18. Chapter 18
eighteen
What in the holy fuck did I just let myself do?
Temper under control? Yeah.
Not the need for her. Ten years gone by and it didn’t matter. One touch and I was right back there.
A snort escapes before I can stop it. Same damn house. Same damn spot. Passenger door lined up with the sidewalk like the night everything went to hell.
Christ.
Her porch light glows just like it did back then and the memory hits like lightning.
I knew she was leaving. Hell, I’d known it for days. But some stupid part of me kept thinking I could change her mind. “You don’t have to go.” The words scraped on the way out.
She didn’t answer. Just breathed that shaky little breath that told me she was already halfway gone.
“We had a plan.” I’d thought we were going to be a family. Me and her against the world.
“I know,” she whispered.
That was the moment something in my chest cracked. She said it like she wished she could fix it, but she knew she couldn’t. Wouldn’t.
I turned toward her, and her eyes were already grieving—like she’d accepted the end before either of us said a word.
I just wanted her to stay. I wanted the future we’d talked about in the dark, in that truck, in every quiet moment that felt like forever.
“We can figure it out. We’ll get married. I’ll work. You go to school.” I hadn’t planned to say it. It just tore out of me, honest and desperate.
And the way she froze told me she hadn’t seen it coming. “Cal—” She blinked and stared and I heard the no inside it.
I looked away because if I kept looking at her, I’d beg. I couldn’t beg.
The drive home was the longest road I’d ever taken.
When we stopped in front of her house—this house, right here—she got out, turned back, leaned in to kiss me—and God, I wanted to. I wanted to pull her in and hold on and never let her go.
But I couldn’t, because she knew I’d marry her—that I’d give her my life—and she was leaving anyway.
I shook my head. “Go.”
Her face broke for half a second before she hid it.
She nodded, turned, walked toward the porch, and God forgive me, right then, I wanted her to hurt the way I was hurting.
I wanted her to hate the life she was walking into, to regret leaving everything we had—but in my gut I knew, beautiful Laurel Elizabeth Hayes would get to Rice University, she’d be the belle of the ball, and Calder Boone would be a faded memory.
The high school boyfriend she’d tell her grandkids about.
I sat there with my hands on the wheel, knuckles white, jaw locked, heart splitting clean down the middle. I fought myself not to call her name, not to get out and run down the sidewalk after her.
No, I didn’t get out. I didn’t break. I watched her go, because letting her go was easier than her staying and someday hating me because I made her pass up her golden opportunity at Rice.
Later that night, she texted me. I love you.
I didn’t answer.