I couldn’t tell him that, because looking back, I realized that he was right. I had been avoiding things, and the list and Sophie had come at the right time.
“I really did want to help her,” I said.
“Of course you did. You are a good person, Pace.”
“But?”
“Andyou were using it as an excuse to avoid thinking. The same way you work so many hours at the firehouse, and you sacrifice every moment of free time to help everyone. You are terrified to be alone with your thoughts.”
“I am not,” I said, fully aware how petulant it sounded.
“You can’t avoid hard truths. You talk about her being brave and facing her fears, but you aren’t doing that.”
“Not on purpose,” I snapped. I tugged off my hat, scrubbing my hands through my hair. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on with me. I thought I could just work harder. I didn’t even think anything was wrong, really. Like I had nothing to feel sad about. I thought I was okay, but then, I don’t know. Sophie came into my life, and it was like I’d been in a room full of smoke only to step out into a bright and sunny day. I was excited to wake up. I was hopeful to see her every day. I fell for her so hard. Every moment I wasn’t with her, I couldn’t remember how I had functioned before.” Here, Levi gave a sympathetic nod of understanding. “And it’s so fucking scary because I thought I knew what love was, but I wasn’t even close. I feel like I can’tbreathe when I imagine her not in my life, and this list was always just a flimsy excuse.”
My voice broke, but as the words poured out, the truths were coming together to form a puzzle that I could finally see after all the pieces had been mixed up and turned around in my head. “I feel scared all the time, and it wasn’t until I saw Sophie leaving the ball that I realized I was waiting for her to be the one to go. I had been braced for her to leave from the second I forced myself into her life. I thought maybe if I made myself invaluable to her that she would want to stay. I thought if we were married, then ...”
I stopped talking because only when I was about to say it out loud did I hear how fucked up it sounded.
“You thought she wouldn’t leave you,” he finished.
I shuddered a breath. “Ironic, right? Since it was proposing to Kaylee that made her leave.”
“That’s not why Kaylee left. Kaylee hated this town because of her family. It was never about you. It was about this place. Plus, Sophie isn’t Kaylee,” Levi added.
I rubbed at my chest. This wasn’t about my ex; he was right. But that fear that gripped me was so real. “I know, man. I hear how stupid it sounds out loud, okay?”
Levi nodded with a frown. “I get it. Trust me, I do. The need to control, so the pain can’t get you.”
And I believed him. I remembered talking to him in this very place when he thought that he’d lost Claire.
“Exactly.”
“But the pain comes anyway,” he said.
I groaned.
“I-I love her so much that I don’t think there is any way she could possibly love me back that much in return. She’s just going to wake up and realize this facade of me that everybody sees is just that, and there’s nothing worth sticking around for.”
I glared at the floor, avoiding his gaze.
Shame burned through me at my confession. I couldn’t handle this vulnerability that I’d let him see, even as my best friend. Even knowing that if the situation were reversed, I’d be fucking thrilled he shared with me.
“Can I show you something?” Levi asked as he stood and moved into the gallery.
I cleared my throat and got up to follow him. “Sure.”
In the front entrance of the shop, right next to the massive portrait of the store’s namesake, sat a new piece of Levi’s that I’d never seen before.
“Wow,” I said, blown away.
I slowly walked around the art that sat on a pedestal as high as my shoulders. His talent for carving had grown since he’d started selling his stuff, but his art also seemed to be shifting to the more abstract. This sculpture had glimpses of the pristine, the Romanesque face of something Michelangelo might have modeled, which was then organically swallowed up by the raw texture and natural shape of the original tree. The face held both the easy smile of a dimpled cheek and a deep sadness, the longer I studied it. Perfect squares were cut out where the body might be, causing a disorientating contradiction. It was probably a hundred other impressive things that my non-artistic ass couldn’t even fathom.
“I didn’t even know you were working on anything,” I said.
My head tilted as I took in a sense of familiarity. Like a movie I’d seen as a young child, and only remembered it was still part of the person who formed.
“I’ve been inspired.”
