“Because,” Cooper said, “you got engaged to Pearce.”
“So?”
“And I just… couldn’t take it. I had to stop.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop being in love with you.”
Oh.
Wait—what? “Wereyou in love with me?” I asked.
Cooper nodded. “I just told you that. In the stairwell.”
“I thought you were joking.”
Cooper gave me a look. “No you didn’t.”
“But—” It still wasn’t computing. “When?”
“Always.”
Always?
Cooper took a breath and shoved his hands into his pockets. “After you told me you and Pearce got engaged, I made the decision. I couldn’t stay. I couldn’t be part of your life anymore. You were like a drug that I had to give up. I thought,Just let her be happy. Right? You’d made your choice. I didn’t have to fight with you about it.”
“Fight with me about it?” I said. “I didn’t even know there was a choice.”
Cooper nodded. “Looking back, maybe I should’ve said something.”
I gave him a look, likeYa think?“I didn’t pick Pearce over you. I didn’t know you were an option.”
“I thought I shouldn’t tell you what to do. That’s what my dad always did to my mom. Told her what to wear, and who to be friends with. I didn’t want to be like him. I wanted to be the opposite of him. I trained myself not to ask for things. I had a lot of regret after I thought I’d let you marry Pearce without ever telling you how I felt. I reevaluated how I’d been living my whole life—but too late.”
“You didn’t just not tell me how you felt,” I said. “You didn’t even tell me you were leaving.”
“I was afraid even one objection from you would stop me. And so I just—left. It was the only solution I could come up with. I didn’t even have a plan. I just figured I’d figure it out… but it didn’t work. I left, moved far away, started over, made new friends, and dated people, too—thinking if I waited long enough, I’d forget all about you. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I just… missed you. Even when I wasn’t missing you, I was missing you. It was like grief—but it didn’t get easier theway grief is supposed to. It was like there was a hole blown open in my chest that I could never close back up.
“But as bad as it was, I figured it had to be better than the alternative—which was watching you marry Pearce and build a life with him. Watching him get everything I wanted and take it all for granted. I told my mom not to tell me anything about your life, and for a while that worked. But I guess she didn’t fully get the importance of that rule, because she forwarded me your wedding invitation—and that’s how I found out you weren’t already married.”
“Cooper—seriously?”
“I was so enraged to see it—the real thing in my hands—that I went to a pub and drank and stared at it… and then stumbled to a postbox and drunk RSVPed.”
“Hence, the boycott.”
“Hence, the boycott. Humiliating—but I told myselfthat settled that, at least. But then… when I woke up the next day hungover, I had this terrible idea in my head. Maybe this was my chance for a do-over. And the more I thought about it, the more I thought about it—until suddenly I was on a plane. Crossing the ocean. Heading home to stop you. It was foolish and hopeless and way too late—but I did it anyway.”
“I thought you were kidding about that, too.”
“I have never been more dead serious in my life.”
I took a slow breath.
Cooper went on. “When I saw you again in that church—it was all I could do not to throw you over my shoulder and carry you off like a Viking.”
“You did wind up doing that,” I pointed out.
