You Make Me (Blurred Lines #1)(26)
Author: Erin McCarthy

“All you need to know is Caitlyn.” Viciously I yanked my shirt off and went to my dresser for a clean one.

“But you’re not one or the other. You’re a combination of the two. The past creates the present, baby. I want to know who you are, where you’ve been.”

I was wearing a bra but I could see even that much casual partial nudity surprised Ethan. He was staring at my chest, eyes darting up to mine than back down again. He swallowed hard. I didn’t ever walk around in my panties in front of him, and after a night together, if I slept naked, I always pulled on pjs first thing. Something about our relationship had always bred modesty, but I was too agitated right then to care. “It hurts to talk about. I want to focus on the future.”

“But—”

I cut him off, yanking a clean shirt on over my head. “But nothing. Look, Ethan, I don’t have a family like yours. Mine put the D in dysfunctional. My dad is dead. My mom is in crazy town. My brother is a drunk. I had dozens of foster siblings because they brought government checks with them. Heath and Tiffany are the only ones I really cared about, and Tiff is seventeen, stuck taking care of her dying grandmother. Heath was in Afghanistan. It’s just been me for the last few years, alone. And then there was you.”

It made sense to me. It hurt too much, was too shameful, to share my family history with anyone. How could I move forward if there were questions? If I had to keep explaining it, and therefore reliving it? Besides, I hadn’t wanted it to influence what Ethan thought of me, and how could it not?

But his reaction wasn’t positive. “So then there was me. Me, who is looking at you right now and wondering who in the f**k you are. Jesus. I feel snowed.” His hands went into his hair. “I’ve been a f**king idiot. I was just so in love with you that I never stopped to think about why you talked so little about yourself. God, what a douchebag tool I am. I saw that you loved me and I loved you for it. I saw that you were kind and sweet and cared about my family and I thought that was all I needed to know. You said your father passed and your mother was living in Rockland. It never even occurred to me you had skeletons in your closet.”

“Skeletons? Is that what we’re calling them? See, this is exactly why I didn’t tell you! There is nothing wrong with me. But people hear your mom is nuts, your brother is a drunk, your father had one hand, and they put all this shit on you. It becomes skeletons. Then I’m a liability. I wanted a clean slate, is that so hard to understand? For once, I didn’t want to be that poor Cat Michaud. I wanted to be an equal.” I tore down my pants and went for a new pair of jeans. The shower wasn’t going to happen this morning. I had already missed one class. I wasn’t going to miss another one because of my dickhead brother.

“You are my equal. I never would have thought otherwise.”

“Bullshit.” I jammed my feet into the pants.

“Well, we’ll never know because you didn’t trust me enough to see what kind of integrity I have.”

Seriously? My anger started to fade, fear creeping in to replace it. Ethan looked beyond angry. Ethan looked cold. “How could I take that risk?”

“Initially I understand why you didn’t. But you could have let me in, bit by bit. You could have trusted me.”

I paused in putting my sweatshirt on. I had the neck hole in front of my chest. “It’s very hard to trust,” I whispered. “I learned a long time ago that if you trust someone, they will take from you.” There had been only one person I had trusted with everything in my heart. My whole heart. And look what had happened. “But I do trust you, Ethan. I wouldn’t be with you if I didn’t. You’re the only guy I’ve been this close to.” Since Heath. But I kept the caveat to myself.

“Besides Heath.”

Damn it. “I was seventeen,” was my only response to that. I didn’t have a better one.

“Do you love me?” he asked. “Or do you just love the idea of me?”

It was both. I did love him, in a solid way, and I loved what he could offer me. But I wasn’t about to admit that. “I love you.” I took a step towards him but he backed up, putting his hands out.

That hurt. Ethan never pulled away from me. Ethan was my rock. Ethan was always there, like granite. Unbreakable. He wasn’t the tide, like Heath, who crashed in and then washed back out at will. “Ethan? Don’t. Please.”

But when I reached for him again, he flinched. “I think we need a break. I need to think about all of this. I’m really confused.”

“A break?” My voice went shrill, panic overwhelming me. No. He couldn’t do this. “A break is a breakup. That’s always what happens. Are you breaking up with me?” I yanked the sweatshirt back off my arms, encumbered by it. I reached again and again he backed away. He was at the door now. Oh, God. He was leaving me. He was pulling away. He was actually leaving me.

I was losing Ethan.

“I don’t know. I’m not sure. Maybe.”

“But I chose you,” I said, and it sounded pathetic and desperate.

It was the wrong thing to say. “And you cried about it! You sobbed. You chose me because I come with the right pedigree. Because I have two normal parents and a future career in law. Because I’m the ‘right package.’” Ethan had tears in his eyes. “But I’m not the one you burn for, I can see that. You suppress the real you around me and I don’t want that. I want your passion.”

“You want me to be angry? To yell at you? That makes no sense. I don’t want to be volatile. I’m happy with you.” I was crying now too. I didn’t understand how we had gotten here or what he was asking for. “This is my brother’s fault. He has always ruined everything for me.”

“Caitlyn.” Ethan shook his head. “I can’t be with somebody I don’t understand and right now I don’t understand you at all. I thought I loved you but I don’t even know you.” He made a choking sound. “It’s over, this is over.”

He opened the door and started out and I followed him. I wanted to have dignity but it fled. It was gone and I needed him to stop, accept me. I didn’t feel hard to understand. I felt obvious and open. I felt busted and hurt and jerked around yet again by another man who made promises he couldn’t keep. My whole life everyone controlled me… my father, my brother, my mother, Heath, now Ethan… I was the ball in the pinball machine, bounced from one swinging arm to the next.