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Tears started to pour down her face as he said exactly what she felt in her heart. How could she leave, how could she profess to love him and not take him with all of his flaws?
Because it was selling him short.
“Because it’s not love if you can have more and we take half. Because it’s not love if I let you stay there bleeding. What is love? Loving someone enough to reset the bone, isn’t it? Even if it hurts. It doesn’t help anyone to let you stay broken if I know that you could be whole.”
“You don’t know that I can be.”
“I know you’re not violent. Whatever you say about that...whatever you did to your dad, I know that’s not who you are.”
“It is.”
“Fine then,” she said. “It is. But it doesn’t scare me. Stop holding back.”
“It’s not that.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t do this,” he said. “I can’t do it. Just go. Leave, Alaina. If you can’t take what I’m giving you, then you need to just go. Because it’s... I can’t give you more than this. I can’t be more than I am.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “You would just have to risk something, and you’re not willing to do it.”
“You don’t get to tell me what I feel.”
“But you don’t get to set the limits on us.”
“What are you going to do? You’re just going to leave? Go back to Sullivan’s Point. Divorce me? You’re going to be just like everyone. You’re just gonna leave me. You can leave me, and you never really loved me because if somebody loves you they won’t leave.”
“Gus...”
“No. It’s fine. I’m used to it. That’s how it is. She left me too. It’s never really love.”
“You listen to me, Gus McCloud. And you listen good. I’m not leaving you. I will be at Sullivan’s Point, and you’ll know exactly where I am. And when you’re ready, you can come and get me. And I will go with you. When you’re ready. I’m not leaving you with a madman. Well, no one except you. And you are going to have to sort out what you want. You’re going to have to sort out what it all means. I can’t do it for you. Because you won’t let me. I would be happy to sit with you and picture your broken childhood piece by piece. But you don’t want me to do it. And I can’t keep reaching out only to have you push me away. But I’m not her. You’ll know where to find me.”
“You told me you wouldn’t leave me,” he said.
“I thought that was the kindest thing,” she said. “But I see it now. I see us. Falling into the same pattern over and over. I have to break the pattern.”
“You promised me.”
She felt like she was dying. “I think...separation, distance, is what we need. Otherwise after this, we’ll have sex, and then it will all be okay for a while. Until I get too close to your wounds again, and we’ll go on like that. On and on.”
“You’re just the same as everyone else.”
He was angry and hurt, and hell, so was she. “No,” she said. “I’m not leaving you to burn. I’m trying to get you out. I said I didn’t need you to love me back because I didn’t know better. I do now. I need it, but even more, you need it.”
“You’re just going to leave me with a nursery and a half-made pizza and...”
“Unless I’m leaving you with a broken heart, the rest of it doesn’t matter.”
She felt sick to her stomach, and with shaking hands, still covered in flour, she walked into the living room. She looked around at all of it. Everything that she had done to try to build a life with him. And all she could see was her marks layered over his.
Because they had never really become one. She wanted it. Maybe he even thought he did too. But there was one final piece that was missing. The one thing that could complete the picture, and he wasn’t willing to do the work to get there.
She had to go. For herself. For him. For the baby.
Maybe he would come after her.
Her chest gave a giant twist. And she had to take a sharp breath to keep herself standing. To keep herself from collapsing.
