“I don’t know,” I blurt, sounding angry and defensive.
And the second the words leave my mouth, I’m hit with this overwhelming wave of emotion. Exhaustion. Guilt. Anger. Grief.
Fear.
Loss.
I sigh. “I do know why he left. I drove him away.”
As if on cue, one of the staff knocks on the door and enters with a tray. Clara jumps up to help and a moment later I’m holding a brownie in one hand and a glass of wine in my other.
We’re alone again, and Clara is just giving me a quiet, thoughtful look, like she has all the time in the world to wait for me to speak.
Eventually, I shrug and say, “He said he loved me.”
Her lips twitch. “What a jerk.”
“Right?” I chuckle, then take a bite of the brownie. “But I didn’t believe him. So he left.”
She’s nibbling on her own brownie. “Why?”
I shake my head at my stupidity. “I don’t know why I didn’t believe him. I guess because it seemed too soon for it to be love.”
“Why?” she asks again.
“Because if this is love, or even the beginnings of love, and he has this much power to hurt me already, how bad is it going to be six months down the road? Or a year?”
“So you sent him away because losing him now is easier than losing him later?”
“Yeah. I guess I did.”
It sounds stupid when I admit it out loud. Stupid and selfish and cowardly.
I push to my feet, suddenly needing to move more than I need chocolate. “Can you arrange the transportation to Caye Caulker for tomorrow morning?”
She nods slowly, looking a little sad. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll take care of it.”
I swallow past the tears that are suddenly clogging my throat. I’m almost out the door when she stops me.
“You never answered my question.”
I turn back to look at her. “What?”
“I asked why. And you thought I was asking why you didn’t believe him. But what I meant was, why did he leave? If he’s really such a great guy, if he’s really worth crying over and being heartbroken over, why did he leave? Why did he just take no for an answer?”
Shaking my head, I just turn and leave, because I don’t have an answer for that, at least not one I can admit out loud without bursting into tears.
Because the only reason he would leave like that is because he doesn’t really love me.
Nick’s not the kind of guy to just walk away from something he cares about. He wouldn’t be a SEAL if he walked away the second something got hard. The training they go through is designed to break down everyone but the most stubborn, tenacious warriors.
No… if he walked away from me, it’s because he’s done with me.
He’s not a liar. When he said those words, he thought he meant it.
But that was before he realized what a coward I am.
