“I need to know me. And not the woman I was from your perspective. Or Mark’s perspective. Or Aaron’s perspective. Or even my dad’s. I have to do this on my own. I’m the only person I can truly trust.”
I winced. Fuck me, but I deserved it. Regardless, she was wrong. So fucking wrong. But I understood why she felt that way.
My mind swirled, frantically trying to find even the thinnest straw to cling to. “Fine. I’ll give you space. You can do your soul searching. A couple weeks and then we can maybe go out for dinner or drinks, talk it through once the dust has settled.”
“Nineteen months,” she whispered.
My back shot straight. “What?”
She crisscrossed her legs beneath her and sat up straighter in her bed. “I have a hole in my life I don’t remember and it’s filled with lies nineteen months’ deep. It’s going to take more than a couple weeks for me to find my way out. I’m still going to Savannah.” She pointedly paused and her gaze held mine, stern and steady, before finishing. “And I am begging you to please respect it. Respect me and my choices.”
My heart stopped as a memory of us standing outside my office after the bubble tea incident slapped me in the face. We’d been there before. Roles reversed. I’d been desperate to make her leave so I could do what I’d thought was best—for her. I’d stared into her blue eyes, knowing they would forever own my heart, and I’d spoken nearly those exact same words to her.
I’d caved not a day later, but she’d backed off. No questions asked.
Was I strong enough to do the same?
“Please don’t make me let you go again.” I stabbed a hand into the top of my hair. “Don’t make this all—everything we’ve been through—for nothing.”
“Come here,” she whispered, opening her arms wide.
It wasn’t an offer I would ever refuse. Sinking onto the bed, I wrapped her in a tight embrace, knowing that when I let her go, she’d be gone again, leaving me shredded and empty.
“Is this it?” I whispered into her hair, a tear rolling down my cheek. “Is this how we end? All of the pain and sacrifice, and now what? We just go back to being strangers?”
She kissed my cheek. “If I’ve learned anything with you, Bowen Michaels, it’s that I should never say never. I’m simply saying not right now.”
I was suffocating at the mere thought of letting her slip through my fingers again, but that one sentence breathed life into my withering body.
She was healthy.
She was safe.
She was strong.
She needed me to give her back a little bit of what had been taken from her, and even if it felt like burning at the stake for months, I’d have to do it. I didn’t have a choice.
“Take your time,” I relented, soaking up her warmth and the sensation of my whole world in my arms for what might be the last time in God only knew how long. “Figure out who you are. And then whoever that woman is, come back to me, okay?”
She released me, the twin rivers dripping off her chin matching my own. “I do love you, Bowen.”
I nodded, barely able to speak as I replied, “I love you too. Please call me if you need anything. Or…” Emotion sealed my throat shut.
“I promise.” She smiled weakly and tucked her bottom lip behind her teeth to still her quivering chin.
Resting my hand against the side of her face, I dipped to kiss her, opting for her forehead rather than her mouth to save us both the agony. “I have to go, or I never will.”
She nodded, but it was wholly pained.
The floor felt like quicksand as I trudged my way to the door. Leaving her went against every instinct I possessed. It was unnatural, but there was nothing I could have done to make it stop.
I had to let it be.
She stopped me before I had the chance to open the door. “You still believe in fate, right?”
Scanning her face for a long second, I drank her in. Hoping and praying it wouldn’t be for the last time, I replied with the only truth I knew. “I believe in us, Remi. I will always believe in us.”
Remi
Four of the hardest months of my life later…
“Oh my goodness, Sugs. Calm down. I’m coming,” I cooed from outside the door while fumbling with the keys. My arms were heavy with a mountain of groceries. It was a whole juggling act I was desperately trying not to bomb.
The pack mule gig was a pitfall of living in a second-floor walkup. I’d considered myself lucky to have found a parking spot on the same block as my building, so I couldn’t complain too much. Even if it was on the opposite end of the square and a literal game of Frogger to avoid being run over trying to cross the street. Hauling a week’s worth of groceries in one trip was as much about safety as it was convenience.
