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“What’s that?”
“I’ve been doing the same thing with us. All these years, not wanting to come back to Valentine Bay. Not wanting to face having a conversation with you. If I would’ve asked myself why at any point, I don’t think I even could’ve explained it to myself. I didn’t know why I did the things I did. But now I think I might be coming to understand it.”
“Okay.”
“I think it was the same thing that was going on when I was standing outside that room– fear taking over and making something loom larger in my brain than it did in reality. The longer we went without talking, the more afraid I got when I even thought about calling you, or– God forbid– setting foot back in Valentine Bay.”
“I can understand that, I guess,” he said, and he realized it was true. There were things in his life that he’d never taken charge of, and maybe that hesitation could be explained by the same type of fear she was describing.
She took both of his hands in hers, then, and looked straight into his eyes with the kind of clear-eyed gaze that only someone who’d recently been rocked by an epiphany could manage. “I don’t want to be controlled like that anymore,” she said, her voice low and steady. “I want to take control. I’m back here, back in Valentine Bay. That’s part of it. But talking with you, having a really honest conversation– that’s the other part.”
He swallowed hard. Shit, how many times had he imagined some moment like this, tried to will it into existence by the sheer force of his mind? It had always seemed like some “too good to be true” fantasy when it was only in his head. Now that it was really playing out in front of him, though, he was wary.
“I don’t know, Luna. I’ve spent a lot of time getting used to you not being in my life. A lot of effort building a world where you don’t figure in. I don’t know if I’m willing to risk that.”
Her eyes filled a little and his heart broke.
Just a few minutes ago he’d been consumed by the instinct to protect her from anything that might hurt her– and now he was the one doing that hurting.
She drew in a shaky breath. “I can understand that. But let me just ask you one thing.”
“Okay.”
She looked straight at him, her gaze clear and focused. “Are you happy? I mean, really…deep down? Us, whatever ‘us’ is, being unresolved– it doesn’t bother you? Because if you’ve truly moved on, of course I don’t want to topple your life.
“But, as for me, it doesn’t matter that I’ve tried to get past this. It doesn’t matter that I have a whole other life that is completely separate from us, and from Valentine Bay. There’s something deep inside me that wants resolution, even if it’s small, and late. No matter how far I try to run, it keeps coming back to this.”
He turned and walked into the kitchen. Her voice hit his ears as he went through the archway that separated the two rooms. “Um, okay…am I supposed to follow you…or…?”
He popped his head back around the corner, a small grin on his face. “I’m gonna wash my hands. If we’re going to have this conversation, I’m not going to do it with streaks of grease all over my fingers.”
