Page 147 of The Wedding Forecast

I look up at him.

‘I was so desperate to come and see you. I wanted to see you so much, it made all the reasons not to come feel smaller.’

‘Oh, Mac,’ I say.

We hug, and I burrow my head into his neck.

‘Come with me. Come back with me to New York,’ he says.

All the times I dreamed of him asking me to come and live with him, and now the moment is here.

‘I can’t,’ I say.

‘I know you think we don’t want the same things—’

‘We don’t.’

‘And you think I don’t want kids.’

‘You don’t.’

‘It’s not that simple. It’s not that I don’t want those things. I just, I could never picture it, you know? I had never met anyone that I could imagine building that kind of life with, having kids with. But that’s not true anymore, because I can see it all with you. I can see being with you forever. I can see having kids with you one day. And that scared me, at first, but it doesn’t anymore.’

I breathe, trying to take this in.

‘But do you really want it? Or are you just saying it, for me?’ I ask.

‘I want it, Anna. So much.’

‘And what is it like, when you imagine us together, having a life together, having a family together?’

‘It’s the best thing in the world.’

I close my eyes, and then open them, and he’s looking at me.

‘Come with me,’ he says. ‘I’ll book you a ticket for next month. Next week. For my flight in two days.’

It’s so tempting. I could jam clothes and books into suitcases, just pack my life up and leave everyone and everything behind.

‘A part of me really wants to. I do. But I can’t.’

‘Why not?’ he says.

‘I love you. I want to be with you so badly, you have no idea. You’re it for me. But I have a life here. I’ve made a commitment to Bobbi, to manage the new shop. I start in a few days. And I’m really excited about it. If I throw it all away now to follow you to New York, and then wherever you go next, well, I’ve done that, with Joel, where I put my needs last. I let his career, and the way he wanted to live, come first. I can’t do that again. And I know you have the big, exciting career, and I have a small life, and I should be willing to give it up, but I’m not. Not right now.’

It surprises me, how sure I feel when I say this. I love Mac, I will choose him over anyone, but I can’t sacrifice everything else to be with him. It won’t make me happy.

‘I understand,’ he says quietly.

‘You said once you’re not enough for me, but you are enough, you are so enough that having this, being together for just one or two weeks a year, that would be enough for me. I’ve tried a life without you in it and I would choose this, one happy week a year, over nothing,’ I say. ‘And we can work towards it. We can be long-distance until we find a way to be together.’

We lie in silence for a long time. Now I know he wants it, a life with me, that he has the same dreams, the pain of separation feels more bearable.

‘What if I stayed?’ he whispers into the dark.

My eyes flick open.

‘Don’t. Don’t say that if you don’t mean it,’ I whisper back. It’s too much, too painful, to have that said and then taken away. Him moving here has never been on the table. I haven’t even dared consider it. I don’t know if I dare consider it now. In my head, to stay or go was a choice I had to make, not him. He doesn’t say anything more and we drift to sleep.