Bennett — Age 25
When I heard Maven’s keys in the door, I drew in a deep, fortifying breath. I could do this. I had to do this. For Maven. And, in part, for me.
She smiled when she first saw me. Then her gaze dropped to the bags at my feet. “Are you going somewhere?” she asked, closing the door behind her and locking it.
“I’m going home.”
She placed her violin case on the floor, her brow scrunched together. “Okay. For how long?”
I cleared the emotion from my throat. “I’m not coming back, Maven.”
She went rigid. “I don’t understand.”
“I love you, but we don’t want the same things anymore.
” The break of my heart wasn’t clean. It was a fractured mess.
But it was Maven’s heart that mattered. I knew my leaving would destroy her temporarily, but she was resilient.
I didn’t doubt she’d be okay. Better than okay.
She was going to accomplish incredible things. Things I’d only keep her from.
“What are you talking about?” She hurried toward me, tears brimming in her eyes. “Ben, I choose you. I don’t know how to make that any clearer. Do you need me to leave Juilliard? Because I will. Right now.” She turned from me. “I’ll pack and we can—”
I grabbed her hand, pausing her. “That’s not what I want.” At least, it shouldn’t be what I wanted. My chest throbbed as I drew in a breath. “I should have let you go years ago.”
Her chin quivered, and I barely resisted pulling her to me and wiping the tears now rolling down her cheeks.
There really was no other path forward. She shouldn’t settle, and I refused to be the person she resented when she had to give up her dreams. But I couldn’t be the one to support her in them anymore.
I was making both of us miserable. My future was in Autumn Ridge. Her future was here.
Picking up my bags, I started forward, pausing at the door. “The rent is paid through the end of the contract.”
She released a shuttered breath. “Please don’t go, Ben.”
I kept my gaze on the floor, not having the strength to see her standing there, broken. “I want you to become everything you can become. I just can’t be part of it.”