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He threw up his hands. “What the hell is the problem? Make me understand it. We’re great together. What is this big, horrible thing that you think I can’t handle or we can’t figure out? I’m your damn boyfriend, talk to me.”
“You are not my boyfriend.”
I watched the words hit him like a smack.
“If I’m not your boyfriend, what the hell am I, Alexis?”
I didn’t answer.
“What am I? Nothing? Some fucking booty call? Really? That’s what you want to pretend this is?”
Tears pricked my eyes. “This could never work, Daniel. Not the way you want it to—”
“Why?”
“Our lives are just too different. We don’t fit. You don’t know what I come from, the people I’m around, the things they expect of me—the way they are. I don’t know how to let you into my world,” I said hopelessly. “It feels more humane not to.”
He put his hands on my arms. “Look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t love me. I want to hear you say that you don’t love me back. You say it and I’ll let you leave.”
My chin quivered. “I can’t say it. Because I do love you. And that is the fucking problem.” Tears spilled down my cheeks.
His eyes moved back and forth between mine. “If you want something badly enough, Alexis, nothing else matters.”
I shook my head. “That’s not true,” I whispered. “Everything matters. All the time.”
His sad eyes held mine, and I felt like I was going to crumble into dust.
“It’s over, Daniel.”
The words made him blow out a shaky breath.
I turned for the car, and his hands dropped away from me.
Then a crack of lightning came out of nowhere.
Daniel grabbed me in a split second and pulled me into him, putting his back to the strike as it hit the oak by the entrance. An enormous branch broke off and fell across the driveway.
I stood there, my cheek pressed to Daniel’s pounding chest.
“Did you see that?” he breathed.
I couldn’t even respond. It was like paddles had just shocked me back to life. I was instantly sobered.
“There’s not even thunder,” he said. “There’s not even clouds.”
I peered around him.
The branch sat smoking in the driveway. I looked up at the sky. Nothing but blue. “What in the world?” I whispered.
Then I pushed off him. “Go get your chain saw and move it. I’m still leaving.”
He shook his head. “No. No way.”
“What do you mean no way? I need to get out.”
His eyes were wide. “I’m not messing with that. That was God.”
“That was not—” I let a calming breath out through my nose. “Daniel, I do not believe that God had nothing better to do today than trap me in your driveway. I do not believe in cosmic interventions, I don’t believe in magic; that was a completely explainable weather phenomenon. You need to move that branch so I can leave.”
