Page 176 of My Unfinished Heart

“And your solution was to break my heart?”

“Goddammit.” I drive my hands through my hair, frustrated. “I was terrified of what I was doing to you and Connor. I thought maybe my mother had been onto something when she decided I was a bad seed and poisoned me the way she did. Like maybe she’d always seen I was toxic sludge, and she was protecting the world from me. That’s how I felt—like I needed to protect you both. Get you the fuck away from me.”

“Your mother was a pathological narcissist, Archer. Connor didn’t slit his wrists because you were a bad brother—he did it because that bitch tried to destroy every bit of happiness he ever had. I have spent my entire life trying to undo the damage your mother did.”

“Exactly, and then you wind up with me and all my fucking damage. Jesus, Tristan. How much did you think I could watch you try to handle? You weren’t put on this earth to be the Brennan family therapist.”

Tears fall from his eyes without warning. Nothing about his face telegraphed that he was about to cry. There are only tears when, a moment before, there were none. “I just wanted to be your boyfriend.”

The word yanks hard on the string that connects us. I feel it deep in the meat of my heart. “I know. I get that now. I didn’t at the time. I thought it was all too much.”

“And now?”

“Now I think you’re probably the better person to decide how you want to live your life and who you think you should live it with,” I say. “I just really hope it’s still me. I think it should be me.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re all in agreement that I will never be happy without you. It’s been decided. A consensus has been reached.”

“Again with all the flowery romance. I don’t know if I can take it.” He wipes at a few tears and looks out the window. One more image burning itself into my memory—the way the sunlight attaches to his perfect face.

“You’re not the icing on my cake, Tristan. You’re water. I can’t live without you.”

He faces me again and puts a hand on his hip. The other makes a sweeping gesture around the room, including me. “Sure you can. You do it all the time.”

“No. I don’t. Which is why I’m standing here right now. Really fucking dehydrated.”

His lips quirk into what’s almost a grin. He does away with it quickly. The way he’s looking at me, standing like that… It reminds me of Eliza and the words I keep forgetting to say.

I take a deep breath and finally, deliberately, step off the fucking plank. “Tristan, I have loved you since I found you horrified by whatever was in my mother’s nightstand. By the time I cut your hair, I was so in love with you, it was embarrassing. I climbed a tree. I broke my knee because you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

I dig into my front pocket and pull out the black velvet box.

I hold it in my hand for him to see. This part was my idea. Not Eliza’s or Connor’s or anyone else’s. This is all me. And it’s a big leap, but there is nothing I won’t do to make him understand I’m serious. I’m serious like the rest of my life depends on it.

“All I want now is the chance to be the best thing that’s ever happened to you. I think I’m finally in a place where I can do that.”

He stares at the box before glancing back up at me. “What is that?”

“What do you think it is?”

He looks at the box again, pointing at it. “Is there a ring in that box?”

“It’s too small for a necklace.”

“Archer—”

“Here’s the deal, Tristan Chase. I’m not getting any younger. My tree-climbing years are almost behind me. And no matter how much I’ve enjoyed the last four years of trying to get over you, I’m not getting any better at it. And apparently you suck at it as badly as I do. So, you can go on more dates with strangers, and we can start the whole painful cycle over again, or you can marry me. Tie me down and keep me because it’s what I want. Not one more day apart.”

I don’t care if he says no.

I’ll ask him again in a week, a month, four years. It doesn’t matter. I’ll keep asking until he’s old and gray and has exhausted all his other options. I’ll wear him down eventually.

The expression on his face lives somewhere between incomprehension and shock. His mouth is open like he’s going to speak, but he’s at a loss for words, for once.

I step forward and wipe a stray tear off his upper lip. “You’re being oddly quiet.”

“I have a few things to say,” he says, snapping out of it.