For Keeps. For Always. by HALEY JENNER (top novels to read txt) 📕

“Funny.” I step forward, bringing us close enough that I can feel her heavy breath on my face. “That the thought of being mine brings you nightmares when the thought of being yours brings me everything I’ve ever wanted in this world. I don’t see you as a possession, Henley. You’re a part of me.” I hit my chest. “An extension of who I am. The better part of who I am.”

Unable to look me in the eye, she focuses on the wall over my shoulder, her jaw shaking.

“I’m sorry that makes me an asshole,” I whisper. “I’m sorry that fills you with nothing but dread. Maybe we aren’t for keeps, maybe always isn’t ours. We’re grasping at two separate endings here, Squirrel.”

A tear rolls down one cheek. Then her other.

“You’re not gonna say anything?” I push. “You’re just gonna stand there silently and act like your heart isn’t hurting like mine right now?”

My hands ache to grab her shoulders, to shake her roughly, to make her see how stubborn she’s being.

“We held the idea of heaven for a while,” she says quietly.

I swear under my breath, close-cut fingernails biting into the skin of my palm painfully. “Is that what you call it? Heaven?”

“It had to be,” she mumbles, eyes cast downward. “It’s how I know we’re now in hell.”

I blink rapidly.

“You’d rather be apart and miserable because of some preconceived notion that you need to be one-hundred-percent content by yourself. I’m not asking you to look at me for your happiness, Henley. I’m begging you to see that making you happy will be a part of the way I love you. Your happiness isn’t reliant on me, but on the days you can’t find it, it would’ve been my job to show you the way. Or to love you hard enough that the world didn’t look so bleak without it.”

She moves away before I can touch her. Moving hastily to the small kitchenette, she gulps down a glass of water in panic.

I stay put, watching her from afar.

Finally, she turns to look at me. “I don’t know if I want this anymore.” She’s afraid of her own words, her voice scarcely audible over the beating of her own heart.

“Want what? Me?”

I dare her to say it. To admit she doesn’t love me. Not enough.

Her dark lashes push roughly against her skin as she squeezes her eyes shut. “I’ll always want you. But . . . us . . .”

“Us what?” I push, stepping closer.

“We’ve tried.” She shivers, her arms wrapping around her body protectively. “We never seem whole, Brooks.”

“Because we haven’t given ourselves a fighting fucking chance.”

She clears her throat. “We took our friendship and grew it wildly. We’ve been broken from the start.”

“When shit is broken, you fix it, Henley,” I implore, trying to make her see. “We fix this.”

She shrugs weakly, still refusing to let me see her eyes. “Some things are better left broken.”

I want to break something. I want to scream and yell and let her see the pain I’m in.

“If I knew loving you would hurt this much, I would’ve made sure my heart was made of stone before I tried.”

I pause for a breath.

“Like yours, Henley. Stone fucking cold.”

Without thought, her fist moves to her heart, pushing at it uncomfortably. I get it. My heart throbs in my chest. The congenital defect of loving Henley killing me from the moment I met her.

“I need to be bulletproof, Henley. I needed to be bulletproof,” I correct.

“You just referred to me as a gunshot wound.”

I laugh. “No, Henley. You’re a fucking gun. You have the power to destroy me, and I let you do it over and over again.”

I let her hold the pain in her face. My words cutting her the way I intended them to.

“Have you ever considered that it has nothing to do with you? That it’s me I’m hell-bent on destroying.”

“I know that’s what it is.” I sigh. “That’s what makes it so much worse. You’re selfish, Henley. You’re so intent on feeling your own pain that you’ve pulled me along for the ride all these years. You’ve had the power to rise up and reject all those fucking dark thoughts in your mind, to let me love you, and to let yourself love me back. Instead, you want to be consumed by your own misery. You feel safe in your pain. Happiness is what scares you most.”

The line of her throat swallows aggressively.

“I don’t blame you, Squirrel. Happiness is a dream to you. It takes a lot to put faith in your dreams. Maybe if you stopped putting so much work in searching for happiness. . . I think, if you just took a second to reflect on us, you’d realize you were already there.”

I knock my fist against the wall softly. “I love you, Henley Wright.” I smile at her sadly. “But I can’t fight for you anymore, not when you won’t fight for yourself. Baby, I hurt, and I honestly don’t know how much more of it I can take.”

I inhale deeply, fighting back the emotion I wasn’t expecting to overwhelm me. “You’re not ready for me. For us. You weren't when we were teenagers. You haven’t been through all these years. Maybe you won’t ever be.”

Her feet move backward.

“If you’re searching all your life . . . know that you were loved the way you were supposed to be. Fuck Derrick and Jacinta and anyone else who has held promise only to disappoint you. I loved you, Henley. Completely.”

I can scarcely pull in a full breath. My chest aches with the heaviness inside. It’s all but collapsed in on itself. My throat tightens with every tender breath as I turn to leave.

I pause at the door, shaking hands braced along the frame.

“You once told me you never let yourself love anything that can cause you pain. Maybe I should’ve believed that promise. I wish you’d never learned to tolerate me, Henley. It would’ve made my life a whole lot less complicated.”

I don’t wait for her to speak, knowing deep down