“I’m in love with you!” I scream, and his face falls to the pits of hell. The colour drains from it so quickly, that for one, terrifying moment, I think he might pass out at the admission. Exactly.Exactly!“That’s what happened! I realized in that bedroom, at that very moment,that I am inlovewith you, Boston!”
He stares at me, face blank and stunned, but says nothing. Not a word. Not a sound.
I suck in a breath, bringing a trembling hand to my mouth. “I don’t do love and you don’t do relationships, especially not with me, so I think now is the time to call it. Don’t you?”
He just continues to look at me. He doesn’t so much as blink.
Pain explodes through me.No.I can’t do this. Icannotdo this again.
A little cry leaves my throat as we stare at each other. It seems to push him into action. It’s the light to the fuse thatcontrols his brain. He steps forward, his fingers gliding against my elbow, as soft as the whisper of what could have been.
“Ari.”
“Don’t,” I beg, lifting a hand as I try to turn for the door. “I know this is on me. Don’t coddle me.”
“I’m not fucking coddling you. Come here,” he grumbles, turning me around and pulling me to his chest. I start to really cry then, big and pathetic. He says nothing else, he just holds me, and I spend those few minutes trying to mend myself back together while he keeps all of my broken bits in place.
This will be the last hug. I’m aware of that as I’m wrapped up in him. I wish I had realized that moments ago would have been our last kiss. That as we were having sex, it was going to be for the last time. I wish I would have known. I wish I could have savoured it, committed it to memory, so that I could hold it close in the lonely nights that are about to come.
I wish I had known.
When we pull away, I force a morsel of composure. I just need to get through this blink in time. I need to make it back home so that I can fall apart. I need to get out of this house and away from this man, andthenI can let myself feel this.
I peer up at him and see overwhelming sympathy in his eyes. Not a good sign. I suck in a breath and force a pained smile. “It’s time, isn’t it?”
His throat bobs. He reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Yeah, I guess it is.”
I wasn’t anticipating how badly it would hurt, but at that very moment, I realize that if he told me he wanted me anyway, I would stay in his arms forever. If he said that he didn’t want to call this, I wouldn’t leave. That if he told me he loved me too, I’d change all of my opinions, all of my beliefs, and all of my plans. If he loved me back, I’d let myself love him, too. If he fought for me for even the briefest of seconds, I’d surrender.
I’d give him all the parts of me that I only trust myself to keep safe.
But, that’s not how our story goes.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
His eyes are soft. “Don’t do that. There’s nothing to be sorry for, Ari.”
I outstretch a hand, reaching for him, and he takes it—squeezing my fingers. “I tried not to.”
It’s a broken whisper. It makes him flinch.
“It’s okay,” he says quietly, studying my face like he’s scared he’s breaking me. Maybe he is. Maybe he has been, little by little, since the night of the wedding. He steps toward me, cupping my face, and lowers his head so that I’m forced to meet his eyes. “I’m sorry that this can’t be different. I wish it could be.”
This feels much, much worse than it did when I was seventeen.
That was a papercut. This is the complete severing of a limb. My body, my heart, my soul—they’ll never operate the same again. There is no healing from this one. This was the love that will destroy this version of who I am. The woman who comes after this will be built of a body, a heart, and a soul that nobody has ever touched—a woman born from ashes of her prior self.
She’ll never love this recklessly again. She’ll never love this fully, either.
My eyes burn with fresh tears. I wish the very same thing.
He leans forward and kisses the hell out of me. I let him, grateful that I have the foresight to memorize this one. I cling to him, knowing that I love him, and that this is the last time I will ever kiss the lips that I’m in love with. I know that I love him, and I also know that I have to let him go. How depressing, realizing that he’s become everything to me, knowing that’s the very reason he has to become nothing. To love him and lose him,just like that. In a blink. We were always destined to be just a blink.
“I’ll take you home,” he whispers against my mouth, but he kisses me again instead, like bringing me home is the last thing he wants to do. Like kissing me has the ability to take away the pain he sees in my eyes.
He drives me back to Carter’s condo. It takes me ten minutes to leave his vehicle. He takes my hand and waits for me to be ready. In silence. Neither of us look at each other. Neither of us speak. We hang onto each other until the moment we have to let go.
I jump out of that truck without looking back.
