“Kaitlyn, Ray was right. He knows what kind of girl I want, what I’ve been looking for.”

I felt like he’d slapped me across the face or sucker-punched me in the stomach. Therefore, I didn’t think much about the next words out of my mouth.

“You, Martin Sandeke, are a complete and total jerk-face! How dare you… How dare you! Why would you…and I thought…” I screamed this at him in fits and starts, which felt weird because I’d never screamed at anyone before in my life.

I decided just to go with it.

The line of his mouth became contemplative as he looked at me, but he said nothing. This only served to increase my frustration.

“What the heck is wrong with you?” I continued my tirade. “Aren’t you going to defend yourself? Or are you just going to sit there and stare at me?”

“Do you want me to defend myself?”

“Yes!” I immediately responded, loudly and on instinct, the single-word admission ripped from some insurmountable desire to be wanted and seen for who I was, even if I didn’t know who that person was yet.

“Why?” He was on the edge of his seat and his gaze was filled with a strange hope.

“Because…” My voice cracked and so did my heart. Stupid tears flooded my eyes.

Tuesday night’s crying was cathartic, necessary, and I’d embraced it. But I didn’t want to cry now. I didn’t want to show weakness to someone who, by his own admission, cared more about who my family was than who I was as a person.

I kept thinking, I knew it! I knew he would make me cry! Stupid Kaitlyn. Stupid passion. Stupid trust. Stupid jerk-face Martin Sandeke.

I turned away from him before he could see my face crumble. I needed to hide. The desire was brutal. Thus, I tried to bolt for the cabin below deck, with my ultimate goal one of the two closets. But, somehow detecting my intentions, Martin had other plans. I listened to his chair hastily scrape against the deck, his quick steps circle the table.

He was hot on my heels as I descended the stairs and he intercepted me before I could grab for the handle of the closet door.

Martin gripped my shoulders and he turned me to face him.

“Let me go!”

“Christ, Kaitlyn. Calm down for a minute. You wanted me to defend myself, so listen.”

“I hate you!” I yelled this, but I didn’t really mean it. Besides feeling wonderfully dramatic and perfect in the moment, I wanted to hurt him. Because I was hurting.

“No, you don’t. You’re falling in love with me.” He looked stunned by my outburst, but sounded almost pleased by it, like my reaction was part of some big plan, a game of strategy he’d been playing.

Damn it all, he was such a bully. I knew this, but I must have forgotten it someplace between his mouth and his hands and his eyes and his words.

I responded to this accusation through clenched teeth, sounding not at all convincing. “No, I’m not.”

I fought his grip and pushed against his granite chest. Of course this did nothing but make him change his hold so I couldn’t continue hitting him.

“Listen to me, Kaitlyn. Just—would you listen?”

I took a deep breath and forced myself to calm down.

Even though you don’t feel calm doesn’t mean you can’t be calm.

I stilled. I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see him. I needed to distance myself. I needed to either reason or bluff my way through this. My urge to cry dissipated as I thought through my action plan.

I would…I would just freeze him out. I could do that. I’d been doing it for months before he found me in that science cabinet and everything went to hell.

I cleared my throat, testing the steadiness of my vocal chords. “I changed my mind. I’m not interested. I don’t care.”

He laughed at this, though it sounded completely frustrated. “Shutting me out, are you? How convenient that you’re able to just turn your feelings off so easily.”

I kept my eyes shut and repeated over and over, even though you don’t feel calm doesn’t mean you can’t be calm.

I had no reason to answer him, so I didn’t. I just pretended he wasn’t there. Eventually he’d have to let me go. When I was eleven, I spent seven hours in a closet waiting for a babysitter to leave. I didn’t like her because she cheated at Monopoly.

Martin hadn’t cheated at Monopoly, but he did just admit that he was using me because of who my family was. In some sick way it made sense. By his own admission, college was one large-scale job interview of his classmates for the future Martin Sandeke conglomerate. Why wouldn’t he also be interviewing girls for the role of girlfriend?

