Chapter 22 #2
“You don’t think spending nearly every day together for five days is enough?”
“This place is a fantasy. A perfectly contained place where it’s easy for you and I to pretend like we could work. So what happens when we get to the real world and it all falls apart?”
“It won’t.”
I sigh, frustration creeping up from my belly, snaking its way to my chest, where it starts to spread, threading into my sternum, making my ribs feel tight. I hide my face in my hands for a second to compose myself and then meet his gaze again.
His face is pale, his shoulders tight, his pupils dilated. I shift so I’m facing him fully and take his hands in mine.
“I’m not saying no, Miles. I’m asking for you to give me the space to decide.”
“I don’t want space, Abby.” His voice trembles, and I want to save this conversation and reassure him, but he doesn’t seem to be hearing me.
“Okay, then we don’t have to have space. We can date, but I can’t commit to being your girlfriend right now.”
“I don’t want to wait, Abby. I feel like I’ve been waiting a decade.”
“And what about me? What about what I want? You talked a big game when we were having sex that what I wanted mattered, that I should use my voice, and I’m doing it now and you can’t accept that.”
He drops my hands to hide his face in his palms and runs his fingers through his hair, ducking his neck. Maybe he doesn’t want to be touched right now. I tuck my hands in my lap, squeezing my fingers together.
This was harder and easier than I thought it would be. The first words were hard, and conveying what I really want has been harder than I thought it would be, but I also feel so strongly about what I know I want that wavering from it doesn’t feel like an option.
Hazel would be really proud of me right now.
I’m really proud of me right now.
“It does matter, Abby. Your voice matters and what you want matters. I just… I can’t lose you again.”
“You’re not losing me. I’m trying to tell you that I want to get to know you before I decide if I want to be with you forever.”
“Forever…?” He jerks his head up, eyebrows knit together.
“Miles,” I reach out again, resting my hands on his knees, “if we do this, I’m not doing it to break up with you again in a couple of years.
I’m in my early thirties. I want kids. I want…
I want a partner to go through life with and I’m not going to just be your girlfriend to see where things go.
If I say yes to being your girlfriend, I’m saying yes to being your wife. ”
“So you want to be with me, but you don’t want to commit yet?”
“Yes, because the commitment is not an inevitability, Miles, but what happens if we decide to date and six months in you realize you don’t want this? Or that you can’t do this. Again.”
“I’m not going to do that to you, Abby.”
“You can’t promise me that.”
“I can. I’m promising it right now.”
“I don’t trust you, Miles.”
There it is. The painful reality that I felt but wasn’t able to verbalize—and now that the words are out there, I know they’re true.
I haven’t trusted him as far as I can throw him since I saw him nine days ago, but I have wanted to.
I’ve been collecting evidence that I can trust him, little pieces of a puzzle to see if I can fit it all together, but I can’t yet.
I don’t have all the pieces. But I want them.
“Yet. I don’t trust you yet,” I say, hoping that will soften the blow.
But the damage was done. His eyes are glossy, and he’s closing in on himself.
He’s started to lean away from me, and when I lean in, the captain appears, cutting off any chance I have to undo the hurt.
The captain tells us he wants us to put our life vests on and sit on the bench up front for the ride back.
I hadn’t even noticed how dark it was getting, and how cold I am.
Once I’m standing, though, I start to shiver in earnest. Miles wraps his blanket around my shoulders, but it doesn’t do much.
The boat ride back makes it worse, the wind whipping around, cutting straight through the blanket, and eventually, Miles puts his arms around me to try to buffer the wind, but even the gesture is cold, with no real heart in it.
I sort of hope I accidentally fall off the side of the boat and let the ocean swallow me whole. This is why I don’t tell people what I want, because I hate making other people uncomfortable. And I’ve done more than that here—I haven’t just made him uncomfortable. I’ve hurt him.
But I also know I’m doing the right thing because it’s the right thing for me.
For once, I’m being completely selfish.
And I’m going to have to deal with the consequences of that. Even if the consequence is that I break my own heart.
Once the boat is docked, I half expect Miles to walk ahead and leave me behind. But to his credit, he walks with me, hands shoved deep in his pockets, his head bowed low.
When we get back to the space between our rooms, he finally lifts his eyes to me. They’re glossy with unshed tears. My heart aches.
“Abby, if you don’t want to do this, you should just say so. Put me out of my misery.”
“But I do! I do, Miles. I want to hear from you. I want to get to know you better. If these nine days are a taste of what it’s like to really date you, then I want to.
I want you to come see me and I want to have sex in my bed and my shower and I want to call you at the end of my day and I want to learn about the man you are now and hear about everything I missed over the last decade. I want time with you.”
“But you don’t want to be my girlfriend?”
I close the gap between us, clutching the fabric of his shirt in my fists. I’m practically begging him to understand me.
“I want time to decide if I want that and I don’t know how else to say this.
We’re at an impasse right now because for once in my life, I cannot and I will not prioritize other people’s comfort at the cost of my own.
I know how scary the unknown is, and I think you’re looking for assurance in a commitment, but you seem to care more about my immediate yes than what I want.
If you can’t accept my terms and let me take my time, then you’re… you’re not my person.”
“Abby, please…”
“Please what, Miles? One of us will have to give, and I won’t be the one who sacrifices and you shouldn’t be asking me to. The best I can offer you is an open invitation. You have my number. Call me. Text me.”
He doesn’t say anything, but his pain is written all over his face. In the scrunch of his eyebrows, in the tremble of his chin. His fingers are digging into my waist, like he literally does not want to let me go.
It will have to be me. I will have to be the one to walk away.
I cup his face in my hands and rise onto my tiptoes. I draw him in and place a soft, gentle kiss on his lips.
He releases me as I step back and lets me go into my room by myself to sleep alone on the last night of my honeymoon.