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“I don’t love Drew,” Brooklyn says. “I enjoy being with her.”
I nod.
“I don’t miss her. I miss you. I miss being with you. I miss your presence. I miss your smile. I miss the way you make me feel safe and scared at the same moment.”
It’s too much. Far too much. “Brooklyn.”
“I wish I’d left that party with you,” she tells me.
My heart thunders in my chest.
“I know what I want to see in your eyes,” she continues. “I know what I feel. I have to know the truth. Do you love me, Carter?”
I don’t want to look at her. I can’t lie to Brooklyn. I want to lie. I want to deny my feelings. I don’t want to put them on a shelf or in a box to examine later. I want to banish my emotions. The last thing I want to do is look into Brooklyn’s eyes and tell her the truth. I resent her for asking me to reveal myself to her. Why should I? But I look at her. Her eyes glisten with unshed tears, and my chest aches with my answer. I would shatter my heart and my life a million times over to keep her from the pain I’ve known. “I love you.”
“But you’re not in love with me? Or is it that you don’t want to love me?”
My eyes slowly shut. I am losing my resolve. Love isn’t a choice. It’s never a choice. If it were, we would never suffer broken hearts. I know that too. “It doesn’t matter what I want.”
“It matters to me.”
“I didn’t ask to fall in love with you.” That’s the truth. “I’ve tried to push it aside from the moment I walked into that café to meet you.”
Brooklyn’s lips curl ever so slightly.
“I’m not a big believer in love at first sight. But I think there is a knowing that happens immediately. Something clicks, and you know the person you’re looking at is meant to be in your life. In what way, or how long they’ll stay, you can’t say. It doesn’t matter. You simply know. It’s not about what I want or what you want—what anyone wants. What we want is based on our decisions. What we feel simply is.”
“No wonder you’re a writer. Sometimes, I don’t know what I want for lunch,” she tells me.
Brooklyn’s confession makes me chuckle. “I think that’s normal.”
“Maybe. My point is—well, I don’t know what my point is.”
I laugh. I do love her.
“I love you,” Brooklyn tells me. “I don’t know if I’ve been in love before. Maybe. This—It’s like my heart is tied into a million knots. It hurts, and somehow, I know the only way it will stop aching so much is for me to love you. To love you. It sounds pitiful.”
“No, it doesn’t. It sounds accurate.” I set down my whiskey and take Brooklyn’s hand. “I know how to love you. I don’t know how to be with you. And that’s what scares me, Brooklyn. I’ve loved you all this time. I didn’t choose to love you. I have to choose to be with you.”
“And you don’t want that? To be with me?”
My hands quiver and my emotions threaten to choke me. Of course, I want to be with her. “Are you asking me if I want to make love to you?”
She holds my gaze.
“I do.” No point in avoiding it or denying the truth. “I want to touch you so much it’s making me crazy.”
Brooklyn grins.
“But if I do, and you look at me tomorrow and tell me—”
“Carter.” Brooklyn raises a hand to my cheek. “I don’t know what any day holds. I wouldn’t be here if all I wanted was sex.”
“I know.”
“I’m scared too, you know? I understand that you don’t trust me.”
“I trust you.”
