He shrugged and looked away, shutting me out. "Guess so."

"I thought you wanted this." I looked around helplessly and shrugged. "I thought you wanted us to be friends again?"

"I did – I do," he hurried to say before blowing out a pained breath. "Fuck, I don't even know anymore, Molly. I need some breathing space."

"Breathing space?" I said flatly. "After one weekend together?"

He flinched and looked away. "Everything is getting way too heavy."

"You know what?" I whispered, after a long stretch of pained silence, "I think it hurt less when you were pretending that I didn’t exist."

I could have sworn I saw him flinch, but if he did then he covered it well.

"Wow," I breathed, body jolting violently from the pain racking through me. "Yeah. Okay then."

I thought I heard him curse under his breath, but I was concentrating too hard on not falling apart.

Staring at my feet, I could feel my face burn. I searched for the words, but came up empty. Blowing out a shaky breath, I tried again and failed miserably.

Nodding stiffly, I tumbled down the steps of his parent's porch and quickly backed out of his garden.

I needed to get out of here.

I needed to get away from him.

"Fuck," Daryl groaned before pushing off the door and moving for me. "Molly, wait! No, don't go –"

"No!" Determined to get away from him with some sliver of my pride intact, I power-walked away from the boy that had ripped my world to shreds. "Just no, Daryl."

I wasn’t sticking around to be anybody's punching bag.

"I'm sorry, okay?"

No. No, it wasn’t fucking okay, but I wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of giving him a response.

Blowing out a shaky breath, I shook my wrists out, desperate to stem the panic attack that was roaring to life inside of me as I hurried down the street. I couldn't stem my tears, though. They were determined to stream down my cheeks like two piping hot rivers of humiliation and regret.

"Wait, wait, wait –" His arms came around me, pulling my back flush to his chest. "Don't go."

"Get off me," I instructed, chest racking with sobs. "Now, D!"

"I didn't mean it, Dolly." Instead of loosening his hold on me, his arms tightened around me, keeping my body flush to his. "Not one goddamn word of it. I just…" He blew out a pained breath and buried his face in the curve of my neck. "I'm dealing with a lot of pressure right now, and I'm, uh, fuck, I was trying to do the right thing."

"By being unnecessarily cruel back there?" I choked out. "By ghosting me all week?"

"No." He exhaled heavily. "By keeping my distance."

"What?" Furious, I batted his arms away before swinging around to glare at him. "What does that even mean, Daryl?"

"It means…" His words trailed off and he ran a hand through his hair. He opened his mouth and then swiftly snapped it shut, jaw ticking almost violently. "It means I can't tell you."