Silence fills the space between us again, andI don’t fill it.I let her sit with it, let her decide what to do with everything I just handed her.
Finally, she exhales, low and slow.
“Thank you,” she says quietly.
The words catch me off guard.
“For telling me that,” she clarifies.
Something in my chest loosens a fraction, but then it tightens again almost immediately.
Because her eyes are wet.
Because her arms are still wrapped around herself.
Because there’s distance in her tone now that wasn’t there before.
“But,” she says, her voice breaking just enough to crack something open in me, “that doesn’t change what you thought of me.”
I go still.
“You believed that about me,” she rasps, tears spilling over now, unchecked. “You believed I could do that to you, to Penelope, like it was nothing.”
My heart pounds hard, panic shooting through me. “Carly?—”
She shakes her head, cutting me off. “No. Please let me finish.”
I shut my mouth even though every part of my body is screaming to open it again.
She draws in a shaky breath. “I understand why you were afraid. I do. But I can’t be with someone who looks at me and assumes the worst of me the second something doesn’t make sense.”
Each word lands like a hit.
“I tried to explain,” she says. “I tried, and you didn’t let me. And then you shut me out completely like I didn’t matter enough to hear me out.”
“I know,” I say hoarsely. “I know, and I’m?—”
“I don’t think I can do that again,” she cuts in, her voice breaking harder now. “I don’t think I can live waiting for the next time something goes wrong and you decide I’m the bad guy without hesitation.”
My chest caves in.“Sweetheart, please don’t do this.”
She wipes at her face with the heel of her hand, but the tears keep coming.“I love you,” she says, and the sound of those words passing her lips makes me want to vomit when she says it like that. “That’s why this hurts so much. But I can’t… I c-can’t put myself in a position where I have to prove again that I’m not lying or using you or whatever else your brain decides in the moment.”
I take a step toward her.She steps back.It’s small, barely anything, but it feels like a door slamming.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I can’t do this.”
“Carly—”
She turns away from me, her hands unfolding as she grabs the door.
“No,” I say, louder now, panic punching through the shock. “Carly, wait?—”
The bell above the door jingles as she pushes it open.
Cold air rushes in, and she doesn’t stop. I try, fully, to get myself to go after her, but my throat is closing, my head spinning, and I don’t know if she’d want that or if it would only make everything worse.
Before I can make a call, I hear the door open in the back, hear footsteps and the sound of my name, but it feels so far away that I'm not sure if it's even real.
