I Don’t Want To Want You
1062 Words
Jace’s POV
She was pretty. That was the first thing I noticed.
Dark hair. Wide eyes. A mouth that smiled like it had secrets she wasn’t afraid to share. She was everything Emma wasn’t. Loud. Confident. Careless. And she was already touching my arm before I remembered her name.
Riley. Or Raquel. Something with an R.
It didn’t matter.
She pressed into my side like we already belonged to each other. Like she hadn’t just met me at a rooftop party where I’d downed two shots too many and pretended not to be watching a certain window all night. Like she didn’t care who I was, only who I could be to her for a few hours.
I told myself that’s what I wanted.
To forget.
To drown her out with someone else’s laugh. Someone else’s hands.
The room smelled like tequila and cheap perfume. The music was muffled through the walls. And I could feel Riley’s breath against my throat as she pulled me down onto my own bed.
She kissed like a girl who knew she was being watched. Fast. Loud. Heavy.
I kissed back for the first ten seconds.
Then I stopped.
She didn’t.
She moaned like she was already three steps ahead, pulled at my shirt, climbed into my lap.
And I let her.
I let her until she whispered, “Still thinking about her?”
That’s when everything cracked.
My hands froze. My pulse spiked. I pulled back so fast she almost fell.
She blinked up at me, lips swollen, brows raised.
I said nothing.
Didn’t have to.
She rolled off me with a groan and grabbed her coat from the floor. “Seriously?”
I stayed sitting, elbows on my knees, hands over my face.
She scoffed. “I get it. You’re one of those guys. Brooding and broken and so in love with a girl who doesn’t want you.”
I didn’t argue.
She slammed the door when she left.
And that was the only sound for the next two hours.
I didn’t cry often.
But that night I did.
Not like in the movies. No shaking sobs or poetic silence.
Just tears.
Just pain in its purest, dumbest form.
I sat on the floor of my dorm, back against the wall, fists clenched and teeth gritted while my vision blurred and everything inside me screamed.
Because I wanted her.
Because I didn’t want to.
Because I didn’t know how to stop.
I tried writing again. Letter number eighteen. I didn’t finish it.
All it said was:
I’m tired of being the boy who loses everything he doesn’t know how to hold.
The next day, my father called.
“Tell me you’re packed.”
“For what?”
“The Kingston Initiative. You leave next week. Lena already confirmed.”
I stared at the floor.
He didn’t wait. “Don’t be ungrateful. This is the kind of opportunity students fight over. Six months in Berlin. Hands-on mentoring with the firm’s top partners. You’ll be halfway to partner before you graduate.”
“I never said I wanted it.”
“You don’t need to want it. You need to respect the legacy that made you.”
I could hear the ice in his voice.
“You always said I make my own decisions.”
“That was before you started thinking with your hormones and not your head. That girl, Emma…she’s not a Kingston. She doesn’t understand what it costs to be one. You can’t afford distractions right now.”
“She’s not a distraction,” I said quietly.
“She’s a liability.”
That word made something in me snap.
I stood slowly, my voice low and even. “You don’t get to call her that.”
“I get to call her whatever I want. I built this path. You either walk it, or you find out what life looks like without the name you keep using like a shield.”
I hung up before he could finish.
Then I grabbed the Kingston Initiative packet off my desk and threw it against the wall.
I didn’t care if I paid for it.
Not anymore.
Later that afternoon, Lena came by.
She didn’t knock. Just walked in like she always used to when we were younger and still pretending we weren’t being groomed into an arranged merger.
“You didn’t answer my texts,” she said.
“I haven’t answered anyone.”
“I saw Riley leave your room last night.”
“And?”
“She looked pissed.”
“Maybe I’m not good at faking it anymore.”
She tilted her head. “So it’s serious now?”
“It was never casual.”
Lena stepped closer. “I’m not trying to make this harder for you, Jace. But this… thing with her… it’s not going to end well. You think you’re protecting her, but all you’re doing is dragging her into a world she’ll never survive.”
“She’s stronger than you think.”
“She’s not stronger than you.”
That silenced me.
She walked over, picked up the torn Initiative packet, smoothed it out with one perfectly manicured hand. “Don’t make this mistake just to prove something.”
“I’m not proving anything.”
“Then what are you doing?”
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t have one.
She waited for a second. Then, with a sad smile, she placed her old dorm key on my desk. “I won’t be back. You should give this to someone who still wants to be let in.”
And then she left.
No door slam. No drama.
Just… left.
And I finally felt like I could breathe.
By nightfall, I’d written her another letter.
I didn’t plan to send this one either.
But I needed to get the words out before they crushed me.
I kissed someone else. I thought it would help. It didn’t.
You were in the air, in the silence, in the space between her hands. You’re everywhere, Emma.
I said I’d leave you alone. But I don’t think I can.
I folded it, sealed it, and placed it in the same drawer as the others.
Then I stared at my reflection for a long time.
And for once, I didn’t hate the boy looking back.
He looked tired.
But maybe he was finally doing something right.
- Writer
