Chapter 34 #2
I let him try, loosening and melting in his arms for a moment before he pulls away. Too soon. And in the wake of that kiss, I realize tears are dripping down my cheeks.
“Did that feel fake to you?” His throat bobs on a heavy swallow. “Did any of the other times? When I made love to you, did it feel like we were pretending?”
The next tear falls before I can stop it. I’m having trouble finding the right words. My body feels like it’s spinning in three different directions, and I don’t know how to gather myself back together.
His palm presses to the center of his chest. “Because I wasn’t pretending. This is the most real thing I’ve ever felt.”
A knot tightens in my stomach. “You didn’t want anything real,” I remind him, scrambling for solid ground to stand on.
“Sweetheart, I was wrong. Real is all it’s ever been.” He gives me a half smile. “I changed my mind. You changed my mind.”
My heart jumps into my throat. I’ve been fighting my feelings for weeks, gaslighting myself into thinking they weren’t there, and now he just gets to decide to completely change the plan?
I turn away, avoiding his gaze and walking to the hood of the Bronco to pop it open. Nothing under here makes a bit of sense, but I stare at it like I might be able to solve why it’s not starting.
I need to get out of here. The urge to run is working its way down my body, consuming every thought.
All I want is to fix Baby Blue so I can drive away.
For hours. Days. Weeks. I want to not have to think about Theo or Gramps or bookshops.
Or feelings or tulips or dimples or anything else that hurts.
My brain is an absolute mess of thoughts that I can’t make sense of, and I’m losing myself in the chaos.
“Well, I didn’t change mine.” I wipe the tears from my cheeks, shaking my head. “I can’t live here and see a fucking Smoothie Bro in the spot where Gramps’s bookshop should be.”
Theo’s arms cross, frustration practically steaming out of him. “So, what? You’re just going to run away from me?”
“Yep. Just like you did fourteen years ago,” is what slips out.
As soon as the words land between us, I wish I could scoop them out of the air and shove them back in. Bringing up that moment is a low blow that neither of us saw coming. Shame curls up my throat.
Theo flinches so hard that he stumbles back a step. All the fight leaves him in a rush, his entire body slumping with the weight of my words. He’s closing in on himself, trying to protect what he can, and I did that.
My brain hastily backpedals, attempting to twist it into something else. He wordlessly joins me at the hood, his jaw hardening as he searches the motor for any sign of what’s wrong.
Drawing in a shaky breath does nothing to help the feeling that my lungs are caving in. “I’ll still come to the adopt-a-thon.”
“You don’t need to.” Theo’s voice is lifeless and cold, sending a shiver down my spine. “I told Arthur the truth today.”
That stuns me speechless for a beat. My lips part. “Why?”
He reaches for the battery, adjusting the cables attached to it.
“I wanted to come clean about the whole thing. Lying was eating away at me,” he says, before turning and jogging to where his truck is parked behind mine.
He returns with a screwdriver, tightens a few screws on the cables, then mutters, “Try her now.”
My stomach is somewhere in my ankles as I climb into the driver’s seat. This time, she starts easily, and I don’t even have the energy to be grateful. Theo doesn’t meet my eyes when he closes the hood and walks to the open door. There are no dimples and no lopsided grins, and I miss them terribly.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, hoping he hears me over the rumble of the engine. A tear slips down my cheek, and I try to secretly wipe it away as I reach for my seat belt.
I wish I could figure out what’s going on inside me right now. Nothing feels right. Nothing is right. This is mangled and backward and so fucking confusing. How can I have so many doubts crash into me in such a short span of time?
“I’m sorry too.” His tone makes it a final statement, not the beginning of something.
It sounds like the end. When he finally meets my eyes, his expression knocks the wind out of me.
There’s a lifetime worth of pain on his face and I wish I could undo everything from the last ten minutes.
Take all the broken pieces and glue them back together.
But before I can figure out how, he dips his chin once. “You go first so I know the truck is okay.”
He doesn’t wait for a reply. I watch through the side mirror as he stalks back to his truck, dragging a hand through his hair.
It isn’t until I put Baby Blue in gear that the weight of what I’ve done really hits me, and that’s when I shatter.
The warm wind flows in through the windows, whipping my hair against my skin as I drive with no destination in mind, and a well of endless tears pours out of me.
I cry for Gramps, for Theo, for the A-frame, for the bookshop.
Mostly, though, I cry for me, because I think I just quit the one thing I could’ve been good at.