Shatter (True Believers #4)(59)
Author: Erin McCarthy

Running to the front door, I quickly opened it and jogged up the stairs. By the time I was inside my apartment, I knew what I had to do. I had to stop seeing Jonathon. Maybe not forever, but for now. I hadn’t even been over Nathan when I had hooked up with him. Then the pregnancy, the morning sickness, the miscarriage, the tension between us, the constant changing of my perception of what the future would hold . . . when had I ever had time to just reflect, grow, mature?

When had I given him time to decide if he really wanted to be with me?

After the miscarriage I had ambushed him drunk at the bar and coaxed him home with me. That was fair. Not.

Flopping onto my bed, I pulled my boots off and dumped them on the floor. Then I slid in under my comforter and lifted the neck of his sweatshirt up to my nose so I could smell Jonathon. I started crying. I couldn’t help it. I knew every inch of him, every gesture he made, every tilt of his head, every smile. Yet I didn’t know what ninety percent of those numbers on his tattoo meant, and I would never understand what he was actually studying or what he planned to do post–graduate school. I didn’t know what was in his head.

My phone rang in my pocket. It was him.

“Hello?”

“Kylie, I’m so glad you answered. You know I don’t think you’re stupid, I was just totally disgusted by my father.”

“Jonathon, you graduate in two months.”

“What? Uh, yeah, so?” His voice was gruff, confused.

“What are you doing after graduation?”

“Getting a job.”

“Is that what you were going to do before you met me?”

“I wasn’t sure yet.”

I closed my eyes, right hand holding my phone up to my ear, left on my forehead. “I need you to do whatever you were going to do before you met me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I don’t want to be the dumb blonde who held you back.”

“You’re not. Don’t say that.”

“I am. And I won’t do that to you. I want you to plan your life without me in it.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” he asked in disbelief.

“Yes. And when you are done with school and have a plan, if you still want me to be part of your life, if you think I will fit into it, let me know.” I tried to prevent a sob, but it slipped out anyway. “I’ll be here.”

“Kylie, no, come on. Don’t overreact. This isn’t necessary.”

“Yes, it is,” I insisted. “I want to know, no, I need to know that you chose me. That without the responsibility of me guiding you, you want me as your girlfriend, as your partner. Equal partner.”

“I do,” he said, his voice emphatic.

“You haven’t even thought about it. We both need to think about it.” Suddenly I just felt exhausted. Like the last nine months of my life just pressed down on top of me and squeezed every last ounce of energy out of me.

“I don’t see why we can’t think and still be together. I think all the time.”

That almost made me want to laugh, except that my heart was breaking. I didn’t want to trap Jonathon. I wanted him to come back to me all on his own because he loved me. Me. “I speak before I think a lot, Jonathon. I react. So I really believe that I need time to get myself together before we move forward with our relationship. Two months. Let’s talk when you graduate.”

“This is pointless and, frankly, it feels manipulative. Do you want me to beg?”

“What? No, of course not.” Why was it that when I was trying to be mature guys assumed it was a game? “I just think we need some time and space.”

“Space sucks,” was his opinion.

I’d never heard Jonathon sound immature, but right then, he did. “I have one question—do you want me to say anything about your dad to the university or should I let it drop?” It felt like it was his right to decide. It would be his family affected by an investigation.

There was no hesitation in his voice. “I want you to turn him in. It’s worse that it was you, but honestly, if it were any one of his students, I would want them to speak out. That is not okay. He should be fired, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Okay.” I was glad he felt that way. I was uncomfortable with the thought of his father doing to a vulnerable freshman what he had done to me.

Silence grew between us. I had so many things to say, but no coherent thoughts. How did I explain to him that I loved him with every breath in my body, but that I didn’t think I was good for him? That I was worried he would grow to resent me? That the things he found cute about me now would be the things he would grow to despise as the years went by?

How did I explain that I needed to be kinder to myself, more honest? That I had never allowed myself any time to stop and listen to my thoughts. That if we were going to be together, I wanted it to be forever, not a pit stop in my life. That when I looked at him, I felt my heart swell with the most amazing sense of love and contentment and that I wanted to be his wife some day, raise his children, greet him at the front door with a baby on my hip and a smile on my lips.

You don’t say those things to guys. You’re not even supposed to think them. You’re not supposed to admit that your greatest ambition in life is to have a family.

And lying in the dark of my lame apartment, barely passing my classes, it was all just ridiculous, a stupid dream. A future that I didn’t have the right to claim, an expectation I couldn’t put on Jonathon. He had to choose it.

“Jonathon . . .”

“Don’t do this, Kylie. Please.” His voice was tight. “I’ve been nothing but reasonable, you know. I’ve tried so f**king hard . . . it’s not fair that you just get to walk away.”

My tears came faster. “I don’t want you to be reasonable.”

“So you want me to be irrational? A dick? Yell and scream and make demands? Throw you over my shoulder?”

“No . . .” I wasn’t sure how to make him understand.

But he wasn’t going to give me a chance to explain. “If you want to talk in two months, you can call me. Because now I’m done.”

And he hung up.

I cried myself to sleep, hugging his sweatshirt to me.

* * *

After I got off the phone with Kylie, I walked back and forth across my kitchen, my fists clenched, my chest tight. When Devon tried to talk to me, I decided I had to leave. Grabbing my coat and keys, I went out onto the street, walking past the late night pizza place and the coffee shop that was open until midnight. Past the hipster club that hosted indie music acts, crowds of people hovering around outside smoking. I walked and walked, not sure where I was going, not sure that I cared. It was cold and that strange dark that you get in urban areas, where the dark is a cloudy shadow, murky and intermittent.