Chapter 34 #2
He says it like it’s already passed. Like he’s made his peace with the fact that it’s gone. Loved.
“Adam…”
“I answered your questions, June.” He turns to me. “You go to my apartment, come to my work…Was this all about Riley?”
“No,” I say, and shake my head. “It was never about her. It was about me and my insecurities and my fears and not knowing how to deal with that. That’s why I left.”
He looks at me intently. “What were you scared of?”
“That I wasn’t good enough for you,” I say.
We turn the corner onto one of the empty residential streets. It’s quieter, but with all the Christmas lights, there’s a hazy glow behind Adam.
“How do you know what I want? What’s good enough for me?” he asks.
“You want what your parents had,” I say, throwing his own words back at him. Words I never forgot. “You want a family and a marriage and things that I couldn’t give you.”
He looks at me in disbelief. “You really don’t get it, do you?
I want you, ” he says. “The years I spent with you were the happiest I’ve ever been.
I chased that feeling and I couldn’t find it.
So no, I don’t care about a family and a marriage, or any of those things I thought were important.
I care about being with someone who makes me happy.
In whatever way they want to be with me. ”
I’m shivering and my fingers feel numb, but there’s a warmth pooling inside of me. I stop walking and turn to face him.
“The last time I told you how I felt, it ruined everything,” he continues, and I think about that night on the couch.
I think about that night often. “Seeing you in Mara’s office, I wanted so badly to just tell you all of this, lay everything out there, but you were here.
” He looks at me like he can’t believe I’m even standing in front of him.
“You were back, and we were back. There was a chance to do this all over again, and I didn’t want to fuck it up.
I didn’t want to let you go. I didn’t want you to leave. ”
“Why were you so certain I was going to leave?” I ask helplessly.
“History?” He shrugs slightly.
There’s a pain deep in my core that spreads throughout my body. It hits my hands and my feet, and finally lodges itself in my throat. The realization is too much to bear. I did to Adam what people did to me my entire life.
Years of chasing approval from my mother, figuring out why my father didn’t stay; it always felt like it was because I wasn’t good enough.
I now see that it was never about me. It was about them.
Their insecurities, their fears, and their reasons were out of my control.
It feels as if I’m looking into a mirror and seeing the same look on Adam’s face that I’m so familiar with in myself.
I never want Adam to feel like he’s not good enough.
“After I left New York I felt different…unhappy. I never knew why.” I tremble.
“I was convinced it was because I hated LA or maybe I just wasn’t cut out to be an actress.
Now I have my dream role and my dream house in my favorite city in the world and I’m still unhappy.
” My voice cracks, and the view of him blurs through my tears.
“Adam, I’ve loved you for eleven years and I’m positive I’m going to love you for the next eleven after that, and after that.
My whole life I’ve been afraid of losing what I love…
and that’s why I left. Because maybe if I left first it would be easier.
I was trying to protect myself, and instead everything I was afraid of happening to me, I did to you. ”
I bring my palm to wipe at the sheen of wetness on my cheeks. “You are my person, Adam, my home, and I know I fucked this up. I didn’t deserve a second chance, and I definitely don’t deserve a third one. I’m not asking you to forgive me. I just want you to know that I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
He frowns, and I’m bracing myself for him to say it’s too late, that I’ve broken his heart too many times and that we’re better off as friends. I couldn’t blame him.
“Adam?” I plead, hoping he’ll say something.
“June…” There’s a groove in between his brows and his eyes are darting back and forth between mine. “Don’t you know by now that it’s you ? It will always be you.”
A smile flickers on my face and a sound of disbelief leaps out of me.
I cover my mouth in embarrassment. Maybe everything happened the way it was supposed to.
Maybe the things worth having in life aren’t supposed to come easy.
Despite the years apart, Adam and I have found our way back.
We want to love each other and now we can.
The way we deserve to be loved.
“I guess I owe you an apology too,” he says.
“For what?” I sniff.
“I was afraid too.” He holds my hands, and the feeling melts me. “I always knew how I felt, yet I was afraid to tell you.”
“And how is that again?” I ask, because I need to hear Adam say it. I need to know this isn’t a dream.
“That I love you, June.” He holds my face. “And no matter how hard I try, I’m not capable of loving anyone else the same way.”
My hands reach for Adam’s coat, and I pull myself closer into him, letting the warmth of his body move into mine.
His arms wrap around me, and when we kiss, everything is worth it.
All the nights we went into our respective bedrooms, watching each other go on dates with other people, denying our feelings, and all the years apart. It was worthit.
“You gave up the house,” I say softly.
“It was never about the money, June.”
“It wasn’t?”
“I mean, a little. ” He lets out a small chuckle. “But I would’ve done it for free.”
Another laugh escapes, and I pull Adam into another kiss. A kiss that, more than anything else, feels like home.
“I have a proposition.” I smile, and he raises his eyebrow. “What if we live together?”