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She hadn’t chosen to be born to a mother that couldn’t love her right. She hadn’t chosen to have a father who wanted nothing to do with her. She didn’t have to have a husband who was broken.
He’d wanted to keep her, because he was possessive. He wanted to keep her with him, to add security to his own life. And if he really wanted to do something for her, he needed to let her go. He needed to let her be free of him.
She only thought she was in love with him because of the sex. Because she had been a virgin. Because they’d been friends for so long.
“You should go home,” he said again.
“Jace, you’re scaring me.”
“We can’t get married, Cara. You want other things. Different things. Things I don’t know how to give. And you’re right. You’re right. You don’t need me. You stand on your own two feet just fine. I’m the one that’s limping. I’m the one who’s leaning on you. It’s not right. I can’t do it anymore, not now that I know.”
“Jace, you idiot. Did it ever occur to you that I was fully aware of that?”
“What?”
“I know you. I know that there are things that are just really really tough.”
“Why would you let me lean on you, if you don’t need me?”
“I wouldn’t fall onto the ground without you. How about that? But I have certainly leaned against you at many points over the years. You have been the single most important relationship in my life. Sorry, Grandpa. But it’s been you, Jace. You taught me what I wanted from a friend. And then you taught me what to want from a lover. Those are huge things. But I’ve never been blind to the fact that you had cracks in your soul, Jace. Not ever. Because you went out of your way to befriend a sad, crying girl behind the middle school? Especially if he’s cool and handsome and has all the friends he wants? You befriend the bird with the broken wing, because your wing is broken too. And neither of you can really fly. But together... We come pretty close.”
“It’s nice as a metaphor. But what it amounts to is me holding you down.”
“I love you. What if I chose to be with you? What if I chose to be with you just because I wanted to be?”
“I’m telling you that I’m not going to be part of it. I’m not going to keep taking from you. Not when I can’t give back.”
“This is bullshit,” she said. “You’re just scared. You’re scared, and you’re too scared to admit that you’re scared. I love you. I’m the one that admitted it. I’m the one that took the step. And you can’t because...” Her eyes filled with tears, and suddenly she sucked in a sharp breath, like she had a realization in the moment between that last sentence and this coming one. “And you just can’t hope, can you? You’re afraid. You’re afraid to hope that this could become the best that it could be, because you think it’s easier to just imagine the worst. Or just imagine nothing. Because you hoped that she would get well, and she didn’t.”
He growled. “Forget it. Leave it alone.”
“But that’s it, isn’t it? There is nothing that scares you more in this world than hope. Because you’ve hoped before. And it didn’t go your way. It didn’t go anyone’s way. It devastated you. It devastated you, and you don’t know what to do. Because you don’t trust that it wouldn’t just happen again.”
“Don’t psychoanalyze me. You don’t know what it’s like to have gone through what I have. You don’t have any idea what it’s like. And maybe it’s not psychosis to refuse to believe in things that you can’t see. Maybe I’m not the one that’s crazy.”
“Well. Even if I’m wrong, at least I can think of reasons to get out of bed in the morning. At night, when I get under the covers, I think ahead. And that’s not a bad thing. I hope. Because what is life without hope? It’s what you have. You can’t reach out and take the love that is being offered to you, because you can’t look ahead. Because you’re afraid to want something that you can’t...” She reached out and grabbed hold of him, placed her hands in his. “You want what you can hold in your hands. You’re holding me. You’re holding me. Can’t you believe in me?”
No. He couldn’t. Because he couldn’t see the end of this. He couldn’t see a way to fix this. Couldn’t see a way to fix himself.
And he could not do that to her. He wouldn’t.
“Go home.”
And he did something he hadn’t done in all the years since they’d met. He pulled away from her. He took a step back.
But she stood firm. She didn’t get dressed like he’d ordered her to do. She didn’t back away. She didn’t even flinch. He could see deep anguish in her face, and he hated that he had put it there. But she didn’t back down.
“All right. I will. But when you need somebody to talk to in the middle of the night, because everything is terrible, you call me. Because I’m your best friend. And you might be surprised to find out that I’ve been supporting you all these years, but I’m not.”
“This changes things,” he said. “I don’t think that we can... I don’t think that we can do this anymore.”
“So wait a minute, you don’t want to marry me, and you don’t want to be my friend anymore?”
And that was when she faltered. When strong, beautiful Cara Summers looked like she might shatter. And he really stood there and marinated in his own sense of fear and anguish, because it had been a long time since he had felt anything like this. He thought that he was going to break. And he hadn’t thought that there was any fragile thing left inside of him.
“I can’t be. Because it would just be me hanging on to you when you need to be let go. It would be me keeping you in a place where you hope that something can be different when it can’t be. You can’t love me. Not anymore.”
“You don’t get to tell me what to do.”
