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Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
My voice cracked, and I pressed my hand harder to my throat, threatening to cut off my air supply. The thought of not breathing sounded more appealing than this conversation, but Simon wasn’t having it. He crossed the threshold and stepped inside the house, pushing past me before closing and locking the door. His fingers caressed my elbow, then traveled up my arm and to my hand, wrapping around my wrist and prying my digits away from my throat. My hand came away, and I sucked in a shallow breath, gulping as the air filled my lungs.
“Honey… That’s not why I bought the house, and I’m not here so you can leave. I’m here because…” He bowed his head, making his hair flop into his eyes, and I balled my hand into a fist to keep from reaching out and running my fingers through the strands. “I’m here to beg you to forgive me, to tell you how sorry I am for acting the way I did, and to see if there’s a chance we can go back to that night and—”
“No,” I said, keeping my voice down but lashing out all the same. “I am not reliving that night again.”
“Addison.”
“Simon, look… There’s nothing to forgive, okay? It’s better this way; making a clean break. It doesn’t matter how it happened. It doesn’t matter that I lied and you left. It doesn’t matter that I love you and you’re sorry. It doesn’t—”
“You love me?” he sputtered, sucking in a sharp breath as his hand dug underneath his collar and unbuttoned the top two buttons.
“What? No,” I backtracked, struggling to remember what I’d said. I braced one hand on the wall in the hallway and turned around, heading back toward the living room to get my purse and book. I shouldn’t have said that. I hadn’t said that. Simon was grasping at straws. My palms were sweaty, and my knees were… were… weak?
Stupid. Get it together.
“Addison, wait. Enough. Listen to me.” I could see his pulse thumping in his neck, and my hand stopped halfway to my purse, taken aback by his harsh tone.
“I understand why you lied, and I read the article and saw the arrests. If you had told me the truth, that he was there that night...” He paused, undoing another button and running a hand through his hair again. “I never would have left. There’s a good chance I would have ruined everything for you because I would have let my jealousy and anger get in my way. You did the right thing. I was in the wrong leaving and not listening to you.”
The seedling in my chest peeked through again and sprouted a single bloom. It was pathetic and wilted, but it took root as Simon stared at me—pleading with me and speaking straight from his heart to the bloom.
“When I make a mistake, I know it. I feel it. I tear myself apart over it. I lose sleep, and I don’t stop thinking about it. So when I say I’m sorry, Addison, know I mean it because I’m my own worst critic. I’ve never—never in my entire life—felt anything like what I feel when I’m with you. So I’m not going to give you up without a fight. I’ll come over every day for a week, a month, a fucking year. I don’t care how long it takes, Addison. I’ll show you. Please, honey. Let me show you.”
He grabbed my hands in his, gripping them so hard they turned as pale as his, willing me to listen. And I did, but not in the way he thought. It was his tone and his expression that gave me hope more than the words he spoke. Because you could always say sorry. The genuine apology came from hearing the sadness in his voice and seeing the pain in his eyes. It was realizing he’d hurt himself as much as he’d hurt me.
“I… I never intended to lie to you or hurt you,” I began, my voice choking on the words. “I didn’t want to break your trust. I’m scared. So fucking scared of how much I love you, Simon. I feel you in my soul. No one else makes sense but you. But this—us.” I stopped and pulled one hand from his, resting it on his cheek and taking solace that he turned his face into my touch. A glimmer of hope sparked in his eyes, and his bottom lip wobbled like he was having a hard time breathing in enough oxygen.
“The feelings are so big I feel like my chest’s about to burst. I don’t know if I can handle that all the time,” I said, my voice cracking a bit more.
He released my other hand and skimmed his fingertips along my jawline, and I closed my eyes and leaned into his touch.
“The first time I met you, honey, it wasn’t love at first sight. My love for you formed gradually with every snarky comment and cadence of your voice. With your hair, your eyes, and how you smiled at me. It gradually became clear you were exactly what I was looking for. And the feelings are big because what we have is big. I want to make you happy because you’re the reason I’m so happy.”
He leaned forward slowly—too slowly—giving me plenty of time to tell him to stop, but I was helpless to do so. I was his, and he was mine, and as our breaths became one, I knew no matter what happened in our pasts, we were where we were supposed to be.
