Chapter 22 #2
He ripped a hand through his hair, dropping his gaze to the concrete floor.
Hysteria had started to bloom in my chest. “Seriously, Danny. Where the hell is it? Because I know you’re not about to say something crazy, like you’re not coming or something.”
“Trace…” His words trailed off as he stared at the ground before lifting his arms in defeat. “What do you want from me?”
I scoffed.
Unbelievable. Un-freaking-believable. This couldn’t be happening.
“I want you to go get your stuff and get on the plane with me like you said that you would. Like you promised you would.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You literally told me you loved me last night.”
“And I wasn’t lying.”
“Then what the hell are you doing?”
He gnawed on his bottom lip, shifting from foot to foot. “It’s because I care about you that I need to let you go.”
I held up my hands. “Oh my God, I’m going to pass out. You cannot be pulling that same crap with me again. I thought we were past this.”
He licked his lips. “We were never getting past it.”
I gawked at him, my heart sinking straight to the floor. How could he do this? How could he ask for my forgiveness, tell me he’d made a mistake, only to unceremoniously dump me outside the airport in the same way he’d already let me down before?
I must be losing my mind.
“I can’t believe you,” I whispered, more out of shock than anger.
“I wanted to come with you…I did. It’s just…I saw the look in your eyes last night,” he said, shaking his head and sucking in a breath. “I can’t unsee it. How scared you were for me. I can’t put you through what my dad put my mom through.”
“Give me some damn credit, Danny! I’m not your mother. We are not your parents.” I waved my hand back and forth between our chests as panic rose like bile in my throat.
“It isn’t just them. It’s a dangerous lifestyle. I’ve seen so many injuries over the years—and worse. I’m not willing to put you at the center of that.”
His calm was destroying me even more than his words. It was like he was already completely resigned to us ending. Like he was dead-set on giving me up.
I pressed my hands to his chest, shoving him. He barely budged. Even as pissed as I was, I wasn’t nearly strong enough to do any real damage. He took a step back, but that just made me madder. I knew he was just appeasing me.
“You should have thought about that before you called me! What happened to not letting me go again? You said it was different this time!”
I couldn’t believe this.
He reached for me before dropping his hand, like he already knew the space he’d put between us was insurmountable.
“I wanted to be the guy who gets you.” His voice was quiet. “I wanted that so fucking bad. And it was easy to pretend, for a while…These past couple weeks have been the best I’ve ever had. But they were a fantasy. They weren’t real.”
“They were real to me!”
He shook his head. “We were playing house.”
“Bullshit!” I turned away and took a few steps, pacing out of anger before spinning around to face him again, sticking a finger in his face. “You’re a coward. Fight for us! Be a man. You know that you love me.”
I desperately wanted to see something crumple in his face, to see his ridiculous resolve crack. But there wasn’t even a tiny sign of a struggle. He looked hard.
He shook his head. “What I want doesn’t matter, none of that matters. What matters is we aren’t compatible. This is for the best.”
Something that sounded half like a laugh and half like a strangled cry escaped me. “You should have thought of that when I showed up at your door. You should have turned me away then. No, scratch that. You shouldn’t have called me in the first place, or told me you regretted letting me go!”
“Trace—”
“No, screw that! You keep setting me up for failure. You hand me all these promises on a silver platter. You make me feel seen. You make me picture this life we could have together and then snatch it away.”
He sucked his lips in and looked at the ceiling of the parking garage before dragging his gaze back to mine. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t try to defend himself. I wasn’t sure if it was worse or better knowing that he knew every word I said was true.
“You’re really going to do this?” I asked in disbelief. “You’re really calling it.”
“It never started.”
“Yes. It. Did.” I emphasized each word by poking his hard chest with my shaky index finger.
“You know it did. You can be scared and run away all you want, but what you’re not going to do is stand here and lie to me or make me feel like it was somehow just me all along. It wasn’t. You know it wasn’t.”
He opened his mouth then closed it and nodded. “You’re right. It-it wasn’t just you.”
I waited for him to say something—anything. To turn back into the Danny I knew, the one who told me he loved me.
But there was nothing. No sign of life behind his icy eyes.
So I did the only thing I could do.
I pulled the handle up on my suitcase and grabbed the handle of my guitar case.
“This is really it?” I asked one last time.
He gave a curt nod.
“Never contact me again, Danny. I’m serious.
I understand you’re hurting. I even understand where you’re coming from in some twisted way.
But know this—you’re not protecting me. You’re hurting me worse than anyone ever has before.
Don’t think that you’re some misunderstood knight in shining armor for giving me up. You’re not a martyr. You’re a coward.
“If you let me walk away right now, you better forget I ever existed. Because I’m done.”
For a moment I saw hesitation in his face, maybe even regret. I waited, frantically hoping he’d make a move. Snap out of his daze.
But he just took a step back. “Good luck, Trace. With everything.”
My face crumbled then. The tears flowed, and I let them. “Have a nice life, Danny.”
With that, I turned toward the airport and stalked away. Even through my sobs, a bubble of hope still floated in my chest, praying that at any moment I’d feel a pull from behind. Surely, he’d come after me. He couldn’t just let me go.
But there was no tug.
No one stopped me.
I left alone.