He’s not going to make this easy for me, is he? Can’t he see that loving me and knowing my past isn’t safe for him? That I need to let him go — let him go on my terms; because if he gets ripped away from me like everyone else has — I don’t know if I would be able to survive it this time. The need to free myself from the overwhelming pressure and emotions I am feeling is too much. Reaching out, I start ripping things off of the walls; years of connected dots, everything that is holding me hostage in the past – gone. I need an escape.

He is no longer that escape.

I need something. I need something that will drown out this noise. The scars on my wrist burn, my subconscious beckoning me; calling me to do something that was my escape for so long.

“Kins, you’re in your head again.”

I need to get away from him before I spiral any further. I say the first thing that comes to mind. “Maybe in another time, another place —” How cliche Kinsley, inwardly I roll my eyes at myself and for a minute the ridiculous voices in my head snap me out of my downward spiral. That is until Tanner scoffs — wait a second, he fucking scoffed at me. My eyes snap up to his.

“Nice try, Pip, but I can see through you — through this.” He looks between us and then around the room. I take a deep breath, am I really doing this? Pushing away the one and only guy I have ever let my walls down for, just because now he’s seeing me, really seeing me, for the first time? I should be grateful that he isn’t running for the hills. I should be the one begging him to stay.

I see it in his eyes though; the want and need to destroy anyone who has hurt me. The determination to fix all of this. “Maybe if we had met in a year or two when all this was behind me. But Tanner, I can see it in your eyes. Now that you know, there’s pain in there now.”

“Tell me something,” he says, flipping the conversation on its head.

“Anything,” I admit. “What do you want to know?”

Tanner’s deep blue eyes pierce into me, I feel him searching for the key to unlock my mind; looking for a way in, but there isn’t one.

“Everything. Tell me everything.”

“You already know too much,” I say, glancing around the room.

He cups my face with both his hands and rests his forehead on mine. Please don’t say it. I can feel the moment approaching, the moment I’ve been longing for – it’s too late now. A tear rolls down my cheek as he whispers, “I’m in love with you, Kinsley.”