“But I can’t be taking all your time! They need you too,” Silas argued, despite the sound in her voice. “And you’ve never fucking sat through a withdrawal either. It’s fucking nasty.” As much as he hated admitting shit like that, he needed to get her to understand, really understand that she was better off being a fucking world away from him if she could. If he’d been thinking clearly, he would’ve said things differently, but he was just wasn’t and now he couldn’t take it back. “Love’s not something that fucking obligates you to stay.” Words he definitely wouldn’t have ever said if his head was straight. That was exactly part of loving someone, even he knew that deep down, but it felt easier to convince her to not be here.
He tensed his shoulders and thinned his lips at the way she threw it back at him. Fuck, of course he’d be worried if their places were reversed. He was a fucking shit for the things he was saying, but he couldn’t stop. Part of him believed he was doing the right thing be saying those things. “You wouldn’t be going through this!” he snapped back. “It wouldn’t be the same. You’re worth worrying over, and I’m…” he ended the sentence abruptly and pushed a hand through his hair. “Not worth it,” he finished half a minute later and under his breath.
“God, but I’m not worth that, Rae. I’m not worth your opinion of me, or your fucking love,” he told her, a reflection of all the insecurities he thought he’d dealt with. “You might not think it, which is why I don’t deserve you, but I’m nothing but another high school drop out gang kid.” Sides effects of the high, or something else, he didn’t know, but he just kept saying shit that he didn’t really mean.
He sighed and rocked forward on his feet like he was going to move, but hadn’t quite built up the effort to. “I have to suffer through it by myself,” he told her. “No one else can take the fucking tremors and the itch underneath my skin. That’s my fucking shit to bear.” Later, after, he’d appreciate that she cared, but it was being swallowed up in his own misery and self-hate right now. He was just protecting her he kept telling himself. Maybe protecting himself too by refusing to let her watch him tarnish the image that she’d built up of him. It was misguided and wrong, but he’d never claimed to be good at relationships.
God, but he was a fuck up. Nobody healthy would do the shit he just did, and push someone they loved away. Not even if they thought they were protecting them. “I always need you,” he muttered, because he had come to accept that fact months ago, “but I can’t have you here, Rae.” If he had a choice it would just be him until he’d weather the worst of it. “I just, I can’t.” He made like he was going to reach out for her, but stopped himself. Would that help or hurt the situation? He was too mixed up to know the answer to that. He winced at the pain in her face, in her words. “I love you too,” he mumbled and then on impulse reached for her arm and pulled her in, hesitating for a brief second before kissing her quickly. “I’m sorry,” he said and pressed the meds he’d had with him into her hand. “You’ll understand. When this is over you will.” What he meant by that maybe he didn’t even know.
“I’m so fucking sorry,” he repeated and released his grip on her.