“There's something I should've told you a long time ago.” She stops. I hear her pull in a breath.
Fuck me.
This is it, isn't it?
This is where she tells me she's already dating Chris. That she has been since she left St. Michael's and broke my heart.
I knew he was lying at the wedding.
“Chris kissed me at St. Michael's the night I told him I was leaving.”
“Oh.”
I'm going to kill him, and it's not going to be quick. It's going to be slow, painful and involve his hockey stick being shoved up his—
“For a second, I let him. I thought I might feel better.”
Feel better?Because I can't do that for her. Not yet, at least.
“Did you?” I ask, trying to hide my annoyance. Doubt I'm doing a very good job at it. Not my fault. I'm literally planning a man's demise while trying to listen to the love of my life.
“No,” she says sadly. “I pulled back and ran home crying because I felt nothing with him. Nothing.” She sniffles. “It's why I kissed you the next day, because I needed to know I could still feel something.”
She doesn't say anything more, and I squash the coaster against the table.
She's telling me this because she trusts me... and because Chris is miles away somewhere I can't punch him.
“I'm sorry,” she says quietly.
“You don't need to be sorry.”
“So, you're not upset with me?”
“I could never be upset with you, Honey. Fuck, I love you so much, it’s eating me from the inside out, but I can't be angry about you trying to find yourself. You need that, and I don't want to be someone you're too afraid to tell the truth to. I want to be the first person you talk to. I want to be the one you tell about the first chapter you write, and the person you never run away from.”
I pause.
“I want to be the first person you tell when you've figured out what you want your life to look like; not be the reason it took you longer to figure it out.”
The ocean crashes against the ship as she takes it all in.
“That's why I'm going to leave you alone,” I say, meaning every word of it, even though it’s killing me. “I’m going to Rome, and I’m not going to ask you for anything before I go, because you deserve the chance to choose your own life first. I can’t give you that if I’m right here on the other side of a four-foot partition every morning.”
Silence.
Long enough that it aches.
“Zach?”
“Yeah?”
“What if I don't want you to go?”
Everything stops except the waves.
She can’t be serious, can she?
The second I finally build up the courage to tell her that I’m backing off, she hits me withthat?
