The Bluffing Game by Verona Vale

Unwaveringly. Finally. And then it was so clear, so inevitable. I could read like a book just how much he still wanted me. It would be so simple to take advantage of this, and yet I couldn’t bear to let myself use him or hurt him.
    The menu sat longingly on the table, waiting to provide us with something. “What if we agreed ahead of time not to regret it?”
    “Meaning what?”
    “Meaning we understand we can’t get back together, and that nothing long-term will come of it, and that afterward, we’ll still just be friends.”
    “I can’t do that.”
    His eyes were misty. I was offering him something he knew he wanted, but that he also knew he couldn’t handle emotionally. He knew himself well. And I was making everything harder. I might as well have been rubbing in his face how weak he was to be unable to sleep with me without wanting it to be more than sex. But I didn’t think that was weak of him. That was what I wanted. Exactly what I wanted.
    “Then what if we try again. For real.”
    He shook his head. “It won’t end well.”
    “It might. We’re different people now.”
    “I don’t feel like I am.”
    “So it would be on me to be different?”
    “Yes. And that wouldn’t be fair. Which is why we shouldn’t do it.”
    “So you’re not willing to work with me on anything, then?” That would certainly kill my picture of this being what I wanted. It dawned on me suddenly that all of these words were ones I could never take back, and that like it or not, this conversation was really happening. I felt a sting inside and hoped I wasn’t unwittingly pushing him out of my life forever.
    “June, I would do anything for you. That’s the damn problem. I would let myself stay in an unhappy love with you all my life. I would let you walk over me. And then I would resent you, and get angry, and break it off again, and then I would hate myself because I’d lost you again. You’re like a drug, and I’m trying like hell not to fall off the wagon.”
    “Why would you have to hold it in, if you were so unhappy?”
    “You didn’t used to be able to compromise.”
    That hurt. It burned hot and hard. All the more because it had been true. But it had a time in my life when such an uncompromising attitude was necessary if I was to achieve the things I wanted.
    And now I had.
    Maybe now was the time to be more compromising.
    “You’re right,” I said. “I was rigid. Immovable. Obdurate, even. And I don’t regret that. But I’m willing to be someone a little different now.”
    “How much do you really mean that?”
    “Have you been talking to me this past week? Haven’t I been telling you I want a change?”
    “Up until now, if you wanted something, you worked until you got it. You didn’t change for it.”
    “I know. What I’m saying now is, I’ve gotten everything I can work for. Except the thing I suddenly want the most.”
    “And what if you get tired of it? What if you change back?”
    “I can’t predict the future. You’re right, I might decide I’ve had my fill of being compromising after a while, and change my mind again. But I’ve spent the past eight years being uncompromising, and I’m tired. I’m willing to give a little if it means getting what I really want in return.”
    “And what if a relationship stops being what you really want?”
    “You’re going to get hurt, Nick. Whether we give this another try or not, whether it last three days or three years, you’re going to get hurt. I’m not perfect. No two people have ever been able to spend years together without hurting each other in some way, big or small. The question is whether they can work together to help each other grow, so that they both do it less often. So that the good moments outweigh the imperfections. And if you’re willing to try that, so am I. But if you’re putting me so high on a pedestal that you can’t stand up for yourself if I make a mistake, then you’re right. It won’t work out. Because I