Page 146 of Keeping Score

But I wasn’t going to jump in and derail his life all over again. He’d made a plan. He was leaving. And being with him again, knowing that? It would’ve hurt too much.

Brody was leaving.

It hurt. Like I couldn’t take a full breath. Like I’d taken a punch to the gut, and somehow the air would never replenish itself.

“Because Maggie, I want you.” he continued, groaning. “God, I want you. So badly I feel like I can’t go on without you anymore.”

I knew holding him, being with him again, would ease the pain even momentarily, but I couldn’t put either of us through that. Brody was determined to move on, and I was determined to not be selfish anymore. No matter how badly I wanted to.

So, I pushed him away and said, “I can’t. We can’t.”

He sucked in a breath, shutting his eyes as he nodded along with me. “You’re right. Of course.”

Slowly, he stepped away. Though it was only a few steps backward, it felt like the earth had cracked between us, leaving me stranded on the other side, never able to reach him again.

“You’re too important to me. To lose, I mean.” I said, trying to salvage whatever mess I’d just made again. God, what an idiot I’d been to kiss him. Expecting everything could go back to normal.

But Brody was as much of an extension of myself as a limb was, and I knew the only way to keep him in my life was to offer up that root of friendship that had always existed at the heart of our relationship.

“You don’t have to lose me, Mags.” he said, sounding agonized. “That’s not what I want.”

“Good,” I nodded, cutting him off. I couldn’t bear to hear anymore. “So, it’s settled then.”

“What’s settled?”

And though it killed me to say it, I offered up the only solution that let me keep him.

“You and I.” I gestured between us, offering a hopeful smile that tore my soul apart. “Friends?”

And he responded, in the flattest of voices, in a way that made me think he didn’t mean it at all.

“Friends.”

Chapter Forty-Seven

Brody

“Yup, this one is great,” I told the realtor with what was probably the most bored expression I’d ever worn.

“Great?” Abbey said, pinching my arm.

“Yeah, it’ll be fine for what I need it for.” I shrugged, looking around at the carpeted apartment floors.

I’d flown back to Michigan for this. To see apartments. Abbey had come along to help, a woman’s eye and all that. But honestly, it didn’t matter. This place was as good as the next.

Sure, the wallpaper was sort of outdated, and the heating system made an obnoxious noise, and maybe it wasn’t the most spacious. But who cared? It was just me, and it didn’t matter.

“What you need it for…” Abbey said incredulously. “You mean a home?”

But it wasn’t going to be a home. I couldn’t picture any type of long-term life in this apartment, but the thing was, I couldn’t in any of the ones I’d seen.

Maybe when the pieces of my life started to click back into place I’d be in the right headspace to find somewhere else.

“This isn’t going to be a ‘forever home’.” I air-quoted with a dramatic expression. “Just a for now one.”

“Well, actually, there’s a real cute condo for sale that might change your mind about that,” she said in a sing-song voice.

“I just want to rent.”