Page 117 of Anything But Lonely

Emerson shifts beside me, and I see it before she says anything. The way her shoulders straighten. The way her attention drifts away from the movie. Like she’s already halfway somewhere else.

My stomach tightens.

She knows.

Maybe she doesn’t know the words exactly, but she knows I’m sitting here with something I’ve been trying to say. She knows me well enough now to recognize when I’m holding something back.

And maybe that’s why she looks toward the clock.

“I should probably go,” she says quietly.

The words hit harder than they should.

I want to tell her no.

I want to say, stay.

Please stay.

I want to tell you something.

I want to tell her that I love her and that I’ve been trying not to because I didn’t want to scare her away.

I want to tell her that somehow, in the middle of all the chaos and all the things I never expected, she became the person I look for first.

But I don’t.

Because I know Emerson.

And I know the difference between someone needing a little encouragement and someone needing space.

I won’t be the person who makes her feel trapped into staying. I won’t turn my feelings into something she has to manage. I don’t even know if she knows how seriously I’m taking every moment I have with her.

I told her on stage two weeks ago that she was it for me, whether she wanted me or not.

And then she told me to kiss her.

There are only two ways I see this going—me and Emerson, together.

Or me, alone, wondering what I could’ve done differently to keep her.

And that second one terrifies me.

So I just nod, even though every part of me is screaming the opposite. “Yeah,” I say, forcing my voice to stay steady. “Of course.”

Her eyes flick back to mine, and there’s something there. Something uncertain. Something that makes me wonder if maybe she wanted me to ask her to stay.

But I don’t know.

And I can’t risk making her choose between leaving because she wants to and staying because she feels like she has to.

She stands, brushing popcorn from her sweater, and I hate how normal it feels. Like my whole world isn’t shifting while she’s just grabbing her things.

“I had fun tonight,” she says.

I smile because it’s the safest thing I can give her. “Me too.”

What I don’t say is that I have fun every night she’s here.