“Yes,” he said. “I have never been more certain of anything in my life. I am… Overwhelmed by the gift of it. I am overwhelmed by the blessing of it. Just to be able to love you, after spending so many years with my heart in a deep freeze. Do you have any idea… It’s like I’ve been by myself, for all this time, like I’ve been alone. And now there’s you. There’s you, Cara, and I feel so goddamned happy. Happy, for the first time in so many years. I can see a future, finally. With you.”
Her heart was pounding so hard she thought she was going to pass out. And she was… Terrified.
She could feel a heavy boulder crushing her. Making it impossible for her to breathe.
How could she say… Anything to this? Zane was the most amazing, wonderful person. He had given her more orgasms than she could count, he had given her this prom, he was incredible, and everything, but she was… She was just getting started. She was just getting started on her freedom. On living, and if she stopped that now… wouldn’t her life shrink again?
“I…” She swallowed hard. “I’m scared.”
“That’s okay,” he said, his hand warm on her face. “It’s okay if you’re scared. It’s okay if you can’t say anything. It’s just a miracle to me that I can even feel this. It’s a miracle to me that I have the gift of this. Cara, I don’t need you to give me anything back.”
How could he say that? His whole life had been this horrendous grief, with him loving his family and not being able to get anything back because they were gone.
How could she ever put him through that? He had been worried about hurting her, and she had been worried about getting hurt, but she hadn’t imagined that she could be putting herself in a position where… Where she could fail him.
She took a step back from him, the rain pounding down on her.
“Cara…”
Then, she turned around and started running. She ran, like she had never done before, her dress was heavy and waterlogged, and she lifted it up above her knees as she fled through the field.
She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t afraid of the storm or the wilderness, or any animal she might encounter. She was only afraid of her own feelings. Only afraid of her heart. Only afraid of all the ways in which she might have failed them both.
Afraid of losing her grip on herself, her brand-new self that she had just met.
She ran, all the way to the hotel, and pushed the lobby door open, light bathing her skin, the warmth from indoors touching her freezing skin and making her shiver.
Chris, Marlowe’s most favorite employee, who Cara had gotten to know pretty well, stood up abruptly when she walked in. “Cara, are you all right?”
The office door opened, and Marlowe came out holding a stack of papers, and then set them down quickly when she saw Cara.
“What’s going on?”
Cara started to tremble, and then, she fell apart entirely.
She started crying, gasping for air, and Marlowe jerked her back behind the counter and ran into the office. “Just give us a minute,” she shouted to Chris, closing the door and plunking Cara down in the office chair. “What happened?”
“He said that he loved me.”
“Oh…”
“He wasn’t supposed to love me. This was just supposed to be for fun. This was just supposed to be… it wasn’t supposed to be anything. It wasn’t supposed to be forever. I was supposed to be starting over, and building a life and… I can’t… I can’t love him.”
“Did he ask you for anything?”
“No.”
“Did he demand that you marry him tomorrow and start having his babies?”
“No… But…”
“I know that getting serious when you don’t want to be is really scary. Trust me. I know. I was only supposed to be in it with Cody for the D, and it turned out to be the L word instead. And that was really scary. Because the ink wasn’t even printed on my divorce papers, much less dried, and I didn’t want to tie myself down again when I thought maybe I should be out exploring. But there’s no good sense of timing in the universe, I find. You don’t always get what you want, you get what you need.”
“That’s a song,” Cara said.
“Sure. Whatever. Because it’s true, and I think that Zane is what you need.”
This crushing sense of inadequacy filled her, and she couldn’t put into words why. Everything inside of her was like a blaring panic siren. One she couldn’t fully figure out.
