CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HOLLY
James has been off since the train.
I know exactly why, too. It's not some great mystery that I had to piece together. We talked about kids that night and I watched something shift in his face. He didn't say much about it after the proposal happened, but he didn't have to. It was painfully obvious that I had made him uncomfortable.
Sometimes you have to be uncomfortable. I meant what I said on that train.
I want a big, loud family, and I’m thirty-one, so I want it sooner rather than later.
I’m not going to pretend or keep quiet about my end goal.
James is amazing and I can see us building a life and a family together.
But if that’s not something he wants, then I need to know.
So I invited him over for pizza, and decided that whatever happened tonight, I'd rather know now than keep wondering. Which is easier said than done when your future hinges on a certain answer.
It’s nothing fancy. There are no candles, no sweet holiday playlist of songs, and no home-cooked meal.
It’s just me in leggings and an oversized Grinch-green sweater, a large pepperoni pizza and a small veggie pizza split between us on my coffee table, and Merlin lounging under the tree on the red velvet tree skirt.
“I wasn't sure a cardiologist actually eats pizza,” I say, handing him a plate. “Don't you have, like, a moral obligation to lecture me about cholesterol right now?”
His grin makes my chest feel tight, and for a moment I second-guess what tonight is about. But it will only hurt worse the longer we’re together, so this is a conversation that needs to happen sooner rather than later.
“Everything in moderation.” He takes a slice without hesitation. “I'd be a hypocrite to lecture anyone. There’s been many a night after a long day that I’ve ordered pizza delivery.”
We eat for a while with the TV on low, playing some Christmas movie neither of us is really watching. It’s comfortable. That’s what kills me, just how right being together feels.
But there's something underneath it tonight, a low hum of distance that’s been there since the train ride on Friday night. He’s the same sweet man he’s always been, yet there is just something off.
I’m a coward and I don’t say anything until we’re almost done with both pizzas.
“Okay,” I say, setting my plate down on the coffee table. “What's going on with you?”
He blinks, looking like a deer caught in the headlights. “What do you mean?”
I roll my eyes. “James, don’t try to act stupid, we both know you’re not. Ever since Friday you’ve been off and I know why, but I want to hear you say it.”
With downcast eyes, he sets his plate down. “I didn't realize it was that obvious.”
“It's obvious to me. I don't know about anyone else.” I angle my body so that I can face him fully. “Talk to me. Please.”
He's quiet for a long moment, not meeting my gaze, until he sighs and lifts his eyes.
“You’re right. I have been off. Watching you Friday night, seeing the yearning on your face when that family walked by and you spoke about your dream of a house full of kids, it hit me, Holly.”
My stomach tightens as he voices exactly what I thought was bugging him. Sometimes I hate being right.
“I don’t want you putting off things you want because of me. And honestly, I’m not sure I can give you a house full of children or even one. Maybe if we had met when I was younger.”
Ouch.
“When you were younger you were still married.” I cross my arms, not at all liking how this conversation is going.
Part of me really thought he would want a family with me.
Or the potential of one. I know we haven’t been seeing each other that long, but people talk about just knowing when you met the one, and I felt that with James.
He runs his fingers through his hair and grimaces. “That’s not what I meant.” James’ broad shoulders slump as he looks down at his clasped hands in his lap. “I don’t want to be the reason you miss out on what you want.”
I take a breath, steadier than I expected to be, given how much my hands want to shake. “Do you want kids? Not someday, not hypothetically. Do you want them?”
“I think so. Yes.” He says it slowly, like maybe he’s just realizing his answer as he’s talking. “But wanting to and being ready aren't the same thing, and I don't know how long it would take me to close that gap, or if I even can.”
“Are we breaking up?” Pain fills me. I thought tonight would go one of two ways, and now that it has, I find I’m not as prepared as I thought.
Sad blue eyes meet and hold mine. “I'd rather not waste your time finding out the hard way, five years from now, that I couldn't commit to giving you what you want, Holly. What you deserve.”
I sniff back the tears that are starting to blur my vision and look at James for a long moment. He’s handsome and older. He’s established, he’s sweet and caring, and I can see how good we would be together. I don’t doubt that he cares about me and this is hurting him too.
But caring about me and being able to build the life I want are two different things, and he’s right, I'm not willing to spend years waiting to see if he’ll ever be ready.
“I'm not going to fight you on this,” I say quietly. “I thought about it the last few days while you were pulling away.”
His lips parted as if he wants to argue with me, but I don’t give him the chance.
“And I thought about what I'd say if it came to this, and I kept coming back to this.
I don't think you're a bad man, James. I think you're a good one who got hurt badly enough that you've convinced yourself the safest thing you can do for the people you love is leave before you disappoint them. But I don't want the safest thing. I want someone who's sure, even if being sure is uncertain and scary. That’s the fun part of life, taking a chance even when you don’t know how things will turn out.”
I smile and blink back those annoying tears that continue to fill my eyes. “I had no idea what would happen that night when I met you at the bar, but I took a chance and I’m so glad I did.”
“Holly-”
“I want kids,” I say, before he can finish whatever he was about to say.
“Not someday. Soon, actually, in the grand scheme of things, because I'm thirty-one and I don't have unlimited time to wait around for someone to find their certainty.
I want a house full of noise and love and a husband who doesn't have to stop and think about whether he's too old to be excited about it.” My voice catches, just slightly, and I push on.
“I deserve that. And so do you. You deserve to actually want it too. To look a woman in the eye and tell her that you want her and are choosing happiness.”
He doesn't say anything for a long time. The Christmas movie plays on, forgotten, light flickering across both our faces.
“I think I'm in love with you,” he says finally in a low voice. “I want you to know that. Whatever else is true.”
Words I’ve always wanted a man to say to me. Say and mean it. And I can tell James means them, which makes my chest ache.
“I think I'm in love with you too,” I confess.
It's the first time either of us has said it out loud, and I almost laugh at the irony of it happening now when we’re breaking up. Except it hurts too much to actually laugh right now.
“Normally when two people say that to each other, it means they want to stay together. Get married and build a family.” I hold his gaze, needing the real answer, not some bullshit one. “Does it mean that for you?”
He's quiet for long enough that the silence becomes the answer, and when he does finally verbally answer, I’m not certain I believe him.
“I want it to,” he finally says. “I just don't know if wanting it is the same as being able to promise it.”
“It's not.” I say it gently, but I don't soften the truth of it. “And that's the whole problem, James. I don't doubt that you love me. I doubt that loving me is enough, on its own, to get you somewhere you're not sure you can go.”
He doesn't argue, and I think some small, honest part of him knows I'm right, even if the rest of him is still scrambling for a different ending.
There’s really nothing else to say, and he slowly drags himself up off the couch, gathers his coat, and approaches the door. Misery is written all over his face and the look he gives me as I get up to see him out tears me in two. He’s hurting just as badly as I am.
James reaches for me, but I take a step back and shake my head. “Goodbye James.”
“Goodnight, Holly.”
The door clicks shut, and I stand in my own front hallway, surrounded by the smell of pizza and the soft, colorful glow of the tree in my entranceway, and I finally let the tears fall.
Merlin winds around my ankles, meowing urgently. I scoop him up and hug him to me as he purrs.
“I did the right thing,” I tell him. “Didn't I?”
He doesn't answer, obviously, but he doesn't squirm away either, which I decide to take as agreement.
I believe in fairy tales. I always have. But sometimes they just don’t have the endings we thought they should.
And it seems that is the case for James and me. I can’t force him to want the same things I do. There is no halfway when it comes to this.
Even knowing that doesn’t stop the pain of heartache.