“We can’t.” I sighed, feeling a burning in my throat. How he was even suggesting this, I didn’t know. “You’ll be busy with your new role, and I’ll be here, wondering when you’ll have had enough.”
There it was. The thing I felt hidden in my heart. I couldn’t be the person he used up and discarded. No matter his intentions, that was where this was going. It was practically a guarantee.
A seriousness passed over his face. “I can’t get enough of you, Autumn. I don’t think I ever will.”
That nearly broke me. Jamie voiced the same thing I’d been wondering the past several days. Could I get enough of him? I hadn’t thought so back when we were teenagers, and it was even more obvious now. But I was an adult who had to make adult decisions for my well-being. And, apparently, his.
Thoughts of visiting him for a week in the coming months popped into my head, but it would only make things worse.
“This needs to be a clean break, Jamie. It’ll be too hard otherwise.”
And this was a terrible time to be having this conversation. I had a lot to deal with. There was cleanup. Preparations for our winter retreat season. We were expanding. I could distract myself. I could get over this.
Except that I was falling in love with him again.
Not puppy love, not superficial love. Change-your-life love. Rip-your-heart-out-love. But I couldn’t do that. This was my family. This was my home. I wanted to choose him, but if I did, I’d only have him, and I’d sink into the depression I’d been in before I’d found my life’s purpose. That was what this was. I belonged here.
I needed to think. But I didn’t have time to think. We never had enough time. And wasn’t that always our problem?
Jamie nodded in understanding, and I could practically hear his thoughts bouncing around in his head. Then he said something I never expected. “What if I turned down the promotion? What if I didn’t stay in Seattle?”
What if he didn’t stay in Seattle?
He couldn’t mean that. He’d be giving up everything he’d worked for his entire adult life. I couldn’t let him give his dream up. A memory of the first time we broke up crossed my mind. Perfectly juxtaposed with how I felt in his arms currently. He’d told me that back when we were kids, he’d ended our relationship for me. He’d seen a future where I’d change my plans for him. Where I’d mold my goals around his. Now, he was here offering to do the same for me. I’d disagreed with his methods and reasoning back then, but in this moment, I saw it through another lens. For the first time, I completely understood his motivations. He’d wanted what was best for me back then. He’d seen more potential in me than I had seen in myself. And now I wanted that for him.
“You were meant for big things.”
“That doesn’t make this a small thing,” he declared as if he was willing to fight over this, but I wasn’t going to argue with him. It was true. He would make an amazing boyfriend, but I couldn’t let him trade in his future and his dreams for mine.
“We said for the week. And it’s been a wonderful week. Let’s just leave it at that.”
The silence was deafening.
He looked like he had so much more he wanted to say, yet he just held me. What ifIleft? I let myself consider it for a half second before knowing deep in my bones I couldn’t leave Camp Starlight. This place meant so much more to me than any job ever could. And this was my family. I loved him, but I was doing what he’d wanted me to do all those years ago. I was forging my own path.
I was choosing me. Even if it meant breaking my own heart.
