“You miss them.” It was more a statement than a question.
I nodded once as my neck grew warm.
I cleared my throat. “I have a close friend. One I talk to almost every day.”
She hummed after another jaw-cracking yawn. “Is this the one I remind you of?” Her words soft with sleep.
I swallowed. My hands were fisted under the pillow. “Yes.” It came out as a whisper.
“She means a lot to you, doesn’t she?” She smiled, and her eyes slowly blinked closed.
“So. So. Much. More than anybody.” It was difficult to speak with how tight my chest was.
“Oh. That’s nice.” She struggled to open her eyes, but they fluttered closed. “Sheslucky,” she slurred, mostly asleep. Her breaths evened out even as she tried to fight the tide pulling her under.
I had to tell her. I couldn’t go another moment. Perspiration prickled all over my body.
“Kate, I have to tell you something.”
She made a soft hum in question.
“I should have told you from the very beginning.”
Her breathing deepened. I reached out and pulled her glasses off her gently. She smiled and titled her head to help me. Such a familiar gesture, as though I’d always been taking care of her like this. My heart ached, thinking of what it might be like to get to take care of her all the time. What would a life like that look like for us?
She sighed deeply and snuggled more into her little ball of blankets as I set the glasses on the table near the water.
Be brave like her.
“It’s me. I’m the real Charlie.” There I said it. I put it out there.
“I know,” she said.
I sat up on an elbow. “What?”
She slept deeply.
“Kate?”
Nothing.
What did that mean? Had she heard me? If she had heard me, she wouldn’t have fallen asleep.
“Kate?” I tried again. Nothing. She was dead to the world.
I rolled onto my back and ran a hand over my face. “Bloody hell.”
I lay there for a while blinking into the darkness. I barely managed to tell her once. Was I going to be able to tell her in the light of day?
If I let myself imagine a life together … I couldn’t. She deserved more than I could offer her. She deserved someone who told her the truth.
I could easily let myself fall asleep here. Pretend that I hadn’t meant to. We could twist ourselves up in the sheets and wake up warm and wrapped around each other. If I rolled toward her in my sleep, if I let myself breathe in the back of her neck, it wouldn’t be crossing a line then, would it? It would just be something that happened outside of my control. My arms around her waist, pressed up against her lovely full bottom. God, that pear-shaped body of hers.
I let out a long sigh before gently maneuvering out of the bed to disturb her as little as possible.
I clicked the lights all the way off and stepped silently out of the room. Gently, I locked the door and closed it without making a sound.
Emma stood in the hall when I turned around. I jumped.
