Chapter 63
Ryan
When Christine gets home, I’ve already zipped up my duffel bag. I can hear her running upstairs, and she bursts into the room.
After a few seconds, she realises what I’m doing.
“Why?” she asks, simply.
“There’s no reason for me to stick around. Actually, I think I’ve overstayed my welcome,” I say coldly, avoiding her gaze.
“I never asked you to stay,” she says bitterly.
“No, you didn’t. I wanted to stay, but now that everything’s fine, the café’s reopening…I think it’s time for me to get back to my life.”
“I get it…” she says, sitting on the bed. “You overheard that stupid conversation between me and Evan this morning.”
“It’s not that.”
“Then why are you leaving? It was going so well, and last night…”
“Last night has nothing to do with it. It was just one night.”
I’m hurting myself and I’m hurting her in the process. It only took me less than half an hour to go back to being that bastard.
“Sure…” she says, her voice trembling.
I turn to her, and take the plunge.
“I can’t do it.”
“What?”
“Marriage, kids? A family?”
She gets up. “I never expected any of that.”
“But you will. You’d just never say it. I’ve already tried all that, and I didn’t like it at all.”
“Ryan, you’re going way too quickly. No one’s expecting anything of you.”
“Maybe that’s for the best. I can’t give you expectations or a future. All I can give you is the present: uncertain, full of gaps.”
“You’re jumping to conclusions. You’re putting words into my mouth.”
“But it’s what you want.”
“Do you want to know what I really want, Ryan? I want evenings on the sofa, relaxing dinners in front of the TV. I want to put my feet up on your legs. Laughter. Hot nights under the sheets – and on top of them. I want arms wrapped around me when I come home, knackered, after a long day. Someone I don’t have to hide that extra glass of wine from.
Someone who won’t judge me for crying at romcoms. Someone who wants to stay the next morning, who won’t run away with his jeans still undone. ”
“So you’re telling me that you’re not looking for a father for your son?”
“My son already has a father, Ryan. I was never looking for a replacement. All I want is a man. For me.”
“I’m not that man, Christine. All I can give you is today. I’m not sure I can stay every morning.”
“Today isn’t enough, Ryan. It isn’t enough anymore.
I’m almost thirty-three. I’ve had my fill of bad relationships and men who won’t stay the next day.
I’ve had a life of choices, of strength, of hard work and nothing for myself.
And now I want something that’s just mine. A man that will show me a tomorrow.”
“You’re looking for a forever, Christine. That’s something that won’t work for me.”
She nods, turning towards the door. She opens it and stands there, frozen, in the doorway. Then she speaks to me, just a few words: but they’re enough to make me realise that I can’t take the leap. Not even for her.
“You’re right, Ryan. I do want that. And I’m ready to risk everything to have it. I’d even risk losing you.”
I can’t do that, Christine. I could never stand losing you.
I lift my gaze and let her words pierce through me.
“I want a forever, or I don’t want anything.”
And that’s how it really ends for me and her.
In the worst way possible.
It ends with me shuffling out the door and heading down the stairs.
It ends with me getting into my car and driving away, just like I always do.
It ends with my trying to hold back my tears, to suppress the pain that has come back to suffocate me.
It’s a different pain: more intense, more oppressive.
The type of pain that won’t let you breathe, won’t loosen its grip on you.
And the pain that you inflict on other people hurts you even more: especially when they expected more from you. Then they look at you with eyes that tell you that they’ve finally realised that you’re not worth it. That you’re not the man they thought you were. That you’re not the man for her.
I’ve caused so much pain to the only person who’s capable of loving me silently, without asking too much of me. I left her in that same silence.
The person I tried with all my might not to love, who will hate me with all of hers.