Description
In the Jimmy Rogers Chronicles, Book 2 – It’s Impossible – Chapter 8, Belle responds to Aaron’s latest “imagining”.
I read Aaron’s latest Imagining, twice. Then a third time. Then I put the paper down and stared at the wall for a full five minutes, feeling… nothing. Or maybe too much. It’s hard to tell the difference sometimes.
Aaron’s words sat heavy in my chest, like a weight I couldn’t shift no matter how hard I tried. I wasn’t even sure what I was feeling, anger, relief, guilt, confusion, but whatever it was, it made my skin itch.
“Goodbye.”
He said it so carefully. So thoughtfully. So… Aaron. And that’s what made me want to scream. Because I didn’t ask for this. I never asked him to love me. I never gave him a reason to.
Except I guess I did.
Not intentionally, but in the way I let him in. Just enough to make him believe there might be something more underneath.
And that’s the problem. Aaron doesn’t do casual. He doesn’t sit in the gray areas. He loves with his whole chest or not at all. And once he loves you…
Well. That’s it.
I should have seen it coming. The way he watched me, not just a hunger, but with a quiet reverence, like I was something precious. The way he listened when I spoke, catching the things I didn’t say more than the things I did.
And the way he stood next to me without asking for anything in return. That’s the kind of thing that gets under your skin. That’s the kind of thing you notice.
The problem is… I liked it.
And I let him keep doing it.
I’m not used to being loved like that. Without strings. Without pressure. Without expectation. And maybe that’s why I didn’t stop it sooner, because it felt so good to have someone see so much of what I hide and still want to stay.
But this? This is too much.
Aaron isn’t supposed to need me. He isn’t supposed to long for me. That’s not how this works. He’s my constant. My anchor. The person I know will always be there, standing quietly in the background, ready to catch me if I slip.
And now he’s saying goodbye? The way he put it, he’s trying to be kind. Because it hurts too much for him to stay?
Because I can’t give him what a man wants? That’s what kills me.
Because maybe I do love Aaron, not the way a woman usually loves a man, not in a way that offers hope or clarity, but in the quiet way you love someone you’re afraid to need, the shadowed way that still reaches for warmth but is too afraid to face it or speak it out loud.
And he’s right, I do know exactly how much it hurts to love someone who doesn’t love you back the same way. Sometimes the love that isn’t returned is the one that teaches you the most, about who you are, and what it means to hold together, even when it leaves you aching.
When he said, “I sense you know how much it hurts to love someone with your all and that person does not return that love in kind,” yeah. I know what that feels like.
And that’s why this is so damn hard. Because he’s not wrong. And he’s not selfish. He’s doing exactly what I would’ve done in his position. He’s protecting himself. And the worst part? He’s protecting me too.
“The best thing for you is likely to have less of me.” That’s what hit hardest. Because I know what that cost him to say. I know how much it took for Aaron to decide that giving me space, walking away, was the loving thing to do.
And I hate it. I hate that he’s right. I hate that I let it get this far. I hate that I’m standing here with tears burning in my eyes, wondering why I’m about to lose the one person who never asked for anything from me.
But the thing is…He’s wrong about one thing. He thinks I don’t need him. He thinks he’s doing me a favor by stepping back. But what he doesn’t understand, what I can’t figure out how to say, is that Aaron is the one person who makes me feel safe.
And that’s not nothing. But it’s not everything either.
Because if I let him stay… if I let him get close… it changes everything. It shifts the ground beneath me, and I don’t know how to stand steady when someone is looking at me the way Aaron looks at me.
And he’s right, I won’t ask him to stay. I don’t know how to ask for that kind of vulnerability. I don’t know how to say, “Please don’t leave,” when I’m not sure I can give him what he needs in return.
And maybe that’s why he’s doing this, because he knows I won’t ask. Because he knows I’m too stubborn to say the words, even if I want to.
And I do want to. I think. But I just…Can’t.
So yeah. He’s walking away. And maybe that’s for the best. But it doesn’t explain why my chest feels tight. Or why my throat is burning. Or why I feel like I might break in half when I think about what happens when he stops standing next to me.
What happens when I look over my shoulder and he’s not there? What happens when I realize he’s really gone? And why, why, why, why, does the idea of that terrify me more than the idea of letting him stay?
I don’t know.
But the thought of hearing silence where Aaron used to be…That’s the kind of emptiness I’m not sure I know how to live with.
Maybe it’s because there is no fear in love. Because when love is real, when it’s whole, it doesn’t demand or control. It just is. And maybe that’s what I saw in Aaron all along: a love trying to drive the fear out of me, if I’d only let it.
He says it’s up to me now. That if I want him, all I have to do is reach out. Call, text, stop him and say, “Let’s talk.”
It sounds so easy. But for me, nothing’s easy when it comes to asking for what I need. Because asking means admitting you need someone.
And admitting you need someone gives them the power to walk away.
So maybe that’s why I’m standing here, phone in hand, his number pulled up on the screen…
And maybe that’s why I still haven’t pressed call.
Not yet.
Not today.
But maybe… tomorrow.
