Be Rude but Love Me | ✔

CHAPTER 48 - Part II

"As I told you, when you told me I was throwing my life away that night, I knew I had to do something about it but I wasn't ready. So I left. To be away from you guys but mostly to be away from you, away from your influence. I wanted to do this on my own."

"Yet you called my dad," I cut off again, not meaning to. "I don't really get how that's on your own."

He looks away and into the distance, as if remembering some things. "I called your dad because I saw how much of a good father he was, nothing like my own. I thought he could give me the guidance I needed to do things right, to be worthy."

Worthy? Why does he think so low of himself?

I shake my head. "I've always told you, Yann. You are not a nobody. You were always worthy."

He laughs but it's humorless. "You can be so dense sometimes, Tracy." I am confused and it must show on my face because he says, "You never saw it, did you?"

Yann seems to get suddenly impatient with me being confused because he jumps out of his chair abruptly and starts pacing the living room. I remain in my chair, watching him. He paces up and down like a caged lion. I feel his frustration in waves as they ripple off him and come hit me. He goes around and around and around. Then he stops, eyes zipping back to mine.

"It was for you," he whispers softly. "It was all for you. Me going back, me enrolling in college, me doing something with my life." He looks into my eyes from across the room, a small but sad smile on his face. "It was always you."

I receive a slap to my face as his words sink in. I sag in my chair, suddenly feeling too heavy as understanding finally dawns upon me. He doesn't need to continue, he doesn't need to say anything more because I understand it all now. I understand why he's talking about being worthy, why he calls himself a fuckup. Perfect little student in a prestigious school. Bright future ahead of you. Not much room for a loser like me. I understand his words for what they truly mean, at last.

I always made him feel like less, not with what I said nor the way I acted, but simply because he always thought he didn't have much to offer to someone like me. Because he thought I was more and that someone like me couldn't want someone like him. I guess I always knew he felt that way, but I didn't get just how much it hurt him, how much it tortured his mind and pushed him to see himself the way he used to.

I've been wrong all this time, thinking that his family was the only cause of his suffering but I was too. I must have played such a big part in his feeling of unworthiness. Every single time he saw me, every time we were together.

I then realize he didn't leave me. He left because of me. And I'm unsure whether to be proud that I pushed him to sort out his life or ashamed that I made him feel like he wasn't enough.

I want to say something but he's not done talking.

"That night in the woods, when you asked me what was stopping me from opening up to you, what was holding me back and I said you, I meant that I was afraid if I let you see the real me, that you would see a fuckup. You're so fucking perfect, Tracy," he says. "In every sense of the word. You're beautiful, smart, determined."

"I'm not perfect, Yann," I say softly.

But he ignores me and continues. "And I was afraid that up high where you were, that you would see me as less, as unworthy of you."

"I never saw you as less," I say again, voice soft again because I am suddenly breathless from his confession, from the realization of it all. "I will never. When are you gonna see that?"

"I know you would never see me as less but I did. I saw myself as less. I wasn't enough for you. With the life I was living, I would have never been enough for you. And I didn't want to lose you."