A Thousand Salt Kisses (Book 1 of Salt Kiss series)

><> Chapter Forty-Six <><

I felt like someone had slapped me in the face. He doesn't want me to wait for him.

And if he doesn't want me to wait for him, then what he is basically saying is that he wants us to break up.

He turned around and glanced at me and his expression immediately changed.

He put a hand on my cheek and looked worriedly at my face. The hurt must have been evident. "I don't want to waste your time, your life," he said. "That's all," he finished firmly.

"You won't be wasting my time," I said hoarsely, trying to fight back the tears.

He was shaking his head. "No. I couldn't do that. It would be wrong of me. It would be very selfish."

"No. It would be my choice," I insisted.

"Crystal, you have your whole life ahead of you. You are so beautiful and so amazing, I can't keep you for myself," he replied, running his fingers through my hair.

"Why?" I asked. I didn't understand.

"Because I can't give you what you deserve," he said. "What can I offer you? Really, in the long term? I can't offer you anywhere for us to live, and even if I could, I wouldn't be able to be with you half the time..."

"You can offer me you," I said. "That's all I want."

"That will change, the closer we get and the more you grow up," he said, shaking his head. 

"Well... why did you do this then?" I said, my hurt turning to blame and anger.

He sighed as though he knew that this was coming.

"You were in trouble, I helped you," he said, clearly referring to the night he rescued me at the beach party.

"So, it's all my fault?" I glared at him angrily. He knew what he was doing. He would have known full well all along that this would not work out.

"Look we found each other, that's all I'm saying," he said, his hand falling from my hair.

I was beyond reasoning. My mind was racing one hundred miles an hour right now.

"I bet you don't even like me," I said, a tear finally escaping and running down my face. "You just wanted what you couldn't have."

For the frst time, he looked angry. His jaw clenched and his eyebrows were raised. He looked away. "You sound exactly like Ri," he said. "That's just the kind of thing he would say."

We were both silent for a while and I sat there wiping tears away, not really knowing what to say.

Maybe I was being a little harsh but I was angry with him. He was the one who had been in a position to know where this was all heading. I had just had to bat about in the dark the whole time, guessing how things would work out. I had put my faith in him, and he had known all along that this couldn't last.

"Can't you see how much I care about you?" he said after a while.

I tried to think straight. I forced myself to rationalize through the pain. I thought about all the things he had done for me, all the places and the experiences he had shared with me, the beach he named after me and the way he had disobeyed his father to be with me.

Eventually I nodded slowly in agreement. "Yes, but I just don't understand why you did this when you knew that it was just a summer thing."

"I just couldn't help it," he replied, looking down. " I was obviously intrigued by you to start with, being a human, but I just loved being with you so much, I wanted to see you more and more."

I sat cross-legged listening, my elbows were rested on my knees, and my head in my hands. I didn't know if there was anything he could say to make this easier.

He reached over and took one of my hands so that I looked up.

"I guess I never really thought I would fall in love with you," he said, putting my hand to his lips. He kissed it and pressed it against his face. "I never even knew I could love like this."

My eyes welled up all over again. "So why don't you want to be with me then?"

He lay down and pulled me to him. I lay down too and relaxed slightly, it felt good to have his arms around me, comforting me.

"Because I want you to have a normal happy life. I have already been greedy, having you like this all summer. I have to be responsible now," he said.

I exhaled, a long shaky breath and hugged him tight. The thought of this ending was just unbearable. And for what? So I could go out with some normal boring person?

"I don't want anyone else,"  I cried into him.

"I don't either,"  he replied firmly, his hand pressed against my head.

"Pretty soon I'm going to cry you a whole new ocean to live in," I said, my tears had made a massive puddle on his chest.

"Let's enjoy what time we have left, and cry later," he said squeezing me tight.