall to sit on the floor. “Say it.” He runs a frustrated hand through his hair. “Say there’s no chance ever.” His voice cracks. “Tell me to walk out the door and never look back.”