⋆⸜Teach me ── Chris Sturniolo
CHAPTER 6 : I Don’t Know How
Written by @sturniololuvz don't steal my writing. if you love it, reblog it, don't claim it.
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You don’t know how long you stand there, watching Chris breathe smoke into the cold air like he’s trying to exhale every feeling he doesn’t want to deal with. His shoulders are tense, his jaw set, his fingers trembling around the cigarette like he’s holding onto it the way he wishes he could hold onto you, carefully, but terrified he’ll break something.
Finally, you speak, voice soft but steady. “Chris… look at me.”
He hesitates, like even turning his head toward you might knock something loose inside him. But eventually, he does. Slowly. Reluctantly. His eyes find yours, and they’re exhausted, frustration, guilt, longing, fear, all tangled up into something he clearly doesn’t know how to name.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
“For what?” Your voice cracks despite your best effort.
He flicks the cigarette away and rubs the back of his neck, pacing once before stopping right in front of you. “For not talking to you. For acting like an asshole. For today. For… all of it.”
“That’s not an apology,” you whisper. “That’s… noise. I need the truth.”
He closes his eyes, like he already knows this is the part he’s bad at. When he opens them, his voice comes out rough. “I don’t do relationships.”
“I don’t know how,” he continues, and the admission sounds like it hurts him to say. “I’ve never been in one. I’ve never tried. I don’t even know what the fuck I’m supposed to do. And every time I get close to something real, I panic.” He gestures uselessly. “Like this. Like you.”
Your breath stutters. “Chris—”
“I don’t wanna hurt you.” His voice breaks completely on the last word. “And I know I will. Not on purpose, but because I’m me.”
You step closer before he can retreat again. “You’re already hurting me by not trying.”
He flinches like you slapped him. “I know. I know, and I hate it. I hate that I can’t just be normal about this.”
“There’s no ‘normal,’ Chris. There’s just trying. Talking. Showing up.” You take another step, close enough that his hoodie brushes your jacket. “Why won’t you let yourself try with me?”
His eyes drop to your mouth. He shakes his head, barely audible. “Because I want you too much. And that scares the shit out of me.”
The honesty in those words unravels you. Your chest tightens, not from hurt but from the raw vulnerability he’s finally letting you see.
He lifts a hand like he wants to touch your cheek, but it hovers in the air, trembling, then falls back to his side. “I don’t know how to be with someone. I don’t know the rules. What if I mess everything up? What if you get tired of me? What if—”
“Chris,” you interrupt softly. “You don’t have to know how. We figure it out together.”
He looks at you like he wants to believe you but can’t quite let himself. His breathing gets shallow. He shakes his head again. “I can’t promise I won’t hurt you.”
“No one can promise that.”
He blinks at you, like that possibility never even occurred to him.
You reach out and take his hand. His fingers curl instantly around yours, like his body betrays the fear in his mind. He stares down at your intertwined hands as if he’s seeing something dangerous and beautiful at the same time.
“You run,” you whisper, “because you care. And I wish you could see that the caring isn’t the problem.”
He breathes out sharply. “You don’t get it. I think about you all the fucking time. I can’t focus when you’re around. I can’t even look at you without wanting to—”
He cuts himself off, jaw tensing.
“Wanting to what?” you ask.
He steps forward, his forehead brushing yours, breath shaking. “Kiss you.”
Your heart trips over itself. “Then kiss me.”
Chris kisses you like he’s starving—like he’s been trying not to for days and finally lost the battle. His hands slide up your sides, gripping your waist gently at first, then tighter when you kiss him back, pulling him in, pulling him closer, closer, closer.
The kiss is messy and desperate and full of all the things he won’t say out loud.
You feel it happen. His whole body tenses, his breath stutters, and he pulls back too fast, eyes wide, chest rising and falling like he’s drowning.
“No,” he whispers, voice cracked. “I can’t. I can’t go further.”
You blink at him, lips parted, heart still racing from the heat of it. “Why?”
He steps back again, shaking his head like he’s trying to shut the moment down before it destroys him. “Because if I keep going, I won’t stop. And I’ll mess everything up. I’ll ruin this before it even starts.”
“I’m not good for you,” he spits out, more to himself than to you. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know how.”
The streetlight casts a pale glow over him, highlighting the panic in his eyes and the truth he’s terrified to face.
You open your mouth, trying to find the right words, but none of them feel like enough. Not for him. Not for this. Not for the ache spreading through your chest.
So you take a shaky breath instead. “I should go.”
His head jerks up. “What? No, wait—”
You shake your head, blinking hard. “You need space. Or time. Or… whatever this is.”
“I know,” you whisper. “And that’s why I need to leave.”
He looks devastated. Truly devastated. Like he didn’t expect you to actually walk away.
Because staying feels like begging.
And begging is the one thing you refuse to do.
You walk back toward the building, each step heavier than the last, your throat tight, your eyes burning, your mind a mess of hurt and hope and confusion tangled into something unbearable.
Behind you, Chris doesn’t call your name.
He doesn’t chase after you.
He just stands there in the cold, breathing hard, watching you go with that same terrified expression he tried so hard to hide.
Like he wants to follow you but still doesn’t know how.
