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My breath was coming out a little shaky as my chest rose and fell against his body. I closed my eyes and tried to calm down my frantic heartbeat.
‘You’re standing too close, William,’ I whispered, brokenly. Being close to him at all times, or him grasping my hand in his whenever he could, was one thing. I could trick myself into believing that he was just a little too friendly, but having him this close… There was no way I could talk myself out of this again.
‘What are you gonna do about it?’
I was too scared to open my eyes, but I carefully moved one of my hands, palm open, to rest on his chest. I wasn’t thinking of pushing him away, but I needed to centre myself. When he bent down and rested his forehead against mine I was simply gone. I felt my fingers curl, clutching the fabric of his sweater.
‘I think it’s time. You have to ask me now,’ he murmured.
‘Ask you what?’
He pulled back. ‘Why I didn’t come that night. Why I came every night for a week just to see you and sit next to you at that diner, but why I didn’t show up that last night.’
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes, only to get trapped under his gaze. ‘You don’t have to explain. It was years ago. It was probably stupid to expect anything would happen.’
‘It wasn’t stupid. I felt everything you felt too.’
‘William, you don’t have to say that.’
‘I came, Charlie. I was there. I remember you constantly checking your watch. I watched you smile to the waitress and then as soon as she turned her back to you, your face fell. I came for you. To see you. How could I not?’
My mind whirled. Then my heart sank as realization dawned on me. ‘You didn’t want to walk in.’ I let go of the grip I had on his sweater, but there wasn’t enough space between us for me to move away.
He took my hand and pressed his lips into my palm right before he placed it back to where it had been, against his heart. It was beating just as heavily as mine. Then with the same hand he reached for my chin and tipped it up so I was open to his gaze.
‘No, it’s not that I didn’t want to,’ he said softly. He cupped my cheek and let his thumb caress my skin, sending a shiver down my spine. ‘I couldn’t. I got a message from my ex right as I got there. She’d been calling before, but I hadn’t answered. You were all I could think about. I wanted to spend more time with you, I wanted to know what you looked like when you first woke up in the morning; so I came. I couldn’t stay away. But her text… I called her back and she told me she was pregnant and she was wrong to say no to my proposal.’
My eyes widened. I knew he had married his ex, but I hadn’t known he had asked her to marry him right before we’d met.
‘In hindsight,’ he continued before I could ask anything, ‘I shouldn’t have rushed. But I thought if she really was pregnant and I’d gone into that diner, I was gonna have a hard time walking away from this girl. I couldn’t put you in the middle of something like that. And you were a stranger. A stranger I desperately wanted to be with, but a stranger nonetheless. And she was… I’d asked her to marry me and if she was carrying my child…’
He shook his head, dropped his hand away from my face and looked up at the stars for a second.
‘I made the wrong choice, Charlie.’
Then his eyes came back to me.
I couldn’t make any comments because I’d lost all words.
‘Your ex and every other guy you’ve been with who made you cry? They are idiots. They should’ve held on to you for all their worth and tried their hardest to make you happy. Just so you’d choose them. You deserve it. Someone who is as real, as beautiful and as honest as you are deserves everything they want to have in life. And I hope like hell you want me now.’
The words hung in the air between us like little ice crystals soothing my tattered heart. I swallowed the heavy lump in my throat and watched William as his eyes moved over my face. My lips parted, and I realized I was clutching his sweater again. I let go of the railing behind me and put my other hand on his chest too. My hands were trembling a little.
‘I really wanted you to come that day. I was sure you’d come,’ I admitted quietly.
‘I know, sweetheart. I could see it. You were wearing the black off-the-shoulder thing you had on that first night we met. I loved how you looked in it. I don’t know if you were wearing jeans or something else underneath because you were sitting in our booth and you looked nervous and so beautiful. And I don’t know if you’ll believe me or not, but it hurt to walk away from you. I went back the following night and a few days following that. I still don’t know why. Maybe because I couldn’t get you out of my mind, and even then I wasn’t sure what was gonna happen with Lindsey because it didn’t feel the same anymore. So I came back to the diner, thinking maybe you’d be there. It was a long shot.’
