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He looked so tired. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice low.

“Chris, I love you,” I said.

I watched the words hit him.

I marveled at how easily it came out. How that word that was so hard for me to say to Mike just spilled from my lips for Chris.

“I don’t want to hear that it’s not allowed,” I said. “Because it is. You are so good at making me love you, I almost loved someone else simply because I saw you in them. If you want to pretend for Mike’s sake that this isn’t happening, then I’ll pretend with you. But I want you to know the truth. And the truth is I’m in love with you.”

He looked at me, his expression pained. “I love you too.”

It washed over me. Reached into my chest and squeezed my heart until the ache I’d been living with was in every cell of my body.

“I know we can’t right now,” I said. “But I can wait for you. I’ll wait as long as you need.”

“It will never be okay,” he said quietly.

“It’ll be okay eventually—”

“No one’s ever going to accept it,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how long. You just don’t do this—”

I shook my head. “So, what, then? We just love each other and not be together? Are you telling me you don’t want to?”

“Of course I do—”

“You’re fine with just not touching me? Not letting me touch you? Not kissing me? Mike gets to move on and date other people, and you and I just have to forget each other?”

“The only thing keeping him stable is the hope that one day he’ll get you back,” he said. “If we did this, it would kill him. I’ve seen how bad he gets. I don’t want to hurt him—”

“I don’t want to hurt him either, but who I date is none of his business. And the fact of the matter is, we love each other. Whether we act on it or not, it exists and it’s happening and it’s no fault of our own, and the only reason it doesn’t hurt him is because he doesn’t know about it. And maybe that’s the course we have to take. Maybe what we have can only be for us right now and we can’t share it with the rest of the world or the people we care about. I would be okay with that because I’d rather have you in secret than not at all. But I want more than this, Chris. I want to touch you and kiss you and sleep next to you. I want to come up behind you and hug you and hold your hand. I want to slow dance with you and cuddle with you on the couch—and I don’t want to wait years to do it until Mike’s beyond caring. It’s your choice. All the stakes are yours, you get to decide. But if we’re not going to be together, I don’t think I can keep living here like this because it’s too hard…” My voice gave out on the last word.

Chris stared at me, his chest rising and falling just slightly too fast. But he didn’t say yes. He didn’t say anything at all. I waited for it and… nothing. Silence was no.

My heart broke.

It broke for what could have been and what should have been. It broke for Chris and it even broke a little for Mike.

I knew this was impossible. I knew what I was asking, and I didn’t blame him for not changing his mind. But at least I told him how I felt.

I got up and went to my room to start packing.

I’d stay for a few days in a hotel, then I’d find a place. Come back for my work stuff and move it all out, leave cash somewhere in the house to pay him back for everything he spent on the folding tables and racks. Try to leave him as whole as I could, even though I’d never feel that way myself.

I was putting my clothes into luggage when he came into the doorway behind me. “What are you doing?”

“Leaving,” I said, not turning around.

“To where?”

“I don’t know yet. I’ll find something.”

I went to the bathroom and grabbed my makeup and hair dryer and tossed it in while he watched. I emptied out the last drawer and zipped the bag closed.

When I turned around, the look on his face was sheer panic.

“Please don’t,” he breathed.

“Don’t what, Chris?”