“You still think I’m charmin’?” It was the wrong thing to focus on, he knew that, and honestly on some level she probably knew his dumbass would choose that to hang onto. He was grasping at straws here, trying to do anything, to say anything that could get her to soften just a tad. That’s what he used humor for, that’s what he always used humor for. When she was mad at someone else, it worked. When she was upset because of someone else, it worked. But now? His stupid quips and annoying smirk stood no chance, but he had to try anyway.
She was tired, exhausted by this, by him, but God if her saying his name as soft and breathless as she did didn’t make him feel just a bit a hope. That maybe, just maybe, one day she could speak to him without so much vitriol in her tone. “Look, Sienna.” He started, a hand reaching for hers, pulling back just before actually making contact. The last thing she’d want is for him to touch her, he had to remind himself of that, because reaching for her – it was a reflex.
“I’m not a smart guy, but I think it’s just me, y’know, subconsciously or whatever it is choosin’ the wrong girl on purpose. No better way to protect yourself than pursuing somethin’ that’s doomed from the start.” Despite what she might’ve thought, he was trying to figure out his thought process too. He knew what attracted him to Delilah initially, but it got out of control, fast, and that was harder to explain. “Think about it. Fallin’ for you, tryin’ to date Brooke Parker, goin’ back to Sadie a second time – hard to get hurt when you know it ain’t gonna work out. So yeah, I guess I’m..scared. Afraid I’m never gonna be it for someone, so I choose complicated relationships, I look at girls who I know there’s no chance in hell I’m right for. I don’t have to deal with rejection that way. I don’t have to –” He stopped, turning to her and locking eyes. “I don’t have to wake up one day to someone leavin’ me, decidin’ they don’t want me anymore, cause they never really wanted me to begin with.”
If looks could kill in that moment, the man in front of her would have dropped dead immediately. He was making jokes? She was more furious than she’d been at him in her entire life, and out of everything she’d said, this was what he chose to joke about? Sienna wanted to scream. Her hands were in the air, she realized, fingers curled as if they’d thought of strangling him on their own and abandoned the idea. Anger really made a girl go crazy.Â
This was the most she’d felt in a long time, as if her body had been dormant since leaving New York, just floating through Frostford as if this was simply a break from real life. And now real life was right here, sitting on her couch with a sense of humor she’d once thought was great and now thought was hollow.Â
Her eyes followed his hand as he reached out, watching as he stopped and pulled back. If you want me to hold your hand, she’d said. Here he was, being honest. Sienna hated it. She hated the sound of his voice and the way he talked about his bad decisions and, most of all, the way he expressed his rationale with the same cadence she’d explained hers. Eighteen is just too young and he’s going into the military and I have so many things I wanted to do and I thought we had time to do those things together and what else was I supposed to do? Leaving behind Jeremy, the velvet ring box sitting open on her nightstand as she grabbed her bags and left. Blocked his number. A whole year and a half, and that was all she’d done. Caught a cab to the airport at 4 am.Â
But she’d been a teenager making teenage mistakes and an adult making big mistakes, and neither of those things had involved someone much younger than her and far less experienced. So much more naive. “You wanna look me in the eyes, me, after everything I’ve told you, you chose to say you did this because, what, you had feelings for me and you couldn’t stand the thought that I’d up and leave? Sadie deserves better than someone who uses her just to be with someone, Christopher.” Once upon a time she’d loved Sadie, somewhere in there she still did, when she wasn’t exhausted thinking about how much the other woman hated her. “It was easy for you. You would be wanted, if you tried. It’d be so easy for you to be wanted, Christopher. I run from my problems, yeah, yes,” she said, trying to carefully wipe away her unshed tears with her pinky.Â
“I leave, without a second thought, without caring what anyone else feels like. But you could have done anything, you could have done literally anything apart from— sleeping with someone who is younger than Kat. Did you know that? My baby sister, my baby, is older than this girl. I saw it on her license.”Â