for, liar

Chapter 72

"It's definitely broken. Not bad enough for surgery but he will need to wear a splint until it heals."

They wouldn't let me go back since we weren't related or married, but the doctor was nice enough to come out to the waiting room to update me. I thank him and wait for Miles to be released.

We walk to the car and I climb back in the driver's seat. He looks over at me with sad eyes. He looks kind of funny with the splint but I hate to see him hurt.

"Did you even go to the ER last time?" I ask him.

He shakes his head and looks down.

Of course he didn't. He probably just looked up treatments on google and healed himself. Thankfully, it wasn't actually broken like this time. This one looks painful.

"I don't know why everyone gangs up on your nose."

I was trying to lighten the mood but he wasn't having it. If anything, I should be the one angry. This entire evening was faulty because of his decision to hide things from me. Granted, it wouldn't be fair for me to give him all the blame. I could have approached our issues better.

"Are you ready to talk now or are you going to pout the entire ride back to Charlotte?" I ask.

He sets his papers down in the center console and takes a deep breath. "I know I fucked up. I know that you didn't deserve that and you still don't deserve me hiding things from you. I'm not really hiding anything from you, at least not anything of importance to our relationship. I have some family drama going on right now and I went up to see my dad. It was stupid of me to keep that from you but then I felt like I would've had to explain exactly what was going on."

I run my finger across the top of the steering wheel and stare blankly at the road. "So you thought ditching me and not calling was a better way instead of just telling me that it's none of my business why you're leaving?"

He closes his eyes and nods. "It's stupid, I know. I wasn't thinking straight. There are just a lot of things you just won't understand and I didn't want to bring you into it if I didn't have to."

I reach my hand over the console and grab onto his. "If you were really serious about us, then why wouldn't you want me to know what's going on with you if it's fucking you up?"

His eyes meet mine and I can tell it hurts him. He doesn't want to hide things from me. He doesn't want to be the untrustworthy guy that no one believes. Whatever is going on with him must be serious. I guess I was just hoping that whatever it was, our relationship would be serious enough for him to include me.

"If you're not...ready to be in a relationship right now and you have family stuff to take care of, I think it's really important for you to be honest and tell me that. I think I deserve that much."

His eyes are red making me think that he was on the verge of crying. No tears ever come.

"I want to be with you so badly. I just have a lot to figure out and I'm not exactly sure how to do that yet, but I need you to trust me. I know that's asking a lot because all I've done this entire time was act weird but I promise in the end it'll be worth it. I can love you better than anyone out there if you just give me a chance. I will make this right and work to be more honest with you about my whereabouts if that's what it takes. I just want to get to know you more. To love you more."

He has both hands around my right one. He's practically pleading even though I never really said I wasn't giving him a chance. Damn, I wish Maddy was here so I could ask for her advice but she would probably say I'm being stupid and really need to figure out what's going on with him before I decide to continue whatever this is.
It's not whatever, it is a relationship. All we can do is try to work through our own problems until one day we decide we want to be a part of each other's problems forever.

"I will try to trust you more. I'm sorry I got paranoid about you leaving, it just really messed me up even more than I'd like to admit."

He smiles, nodding understandingly. "Don't be sorry. You had every right to be paranoid. I'm sorry for making you feel that way. It's just so different to be worried about myself but also now worrying about another human being and how they're going to be impacted by all my shit. You never want to show the person you love that you're a little fucked up."

I chuckle and reach over to touch his hair. "Miles, we're all fucked up. That's the beauty of loving someone because you can look past all that."

He squeezes my hand and pulls away. "I know. Thank you."
He pulls the seatbelt over his shoulder indicating it's time to get the hell out of here.

I drive us out of the parking lot and get back on the interstate towards Charlotte. Miles falls asleep with an hour left of driving. I zone out to my favorite playlist and time speeds by as if it was nothing.

I reach over to tap his shoulder when we arrive back at the apartment. He turns his head and looks at me with his eyes half open.

"You're more than welcome to stay the night. You seem really tired." I say softly.

He looks around to realize that we were back home and nods. I get out of the car to get our bags.  He sets his bag next to it on the floor when we get inside. "Do you want me to sleep on the couch?"

"My bed is a queen size. There's plenty of room." I tell him, hoping he takes the offer.

He walks me to the bedroom and shuts the door behind us. It's three in the morning and I haven't felt this exhausted since my double shift last year on Thanksgiving.

Fuck, I totally forgot about Thanksgiving. It's in a month and I still don't know what I'm going to do about my parents. Neither one of them will leave me alone about whose house I'm going to this year and when they can meet my boyfriend. If I could just skip the holidays for once that would be fantastic. I've never been a huge fan of them anyway.

He sits on the edge of the bed. "Do you have a specific side you like to sleep on?"

No one has ever asked me that. I usually would just sleep on whatever side the other person isn't on.

"Yeah, I usually like to sleep furthest from the wall otherwise I'd move in my sleep and hit it."

He smiles up at me and scoots over to the spot against my bedroom wall. A simple gesture that means more than he knows.

Revised;