conradf1sher asked: ❛ fine, keep acting like you hate me. ❜ for belly conklin.
the kitchen feels too bright, too sharp, like the morning light is intent on stripping me bare, exposing everything i’d rather keep hidden in the dark. i can still feel last night on my skin, still taste the words he pressed into the air between us — words that had landed like a vow. don’t marry him. don’t be with him. be with me. i carried them into sleep like a secret I could finally claim, something small and burning to hold close. but in the cold edge of morning, they feel less like fire and more like smoke, slipping through my fingers no matter how tightly i try to close my hand. he’s leaning against the fridge, arms crossed, jaw set in that unyielding way that makes him seem untouchable, like he could hold the entire world at arm’s length. but even from here, even with that mask of distance, i can feel it — the current thrumming in the space between us. it’s always been there, this dangerous pull, and every time i’ve touched it, it’s burned me. i tell myself i should know better now. i tell myself i’ve learned. but the truth is, i’m still standing here waiting for him, like i always do.
❝ you haven’t changed at all, conrad, ❞ i whisper, the words tasting like blood in my mouth, like a wound i’ve been carrying too long. ❝ this is what you do. you confess, and then you take it back. you give me just enough to hope, and then you rip it away. you give, and you take — that’s who you are. that’s who you’ve always been. you think saying ‘be with me’ fixes everything? ❞ my voice trembles, but i force myself to hold his gaze, even when it hurts. ❝ you can’t ask me to put everything in your hands when you’ve never once shown me you’ll hold onto it. all you’ve ever done is leave me standing here, waiting for you to decide. ❞ the words slice through me, sharper than he probably even means them to. keep acting like you hate me. as if that’s what this is. as if hate could ever explain the way my heart has torn itself in half over him again and again. i want to laugh, to scream, to shake him until he understands — but all i can do is stand there with my throat burning, the ache in my chest too big to hold. ❝ that’s the problem, conrad, ❞ i whisper, my voice splintering even as i try to keep it steady. ❝ i don’t hate you. i never could. it would be so much easier if i did. ❞ and it’s the truth — the ugliest, rawest truth of all. because hate would mean distance. hate would mean an ending. and all i’ve ever done, no matter how much it’s broken me, is keep loving him.