My Future Husband

Chapter 87

She starts crying again, biting her nails, then trying to claw her skin free of the guilt and shame she feels, but my heart isn’t with her right now. This is going to kill Ty. He hasn’t been with anyone, over twenty years on this planet and he hasn’t let anyone come close. Then the first time he does, this is what he gets.

“I didn’t mean to! It’s just what I do!” She howls. “I can’t handle something, I don’t know what to say, I just fucking run!” Fight or flight reaction. “I knew it was coming, even before he said what he said, not because of who he is, but because of who I am. I meet the sweetest man on the planet, one that wouldn’t even kiss me until I made him! Perfect, so fucking perfect, and I have to go and fuck it! Because that’s what I do!”

She didn’t react the way she should have, but I don’t think this is just about Ty. She was waiting for something to go wrong, because she doesn’t think she’s worth something right, and this just flipped that switch in her head that told her to run before she got in too deep.

“Alicia...” You stupid girl.

I drag her into a hug, because quite frankly, she needs one.

“I d-didn’t want to leave him or h-hurt him...” She weeps into my shoulder. “I really l-like him... Why did I h-have to do t-that?”

Was this the way it should’ve gone down? No, there’s a hundred things she could’ve done differently to make this better, but it’s done now, it’s what she does next that’s important.

“Not everyone has the reaction they hope they do under circumstances they aren't ready for. You shouldn’t have run, but now you’re not just running, you’re hiding. That’s not going to help. You need to talk to him.”

“H-He's not going to want to talk to me a-anymore.” My shirt is drenched, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that girls don’t cry like this about guys they don’t want. “Even if he does, Craig isn’t going to l-let him. He’s pissed at me, and he has every right to be.”

“Don’t worry about Craig, he’s always pissed at everyone, it’s just his default setting.” Broody, daddy-vibed, beast. “I can deal with that part, but it sounds like Ty being trans isn't the only issue here.”

“N-Not really.” She bites into one of her nails enough to rip it to the wick. “People think because I’ve got Demitri I must have loads of dating experience, but I don’t. I was with his dad on and off all through high school, no one else. He was never a good guy, but he was better than some of the others my friends were dating, so I thought that was good enough.”

“Good enough?” Why do so many women do this to themselves? It should never be ‘good enough’, it should be epic! Unmatched! The most soul-fulfilling relationship anyone has ever had!

You get one life, no do-overs, don’t ever spend it just having ‘good enough’.

“My mum was with a guy who beat her unconscious, he never did anything like that. He just didn’t really give a fuck about me. He’d cheat on me every time we were together, come back to fuck me even when we were apart, and that’s what I got used to. I don’t know how to be with someone like Ty, someone who doesn't want anything from me. Demitri’s dad hasn’t seen him since he was two months old, he lives four blocks away from him and never even came for his birthday... Ty barely knows him and he’s cared for him more than his own father ever has in the last month alone.”

Yeah, because that man is fucking incredible.

I get it, more than most. When you’ve been shit on your whole life, you don’t trust people being kind to you, you just assume they’re doing it for the wrong reasons. She didn’t just run from Ty because he told her the truth about him, she saw it as an out, a way to get away from someone that was already weaving his way into her heart.