Page 196 of The Exit Strategy

“That,” he says slowly, “is the first thing you’ve said to me since the banquet that I can work with.”

“You-you can?” Fuck, why does that sucker punch me in the gut?

“I can. Not all of it. But part of it.”

“It’s true.” My defenses rise. Spite still lingers too close to the surface.

“Okay,” he says with a careless shrug. “Let’s say that it is true. All of it. Does that make the part where you want a break yourfixor yourtraumatelling you to run?”

“I-I—” I’m blindsided by the one question I never anticipated.

Cole didn’t flinch. I did.

“I’m going to ask you something, Junie. Not to argue with you or try to fix you. I’m just going to ask. Got it?”

God. Is he trying to piss me off? “Yeah, got it.”

When he turns his head, I can see the hint of a smirk trying to break free. If it does, I will absolutely shove him off this dock.

“What will we learn about ourselves while apart that we couldn’t learn together?”

So. Much. I had a whole system. A spreadsheet of reasons. But when I try to recall my list, I come up blank. Delete all. Poof. Gone.

“Because I’ve already done it your way, baby.” The endearment is the least offensive thing he’s said so far. “I lived without you for six years. I thought I needed to figure out how to fix everything without dragging you into the mess of it.”

My shoulders curl in, and I swing my feet wildly below the dock.

“But we are the mess of it, Junie, and the mess is where we grow.” His tone is the calm between the ripples. “I already chose a break because I thought it was the right thing to do, and it nearly broke us both. I lost six years of loving you instead of standing in the mess and fighting beside you.”

He folds his left leg in and turns his entire body my way while I stare at the imperfect model. It’s a metaphor for what he’s asking me. He’s not offering perfection. He’s offering to stand in the mess with me and build a life from the ashes of what we’ve overcome.

“And this is what I need you to hear above all else,Juniper Mercer. I love who you were before, but I fell in love with who you’re becoming. You’re leaving because that’s what you’ve been taught. Everyone you love leaves, me included.”

Juniper Mercer is officially a crybaby.

“I’m not asking you to know who you are, Junie. I’m just asking you to figure it out with me in the room. I’m asking you to do the work in the same house, not at the same desk.” He points to the model. “One room. Two desks. You’ll be at yours, and I’ll be at mine, doing my own work. I won’t make your growth about me, Junie. I’ll just be the sounding board and shoulder you lean on if you get stuck.”

He lifts his hand from the death grip he has on the dock, but he quickly shoves it under his thigh. Like he needs the weight to keep from reaching for me.

“And I’m asking you to do the same for me. Don’t watch me become someone from the sidelines. Stand with me in the dirt, plant roots with me, and watch us both grow within the parameters that were always meant to be ours.”

When I don’t budge, he sighs, and the sound scrapes across my raw, exposed heart. “I’m not asking you for forever. I’m asking you to try while we figure out what’s next.”

“Not a promise?” I ask, thumbing the ring I really need to remove. My voice is so small I hardly recognize it.

“No,” he says gently.

“Just—the room.”

“Two desks,” he says. “That’s all I’m asking for, sweetheart. Two desks.”

We sit side by side while the sun bathes everything in shades of pink and gold.

I don’t say yes, but I also don’t say no.

Instead, I scoot to the very edge of the dock and placemy bare feet in the brackish water, then close my eyes and allow the water to do that calming shit it does.

After a moment, I hear movement beside me. Then the unmistakable sound of one shoe, then the next, landing on the dock behind us. I crack one eye open just as Cole slips his feet into the water beside mine.