Chapter 121

Emma's POV 

 "I really don't know what answer you're expecting." I replied to Chase. 

I could feel my heartbeat in my mouth

I didn't like when he was in these moods. 

He had a look in his eye, and that was not how the Chase who loved me looked at me. 

I had to stop breathing and clench my palms to stop the rising tears. 

 "Do you fucking love Kevin?!" He said, he looked like he'd just swallowed bile. 

 "I don't love him, Chase." I replied truthfully, "but I'm not sure about my feelings for you."

 "How long have you felt that way?" He asked. 

 "Can I be honest?" The conversation was in a different tone, and I appreciated it. I didn't want to be confronted, I wanted to be asked. 

 "Yes, please." Chase's voice was breaking. 

 "I never really came back after what happened." I confessed. 

He just kept looking down at the center rug. The tears pooling in my eyes had made all the colors morph into one indescribable shade. 

 "Chase, I came here drunk that night." I confessed. "I had a lot on my mind, and I weighed the options, you were my best bet. I was pregnant, and if anyone even really cared or paid attention, it was beginning to show. Stuff at 'home' was steamy too. They were on probation, and couldn't leave the house."

 "I thought being next to you, near you, could fix the issues. I thought I'd be happier, I thought it'd be a reason to want to put everything behind me. But it did not. I began to pick on everything you did, I was extra hurt, cause I had reference, every hiccup made me scared, it just wasn't that happiness I projected. And no shopping, or foreign countries could fix that." 

 "Why are you still stuck?" He asked. 

 "I have no answers Chase." I replied. "I suggested therapy one night, and you shut me up with a kiss. It felt like all you wanted, needed from me was my body. The same thing Jessica had to offer, and stupidly, I got pregnant, and you freaked out, probably the same reaction Lily suffered. Chase you have an MO, one that is not good for me." 

 "Please don't refer to those." He said quietly. 

 "I'm sorry." There's just an ugly pattern. "And I don't know if I'm supposed to be saying these, but you never really had any women in your life, Chase, I don't expect you to know how to treat one, but I'm also not willing to be your lab rat. Well, the third lab rat." 

 "Emma, you're not even making any sense!" He said. 

 "That's the problem, I don't ever really make sense to you." I replied. "If I made sense, you wouldn't have played me with my fucking mom for this house, if I ever made sense to you, you wouldn't have left me all the while before grade, Chase. I didn't need space, but space is all you keep offering. I contemplated abortion a couple of times, and the one person I finally let it out to, who should be supportive…well. Bottom line is, I've quit trying to make sense to you. I wanna breathe. I want to feel the ground with my feet. I want to explore." 

 "Seems to me like you've been stringing me along." He said. 

 "That's unfair to say." I replied. "You can't possibly think all we needed to do to fix our issues was make love non-stop, I mean, that was beautiful for a while. But Chase, I needed you to connect with more than just my body. When I think about it, I really can't remember the last time we had conversations that were not about our issues, or ourselves. Chase, we barely have anything in common." 

 "What is it that you're implying?" Chase asked. "Cause I seem to be so fucking faulty, I doubt you still want to stay with me." 

He was in tears already. So was I. 

I took his hand and he pulled away. The corner of my lips were quivering, and my heart was heavy. 

 "That's not what I mean." I said. "I've just gotta say everything on my chest. I'm tired of carrying it around." 

 "Roger that." He said, sadly. "Is that all?" He asked. 

 "Yeah." I replied quietly. 

 "I guess this is it then." Chase said. 

My heart broke into a million pieces. 

I'd been so blinded by his faults, that I failed to see how much he still meant to me. 

I wished I could beg, maybe reverse time. Wipe everything I said out. 

If I was given an option, I'd pick to never have said anything. To have let the night go the way he planned. 

I loved Chase, it just wasn't comfortable. 

Loving Chase wasn't the life I saw through the rose colored glasses I once wore. It was hard, like any other thing. 

I, we, still had our whole lives ahead of us, I just didn't think it'd be fair to continue patching things through. 

I'd seen college test so many relationships, I didn't want that to be an excuse for ours. 

Clarity was better. 

 "I'll be gone in the morning." I said quietly. 

It was sometime between two and three am. 

We both sat, lost in our own thoughts, my body shamelessly yearning for his comfort, when I'd just broken his heart. 

I kept sobbing quietly cause there was no stopping the tears that stemmed from a place of pain and guilt. 

Three times, three solid times, I stopped myself from lurching at his feet. 

I wanted to be held by him, but even though the distance between us, physically, was so small, we were more than miles apart emotionally. 

What terrified me more than the look on his face was what was going through his mind. 

 "It's open." Chase said as he sat down back after unlocking the door. 

I checked the time. '5:00, 31st-07' 

 "Goodbye." I said out of courtesy. 

As I left Chase's house, it was with the shell of my heart.