Make Me (Editing)

thirty eight

"It's my mum," he spoke almost shakily, leading me to immediately assume the worst.

And as the next two words left his lips, my heart shattered into a million pieces along with his own.

"She's dying."

"Oh Tyler, I'm so sorry," I tried my best to convey my sympathy, eventhough I knew I would probably never know the extent of his pain. "When did you find out?"

"Zoey called last Wednesday," he replied, "just after I got the text from Rebecca."

"You should have told me. You know I would have come back early with you."

"Would you have? Really?" His voice raised slightly again, the first sign that the tone was turning. "Because it really seemed to me like you'd left me for dirt."

"I was just scared, Tyler," I reasoned with him. "There wasn't a second there that I stopped caring about you. How can you even think that?"

"Because you did everything in your power to make it look that way," he returned. "I was left alone to assume the worst, and that's exactly what I did."

"But Becca texted you!" I was now starting to get agitated. "She literally told you where I was."

"Sure," he nodded, "but I still couldn't comprehend why you just left me there with your idiot ex. He made the first punch, you know."

"But you wouldn't step away!" I yelled. "I did all I could to talk some sense into you, but you refused to listen to me."

"Oh yeah? Well how about you take a moment to see it from my point of view!" He slammed his hands on his desk in frustration. "There I was standing beside you in the mall while your ex boyfriend, who I knew nothing about, accused you of a bunch of shit, which I knew nothing about. I felt like a complete ass, Ally, but chose to stick up for you anyway. And all you freaking did was run away."

"I- you- ," I struggled to find the right words, realising that there was actually a lot of validity to his side of the story.

"Save it," he replied. "What's done is done, and to be honest there's much bigger shit going on right now."

"You're right, I'm sorry," I rubbed my forehead as I felt a headache forming. What had meant to be a simple 'goodbye' for the night had turned into something completely unexpected. "So what's happened with your mum, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Cancer. Stage Four," he spoke with his eyes glued to the table. "They've given her a matter of months. We don't even know if she'll make it to Christmas."

"I'm sure she will, Ty." I tried to offer up some comfort. "From what you and Zoey have said, she sounds like a real a fighter."

"Don't promise shit that's out of your control, Ally," his tone was firm. "I'm having enough trouble coming to terms with it without all the false hope."

"I shouldn't have said that, and I apologise. But-"

"I'm going to be out of the office for a few weeks," he cut me off out of nowhere. "Don't bother calling, I'll contact the office if I need anything done."

"What?! So this is it?" I scoffed in disbelief. "You're seriously going to just up and leave when we're arguing like this? And you're calling me the coward? I really thought we were getting somewhere, Ty. I thought our time away actually meant something to you, like it did to me. Heck, I realised that I love you. And I'm not just saying that in the heat of the moment, or as a last ditch effort to get you to stick around. You're freaking everything to me! But if you don't feel the same way, then I guess I can't do anything to make you."