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May stopped so abruptly, Allie was six feet ahead of her by the time her body got the message and brought her to a halt. She turned around. The cooling wind scoured the pavement with dry leaves, and the sky was rapidly darkening, but it was the steady certainty in May’s eyes that raised goose bumps on Allie’s arms.
“I don’t want everything to go back to the way it was before.”
The words struck Allie like a pulled punch—hard enough to sting, with the promise of a hell of a lot of pain behind it.
“Sure you do. You’ll get over Dan, get your job back, and in a year—”
“No. You don’t get it. Ben didn’t say he doesn’t love me. He just said our relationship was impossible. He’s wrong. I’ll prove it to him. Somehow.”
Allie’s anger came first. An indignant, saber-rattling little homunculus inside her shouted that May had no right to be so sure. That she’d fallen for a guy who was supposed to be a fling, told him she loved him, and lost him. She’d fucked everything up with Dan, and for what? For what?
May was supposed to feel stupid, and she was supposed to be sad and sorry.
But May wasn’t sad. She wasn’t sorry.
May was supposed to understand that Ben had taken her hope with him, but she hadn’t surrendered her hope.
Tears filled Allie’s eyes, and she had to close them. She never cried. She wouldn’t cry. But God, she wanted to, because she’d just lost Matt.
She had to force the words past the cage in her throat. “I can’t marry him.”
There wasn’t any way. He was too awesome, and somewhere in the world there had to be a woman who would feel about Matt the way May did about Ben. If Allie married him, he would never meet that woman. Or worse—he would meet her, but he wouldn’t be able to be with her because Allie stood in the way.
She couldn’t marry him because she’d never wanted him the way he wanted her, and she never would.
“I can’t do it. I’ll hate myself forever if I go through with it. But I don’t want to tell him, because he’ll be sad, and I’ll have to move out, and the dogs will get split up. I don’t know where I’ll live, and I won’t get to be friends with him anymore, and I’m going to miss him, May. I’m going to miss him so much.”
Dark circles bloomed on the sidewalk. The rain began to come down.
May put her arms out, and Allie walked into them, her cheeks warmer than the drops that fell on them. “I’m sorry.” She pushed her nose into May’s neck. “I shouldn’t be doing this. It’s definitely still your turn to cry.”
May put her chin on the crown of Allie’s head. “It’s okay,” she said. “I can wait a while.”
Allie made a horrible seal-honking sort of noise. It hurt in her chest and in between her eyes, and she had to lay her face against May’s shoulder and close them. “This sucks,” she said between sobs. “So muh-much.”
“I know.” May petted her head. “We’re having a shit day.”
That made Allie laugh, which was hard to do while also crying and drowning in snot and freezing-cold rainwater.
“It hurts,” she wailed.
May stroked her back. “It hurts like crazy. And it’s scary.”
“Yeah. It’s scary. I hate it.”
“You’re allowed to hate it.”
Allie waited for May to offer some kind of comfort, some better advice. May held her.
“That’s it?” She stepped back and glared at her sister. “That’s all you’ve got?”
“That’s all I’ve got.” May’s voice came out hoarse.
“You suck,” Allie said, almost laughing.
“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t have the answers. I just know that sometimes … sometimes everything looks right from the outside, but it’s wrong. Sometimes it looks wrong, but it’s right. Life is awful. It rains, you know?”
“Tell me you didn’t make a rain metaphor.”
