I Want It To Be You

Chapter Twenty Eight

Savannah

I finish my shift at Zades and head out to my car. I'm so tired and not just because of work. I'm emotionally drained. I'm so tired of the back and forth between Kaden and I. It feels like there's always another storm brewing around the bend. I got a text from Kaden asking if he could come by my dorm after I got off. This was the first I had heard from him since his fight with Quinn. I get to my room and change into sweatpants and a t-shirt. I doze off for a few minutes before a knock at the door startles me awake.

"Hey." He says as I open the door. He's got on jeans and a grey hoodie, I have to fight the urge to hug him, but something in his eyes tells me that he's not here for any reason I'll like.

"Hey."

Kaden walks in and sits down on the end of my bed. I sit down beside him and anxiously await whatever the storm has brought.

"Savannah, we need to talk." Here it comes.

"About?" I ask dryly.

"About us." He runs his finger through his blonde hair and shifts those beautiful blue eyes to mine. "I need some time. Time to figure things out and get my shit together."

"You're here to break up with me." I say as a statement, not a question.

"I'm here to tell you that I can't hold you back anymore. You have put up with so much from me over the past few months, and I can't do this to you anymore."

I just nod my head and look away from him. I feel numb, but the tears still fall. I love Kaden, but I can't keep waiting for him to decide if he wants to be with me.

"Please don't cry." He clasps my hand. "I hope one day, I can be the man you need, and maybe we could start over, but I don't want you to wait for me."

I snap my head around to look at him. "How can you not want me to wait for you?"

"The selfish part of me wanted to ask you to wait, but I love you more than that. I want you to be so happy that you don't need me or anyone else. I want you to love yourself as much as I love you and if along the way you meet someone who can love you the way you deserve to be loved, I want you to let him love you."

"I wanted it to be you." I sniffle. Kaden scoots over closer, and I lay my head on his shoulder and begin to sob. He brings his hand around and starts wiping at the tears running down my cheeks.

"I know, baby. I wanted it to be me, too."

***

It's been a month since I've seen Kaden. It still hurts, but day by day, the pain gets a little easier. I've started my second semester at school. To my disappointment and sometimes relief, Kaden and I aren't in any classes together. He came by a few days after we broke up and left my things with Lexie while I was at work. One of them was a wrapped Christmas present. I haven't been able to open it, so I stuck it in my closet. I've been keeping busy with work and hanging out with Lexie. She's been amazing, and honestly, I don't know how I would have gotten through all of this without her. Some nights, I still cry myself to sleep, and other nights, I'm just so exhausted I'm able to sleep peacefully. I hope one day I'll be able to think about Kaden as the boy I loved and not the boy I lost.

Kaden

I sit and listen to the people around me tell their stories, some of them aren't much different from mine, a bad thing happened to them and they turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain. This is the third meeting I've been to. It's not as bad as I thought it would be. The past few weeks have been hard. Savannah is the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I think about before I go to sleep. Some nights I cry, some nights I break shit, but for the past twenty-three nights I haven't had a drop of alcohol and I haven't taken pills that weren't precribed.