A Different Divergent: Everyday Love

20

Chapter 20

"We can talk but first I want to make sure we're not going to make our kids orphans by parking here. Are we safe?" I look out my window at the ancient, decrepit structure with worried eyes wondering if my next breath will be my last.

"Perfectly safe," he says. "I wouldn't knowingly put you in any danger." He stretches his arm out, resting his elbow on the top of the bucket seat and repeatedly runs a strand of my hair through his fingers. I don't know if it's his words, his actions, or a combination of the two but something relaxes me, and I melt into my seat, my eyes on him.

"I owe you an apology," I softly say just as he opens his mouth to speak. "I shouldn't have kicked you out earlier. I know I did it for the right reason but it wasn't fair to you. I'm just so frustrated with this entire situation. It's making me crazy." Or crazier than usual.

"Thank you for that," he says, a tender look on his handsome face but then his expression turns sour, "but I think it's me who owes you the apology." He blows a breath out with a frustrated huff and stares out the windshield. "We're quite the pair. You want to run and I want to hide."

"You're right," I say with a sigh. He just described us perfectly in one short sentence. "What do we do about that? I know how it makes you feel when I walk away from an argument or a situation I can't control but I keep doing it. It may not be right, it may make things worse, it may not be what you want but, baby, it's my way of coping with stressful situations that I don't know how to handle, and I don't think I can change it. It helps me to put a little space between us so I can get my head screwed back on straight."

"The same goes for me," he says. "When I can't handle something, I shutdown emotionally to protect myself then I isolate myself so I'm not constantly reminded of whatever it is I don't … won't … or can't face. You told me I need to change or I could lose you, lose us … but … I'm not sure I can." His final words are barely above a whisper.

"I was wrong to say that. You should never have to change who you are to please me, and I shouldn't have to change to please you either."

"Are we at an impasse? Are we going to keep having this fight until we actually do destroy us? Is there a compromise?"

"I suggest we stop trying to change each other and accept everything: the good, the bad, and the ugly," I softly say. "If I need to put some space between us so I don't say something that irrevocably changes what we have, you need to let me go and trust that I'm not abandoning you." His fingers still in my hair. He has such deep-seated abandonment issues that this will be hard for him to agree to but we can't keep going this way or we're going to do ourselves what others have tried – break us up.

"Okay," he finally says after minutes of tense silence, "but only if you promise to say that you need space … and that you'll be back."

"Do you honestly think I would ever leave you, Tobias?" Something flashes in his eyes as he quickly turns his head to look out the windshield again, and pain shoots straight through my heart like a sniper's round. I reach up and softly cradle his chin, turning his head until our eyes meet.

"I know your past gives you reasons to doubt, baby, but I will never abandon you," I say, my voice strong and steady but thick with heavy emotion. "We may argue, we may piss each other off royally, there might be days we feel like everything is hopeless and we can't do it anymore, but there will never ever come a day that we won't love each other so desperately that we wouldn't go to the ends of the earth for one another. Please hear this, my love, I. Will. Never. Leave. You. I will always come home … to you. There's no place I'd rather be." He leans in and takes my mouth with a fiery passion I've missed this week. Our lips war, our tongues tangle violently, our teeth gnash against each other. When he releases me, my heart races like a jackrabbit, and my chest heaves like a bellows.