46. Chase #2
“Sometimes—” She draws in air. “I wonder if that version of love belonged to a specific moment in time. A version of us that doesn’t exist anymore.”
She can’t possibly mean that. “Don’t do this. Don’t run. Not again.”
“It doesn’t mean it didn’t matter—it did, God, it did,” she rushes to continue. “But we’re different people now, Chase. Loving you was simple before. We were kids. The world was small and fit around us. Nothing fits like that anymore … your life is here, and my life is there.”
“I’ll move to New York.”
She blinks. “New York?”
“I’ll come with you.”
“You would hate New York. It’s busy and loud.”
“I’d do it, Hayes,” I implore. “Anything you want—name it, and it’s done.”
“Don’t you see?” She throws her arms wide. “It shouldn’t be like that. You can’t dismantle your whole life for me. What happens when the shine wears off, and you’re in a city you don’t recognize, and you’ve given up everything that makes you you?”
“Tell me. How should it be?”
“Easy! It should be easy! Nothing about this situation”—she waves a hand between us—“is easy!”
“I don’t care whether it’s easy or not, I’ll fight for this if it means I get to have you!”
“You can’t just give up everything and move your entire life across the country for me.”
I step closer and jab my finger in the direction of her entryway. “My life ended the second you were marched out that front door ten years ago.”
Moisture coats her eyes. “You’d grow to resent me.”
My voice frays at the edges. “I wouldn’t.”
“You would. Eventually you’ll tire of me—of New York—and wish you’d never done it. You’d miss the sea and the shop and surfing and all of it, and you’d look at me because I was the reason you gave up everything you love. I couldn’t live with that.”
“I love you more.”
Her eyes widen. “You love me?” she whispers.
“No.” I shake my head and take a step closer.
“I have love for people in my life. But not you.” My hand presses over my heart to steady its canter.
“You undo me, Hayes. Love is too small to describe how I feel about you—too gentle. What I feel for you fuels me with violence.” Another step.
“If souls exist, then mine calls to yours as if we’re tethered from a previous life.
I feel like I’ve spent an eternity searching for you, and I would do it again and again because I need you, Summer.
As desperately as I need my next breath.
“Without you, my heart is useless. A life without you isn’t a life worth living. I tried it. And I was just existing. A warm body, going through the same bullshit day in, day out. Waiting for something I didn’t think would ever come back. But you did.”
“Chase,” she breathes.
I cup her face in my hands. “I can’t lose you twice. I can’t. I won’t.”
A sob tears from her, but I keep going.
“So live with me, Hayes. Bicker with me. Drive me mad. Disagree, push me, pull me, tell me I’m wrong and you’re right.
Tell me to go home so I can tell you that I already am.
Because home was never a place. It’s finding sleep when you’re near.
It’s feeling the sun on my skin and your fingers in mine.
It’s your laugh and your smile and your smell … it’s you. It’s always been you.”
Her lip trembles. “Please don’t say that.”
I step closer. “Say what? That I love you? I fucking love you, Hayes.”
A sigh stutters out of her.
“Please,” she whispers, but I don’t know what she’s begging for.
She buries her head against me, her tears dampening a spot over my chest. I rest my chin on top of her head and take in the scent of her shampoo.
“If you leave again,” I murmur into her hair. “If you walk out that door, Ocean Grove won’t feel like home. Nothing will fit right. Everything will feel out of place. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to recreate the feeling—fill the hole—that only you are capable of satiating.”
She sniffles. “Maybe what we had was only supposed to work once.”
“I’m not buying that,” I reply. “We didn’t even get to finish what we started.”
She sags in my hold. Her tone flattens, like all the fight has drained from her. She pulls back. “You’re longing for something that’s dead, Chase.”
I take her hand in mine and hold it over the thud of my heart. “You feel that?”
She tries to withdraw, but I stop her. “Chase—”
“You feel that, yes?” I repeat.
A long moment. She nods, barely.
“As long as this muscle pumps blood through my veins, and long after it’s stopped, it’s all you. It’s all for you.”
Her eyes squeeze shut as she whispers, “I can’t.”
“You can. But you have to let me in, baby.” My voice is quiet. “Let me love you.”
The silence is filled with the soft sound of her dragging in breath.
“The best parts of every single day since you came back have all been you. Every last one,” I whisper. “I know you feel this too. Please don’t do this.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, barely audible. “But we have to discover who we are to each other outside of all this.”
Then she turns and walks to the stairs. I stand there, letting her go, and listen to every footstep until the bedroom door clicks shut above me.
The house is quiet.
I press both hands to the back of my neck, throat burning.
I’m the only person she ever lets touch her. That has to count for something.
She’s scared. I know she’s scared. I’ve seen that look before. It’s the same one she wore the morning her father put his hands on her for the last time.
I look at the ceiling, wondering what the hell I’m supposed to do with this. What kills me isn’t the possibility of losing her. It’s knowing she’s up there right now, choosing not to choose me.
That’s what rips me apart.
I find my keys on the hall table and do the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
I leave.