In the game of life this made him one of my least favorite people. He was manipulating me. The very thing he detested in others. He knew I was falling in love with him. He knew. Was I the first girl he was going to test? Martin Sandeke’s Girlfriend 1.0?

“You are so stubborn.” Now he sounded upset. “Open your eyes and look at me.”

I didn’t. Instead I built the case against him in my mind. Everything he’d said and done became damning evidence and I felt myself grow numb.

“Fine. We’ll do it this way.”

Martin’s hold changed, and he was walking me backward. The high mattress of the cabin’s double bed hit my bottom and before I quite understood what was happening, he lifted me into his arms and placed me on the bed.

I did open my eyes then, scrambling away from him to the far corner of the mattress. I glared at him, hoped to communicate that I would kill him dead if he touched me with intent to arouse.

He seemed to understand the silent threat because he lifted his hands up and said, “I’m not going to touch you, not if you don’t want me to. I’m just going to sit here, on this side. But you have to promise me that you won’t cover your face or close your eyes again. I need you to see me when I say this. And I need to see you.”

I said nothing. I wasn’t going to make him any promises.

He paused, indulging himself in a moment to examine my face. At length, he said, “You’re so good at that. You’ll have to teach me how to do that, hide in plain sight. It’s a handy skill.” These words were surprisingly bitter, approaching the intersection of sarcasm and spite.

I pulled my knees up to my chest, wrapped my arms around my legs, and said nothing. Though I got the distinct impression he was stalling. I briefly wondered why, but then became irritated with myself for my curiosity. I shouldn’t care.

He sat on the edge of the bed in the opposite corner, facing me. His features were hard, verging on resentful.

Abruptly, he released a breath and with it the words, “I’m in love with you, Kaitlyn.”

I said nothing, but I did flinch. As silent seconds ticked by, feelings welled within me, ballooning past the numbness, and I could barely contain it. I felt like I was being stretched beyond my capacity, my chest tight and heavy, my stomach intermittently twisting and pitching. I was dizzy.

As well, I found I couldn’t quite hold the enormity of his gaze paired with his admission, so earnestly spoken. I believed him and I couldn’t quite handle this truth, so I removed my eyes from his and swallowed. It didn’t help. I was shaking.

He cleared his throat, politely ignoring my turmoil, and said, “Who your family is, it’s a part of you. Just like my family—all their fucked-up spite and bullshit—is also a part of me. We’ve been shaped by them but they don’t define us. I’m not them. I don’t have to be like them. You’re not your illustrious ancestors. You don’t have to be like them. You can be whoever you want. Our families couldn’t be more different, but—because of who your family is—you understand what it means to have…expectations. To have people prejudge you or want to use you for who they are, what they’ve done, and what they have. That’s what I meant when I said who your family is has a great deal to do with why you’re very attractive girlfriend material.”

I slid just my eyes to his. They were stinging and I felt like crying. I was overwhelmed but I was unable to keep from surveying him to discern the veracity of his words. He appeared to be completely sincere and I felt the gravity of his blue-green gaze to my bones.

Before I could catch myself, I blurted, “So you like me because I can empathize with you?”

“No…yes, that’s definitely part of it, but…” His frustration was a tangible thing, curling around his strong body and filling the air with tension. “I like you because you are Kaitlyn—genuine, beautiful, brilliant, amazing Kaitlyn—not because you’re Kaitlyn Parker. And I’m in love with you because I can’t help myself.”

Oh well…barnacles.

That struck me right in the feels.

I knocked my feels on their collective swooning asses for a moment because I needed to focus on the real issue. “But, upstairs you were trying to make me think you were using me. Why make it sound like you were just using me?”

He leaned forward, but made no move to advance closer, his voice rising with every word. “Because you’re so controlled all the time. I ask you to move in with me and you make a pro/con list, as though we’d be just roommates, but make no reference to what you feel for me, like it doesn’t factor. I’m in love with you and I have no idea what you feel for me, if you feel anything at all!”