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I wasn’t sure where she was going, but I was happy she was talking, at least. “Okay.”
“You know what happened when I put them away?”
“You stopped thinking about what you’d lost as much?”
She nodded and turned back to look at me. Her eyes were glassy, and she was on the verge of tears. “I did. And I feel a lot of guilt over never taking them out again. But Doc was right; I needed to do it in order to move on. It doesn’t mean I don’t love her anymore. There are just times in life when love isn’t enough, and being strong means being able to see that and making a decision that hurts.”
I definitely didn’t fucking like where this story was heading now. “Luca—”
She put up her hand and stopped me from talking. “You’re a beautiful human being, Griffin, and I’ll always cherish this time we’ve spent together.”
My heart started to race. This was not happening. And this conversation was not one I wanted to have while driving seventy miles an hour on the highway. I needed to pull over. I was about to pass an exit, and I abruptly cut over three lanes to get off at the last second. Luca grabbed on to her door and started to freak out.
“Hang on, love. We’re not having an accident. Everything is fine. I just needed to get off the highway so we can talk.” Luckily, the exit ramp had an entrance to some sort of town storage facility. I pulled into a parking lot with a dozen parked yellow utility trucks equipped with plows and a giant salt storage building. The place was otherwise deserted, so I took the first empty spot and put the car into “Park.” I turned off the ignition and started to get out of the car.
“What are you doing?” Luca said.
“I’m taking a break from driving so we can talk face-to-face.”
Before she could object, I walked around to the passenger side of the car and opened her door. Extending a hand, I helped her out and told her to stretch her legs for a minute. When she was done, I led us around to the back of the vehicle next to the trunk and lifted her up onto it so that we were eye to eye.
“Okay. Let’s talk now.”
Luca looked down at her hands. “I . . . You’re in such a great place in your life and—”
I stopped her. “Look at me, Luca. If you’re about to say what I think you’re about to say, I want you to at least look into my eyes while you speak.”
She swallowed, took a deep breath, and raised her eyes to meet mine with a nod. “We’re just so different, Griff. You’re a round hole, and I’m a square peg. We don’t fit.”
I started to get angry. She was feeling vulnerable and scared; I understood that. But I didn’t care. She needed to fight harder for us. “Just say it, Luca.”
She looked down again. This time for a solid minute before looking back up at me. A fat tear rolled down her cheek. “Sometimes when love isn’t enough to make things right, we need to let it go.”
I looked back and forth between her eyes. “Are you finished?”
She looked confused but nodded.
“Fine. Then it’s my turn to speak.”
“Okay . . .”
“I only have one thing to say, but I want to make sure you hear it loud and clear, Luca.”
She looked at me and waited.
I leaned in close so that our noses were touching and spoke directly into her eyes with one stern word. “No.”
Apparently she thought I had more to add. But I didn’t. After thirty seconds of silence, she wrinkled her nose. “No?”
“That’s right. No.”
“But I don’t understand . . .”
“What part of the word no don’t you understand?”
“What are you saying no to?”
“Everything. You dumping me. You thinking I’m better off without you. You thinking you can just walk away from what we have and I’ll let you. The answer is just no. One big giant fucking no.”
She still seemed confused when I thought I’d been crystal clear. “But . . .”
“But nothing, Luca.”
“Griffin . . .”
I walked away to cool down, leaving her sitting on the car for a few minutes. When I came back, I held out my hand. “Are you ready to go now?”
Again her face wrinkled. I took a deep breath and lifted her from the car, setting her feet on the ground. Then I leaned in and kissed her lips. “When you’re ready to discuss how we’re going to make things work, I’ll be ready to have that conversation. But I’m done having this one, and I want to go home. I’m tired and I want to go home.” I started to walk back to my side of the car and then realized she might have gotten a mixed message from my last sentence. So I walked back to where she still stood at the back of the car and cleared that shit up. “So there’s no confusion, when I say ‘home’—I don’t mean my house in California. Because that isn’t where home is anymore, Luca. Home is wherever you are.”
