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“I know you’re sorry, Marcus!”
My eyes snap to his because I wasn’t expecting his rage, though it’s well deserved. My pulse is hammering in my throat, in my hands, in the tight, useless clench of my jaw, because I don’t know what he needs from me right now.
“I thought about you every fucking minute of every day, and that’s all you have to say? I know you’re sorry. I fucking get that. Is that all I’m here for or are you going to fight for me? For us?” There’s desperation in his voice now. “I want you to tell me you’re going to keep doing the work. That you want me. That you’re not going to disappear next time this gets hard and that you mean it this time. Or fuck, Marcus, tell me you’re done with me, but stop fucking apologizing.”
Every instinct I’ve spent years perfecting is screaming at me to do exactly what I always do when something feels this big: shut down, go quiet, disappear a little at a time until I’m not really in the room anymore.
But fuck that.
If he wants me to fight for us, I will, because Evan is the only thing I’ve ever had that’s worth fighting for.
“I want you, Evan,” I say, with more certainty than I’ve felt in a long, long time. “I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in this life. But I need more than one night in a hotel room. I want you in my life every minute of every day. I want us in the same place. I want to keep working on my shit so I can come to you on the bad days instead of disappearing on you. I disappeared because I didn’t think I deserved you, not because I stopped wanting you for one single second. That was never about you. That was me drowning without knowing how to ask for help.”
My voice is shaking, but I keep going.
“I know I don’t get to say all that and have it fix the year we’ve had. But you asked if I’d fight, so I’m fighting. I’m not going anywhere. I want you so much it terrifies me. I can’t promise I won’t struggle. I can’t promise it'll be easy. But I can promise I won’t shut you out again.”
“I don’t need easy,” he assures me. “I just need you to be honest with me. I need you to talk to me when things get hard. I need you to trust me enough to be vulnerable.”
“I will. I promise.”
“If the past year proved anything to me, it’s how much I need you in my life. I don’t want to ever go through something like that again.”
“I understand. I don’t either.”
He nods slowly, but he doesn’t move toward me. Instead, he takes a long breath. “Then before we make any decisions, there’s something you need to know because I’m not going to ask you to be honest with me and then keep something from you.”
My stomach drops. “Okay.”
“Over Labor Day, a friend kissed me. Her name’s Callie. We’d both been drinking, and for a second”—he swallows hard—“for a second, I let her.”
The words land like a slap.
I don’t mean for it to happen, but my brain draws the picture for me anyway. Of him leaning in, pressing his lips to someone else’s mouth all because I couldn’t reach out. Fuck, it hurts, and I know he’s not telling me to hurt me.
“Then I pulled away,” he continues, faster now, like he needs to get it all out before I react. “Because all I could think was that she wasn’t you. That’s why. No one else is you, Marcus. I told her everything about us. She knew I wasn’t over you. Nothing else happened, and nothing ever will. But I needed to tell you.”
And there it is, the old voice, right on cue. See? This is what happens. You weren’t enough to wait for. You were never going to be.
For one terrible second, I think the voice is right, but it isn’t. If it were, he wouldn’t be here right now, asking me to fight for him. Us.
“Did you want to?” I hear myself ask. “Kiss her?”
“For a second. It felt good to feel something that wasn’t missing you, but then I realized what I was doing and pulled away.”
It guts me to hear that, but I appreciate the honesty, even though it stings. Especially because I’m the reason he needed something to feel good in the first place. He could’ve chosen her. I’m sure it would’ve been easier. She was obviously there. But instead, he’s standing in this hotel room with me, trying to figure out where we go from here.
“It hurts,” I admit. “I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t. But I don’t get to be angry at you for trying to stop hurting when I’m the one who hurt you.” I swallow. “Thank you for telling me. And thank you for pulling away.”
Neither of us moves. He’s standing a few feet away, eyes red, arms wrapped around himself like he’s holding his own pieces together, and I’m doing the same. For once in my life, I didn’t edit anything out.
“I meant what I said, too,” I add, my voice rough but steady. “This doesn’t change anything. I’m not going to let this stop me from fighting for you.”
His breath catches, and he drops to the edge of the bed. I sit down on the other one, across from him.
It’s his turn to decide what happens next. And I’m going to stay right here, in this room, and let him.
CHAPTER 34
