Page 14 of The Time It Takes
He shakes his head. “Don’t do that,” he says. He turns his gaze on me and every bone in my body goes cold. “Don’t tell me how I’m supposed to feel about you.”
I watch the muscles in his back contract with tension. I ask him the only thing I can think of. The only thing that I can’t understand. “Why?”
His brows furrow. “Why what?” he asks. “Why did I fall in love with you?”
I shake my head and croak out the words, “Ruin it. Why did you have to ruin it?” My voice comes out nothing more than an exhausted whisper. I watch as he works on another swallow, and I wonder if his throat is filled with gravel too. I continue, “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“I’m hurting now,” he says quietly.
“Please—”
He jumps to his feet, cutting off the apology on my tongue. He runs his hands through his hair in frustration. He turns to face me again, tears brimming his eyes.
No.
“Just tell me something,” he urges. I wait as he takes a deep breath as if he’s conflicted with his next words. “Who is he?” he asks quietly.
I’m taken aback by his question, a thousand moments skating through my mind, but I’m shaking my head. “What are you talking about?”
“Who is he?” he asks again, this time slower. “Who’s the guy who broke your heart so good, there’s not even a little room left for me?”
I don’t know why, but my hand claws at my chest as if trying to pull all the shattered pieces back together.
A memory of waves and sandy blond hair attached to green eyes comes into mind and I push it as far away from me as I can.
I stand up, my heart hammering in my chest. I know what needs to be done. I know that I can’t give him every part of me, even if he’s only asking for one small piece. No part of me is willing to depart. Some parts still yearn to be touched by sand and cast under a night of stars. I find myself in front of him once more and I want to memorize every line of his face. Every contour—every shade of gray in those ‘come get me’ eyes.
He seems to stop breathing when I bring my hands up to his face. He drops his forehead onto mine and for a moment we breathe each other in.
I touch my nose to his and I feel him shudder as our lips find themselves almost touching. If either of us moves even the slightest, we’ll be kissing, and I won’t be able to stop. Maybe this was coming all along. He’s become a habit to my body and maybe this was bound to burn out eventually. I never want to be the thing that barricades him from the rest of his life. He has no idea, but there’s so much more after me than there is with me.
So instead of surrendering, I whisper against his lips, “You deserve more than someone who always sneaks out the door at four in the morning.”
He’s shaking his head—in denial or anger, I’m not sure. I gave what I could, and I told him this, but now he’s asking for too much and I find it all suffocating. I’m not looking to be loved, not when I have yet to be understood. With that, I turn away from him and I don’t look back as I walk out of his bedroom and toward the front door, grabbing my trench coat from the back of the couch on the way.
Just as I reach for the doorknob, I freeze at the sound of his voice.
“Willow,” Julian’s voice is laced with emotion I don’t deserve from him. My chest aches because I fiddled with a heart I never planned to keep.
I peer at him over my shoulder.
“Book the flight,” he says, his face solemn and filled with understanding. He doesn’t know the whole story, but he knows enough to have an idea of why I’m stuck in limbo. He continues when I remain silent, “Go get what you’ve deprived yourself of for ten years.” I feel the world trying to collapse in on me, but I refuse to let it.
“What would that be?” I ask, my question weak.
“A different ending.”
I ignore the pressure behind my eyes and find myself asking, “And then what?”
A small smile appears on his handsome face, and I’m given an entirely new view of him. This is him letting me go. He knows I was never his, but he had hoped that someday I’d maybe change my mind.
“Fly,” he whispers.
I leave before he can hear the sob that I’ve been holding back escape from my throat.
I don’t stop crying as I try to catch a cab before giving up and taking the subway. I don’t stop crying as I take the long way back to my apartment. I don’t stop crying as I slam my front door behind me, and I definitely don’t stop crying as I look at my phone screen through blurred vision at the flight I just booked for Thursday.
A round trip.
