34. Seb

34

Seb

Marcus looks distraught, his handsome face a mask of anguish. His jaw is clenched so tight I can see the muscle twitching, and his usual graceful posture has crumpled like a puppet with cut strings.

Fuck. Everything I’ve been thinking, all my doubts and fears, are spilling out of me right now.

But now that I’ve started talking, I can’t stop.

“It’s getting harder and harder for us to be apart,” I say.

“I know it is.” His shoulders curve inward as he drops his gaze to his hands, which are twisted together in his lap.

“I’m worried I’m causing you to take drugs, Marcus. Can’t you see that? That this thing between us is tearing us both apart.”

I take a deep, shuddering breath and let the words continue to spill. “I just want the basics. I don’t want caviar and champagne and a glamorous lifestyle. I don’t want fancy holidays in amazing resorts or to party with the Hollywood A-list. I just want someone to come home to! Someone to give me a hug when I’ve had a bad day. Someone I can rely on to always be there for me.”

Marcus is staring at me, his chest heaving.

“I can’t be that person for you, Seb.”

I hang my head in defeat. “I know you can’t.”

Marcus has always been completely honest with me about who he is. What he can offer me.

He’s told me he doesn’t want me to love him.

Yet, I’ve insisted on continuing to try. And I’m making him feel guilty for failing to be what I need. Last night, tonight, he’s had to self-medicate even when he’s with me.

This pattern will never end unless one of us breaks it.

I want to get married. I want to have a family. I want a normal, ordinary life where I can be a normal, everyday person.

And I can’t have any of that with Marcus.

Holy hell.

My stomach lurches like I’m in freefall, that sickening moment when your body realizes there’s nothing beneath you but air.

I can’t believe I’m contemplating not being with Marcus.

Is this what I want? To spend the rest of my life without Marcus? Is that even possible?

But it’s slowly killing me, watching him self-destruct from afar, knowing I’m part of the cause.

Knowing he’s constantly beating himself up because he can’t give me what I want.

Knowing I’m enabling his descent into self-destruction by selfishly refusing to let him go.

When I look at him, I can’t keep my eyes from tracing the familiar elegant curve of his jaw, the perfect bow of his lips.

There’s been a power imbalance between Marcus and me from the start. He was the gorgeous, popular guy. I was his best friend’s nerdy brother. I’d felt grateful for the fact he paid any attention to me.

Then he became a Hollywood superstar, and I was just a university professor.

I think of eighteen-year-old Seb, na?ve, trusting, innocent. Pulled into the orbit of this charming man.

That first night, he wove me under his spell. And I’ve been under that spell ever since, tangled in a web of desire, hope, and impossible dreams that have only grown stronger with each passing year.

I need to cut myself free.

I scramble out of bed.

Marcus watches me with eyes that remind me of a wounded animal, wide and dark with pain.

“I need to stop living this half-life, waiting for you to change your mind about what you can give me,” I say.

The words seem to strike him like lightning, illuminating the devastation I’m causing in stark, brutal clarity.

I can’t stand hurting him, but I know if we continue this, I’m only going to end up hurting him more.

My heart pounds so loudly that I’m sure he must hear it too. I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I force the next words out of my mouth.

“I need you to let me go,” I say. “Because this is going to destroy us both if you don’t. If you have any feelings for me, care for me at all, then I need you to let me go and not contact me again.”

Marcus is ashen, staring at me.

I press the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, desperate to stop the burning behind my eyes, to hold back the flood of tears.

But I have to tell him the truth. Because I know my own limits. And the only way I’m going to be able to cut Marcus from my life, to be able to get over him, is to have no contact.

There can be no in-between. Not with us. Any attempt to remain part of each other’s lives will only cause us more misery.

“I’m not strong enough, Marcus. I’m not strong enough to resist you. I’ll never be strong enough. So I need you to be the strong one. I need you to not contact me, okay?” I wipe the tears away from my eyes. “And if I have a weak moment and try to message you, I need you to not reply, no matter what I say. Can you do that for me?”

He looks like someone watching their entire world burn down, knowing they have to let it happen, and the raw devastation on his perfect features nearly breaks my resolve.

Then he nods slowly, his eyes never leaving my face.

“I promise,” he says the words like a vow.