Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
“You’re a back-of-the-plane girl?”
Milo shoved his carry-on into the overhead compartment and slid into the last row with her, flipping both the armrests up to make more room for him. Sara and Matty had landed somewhere in the middle, definitely out of earshot.
“Not typically.”
He followed her gaze toward Sara’s bright red headphones.
“Ah,” he mumbled. “Reading more dragon porn?”
She rolled her eyes, holding the cover-up. “No dragons. Fae, though.”
“The fuck is a Fae?”
Hanna sighed. “I think we have more pressing topics to cover.”
“We haven’t even taken off yet. We’re still in Vegas!” Milo pointed out the window at the tarmac. “Wanna join the twenty-foot club?”
“Milo.”
“Okay,” he relented. “I know you’ve been outlining your talking points for hours now, so have at it.”
“No talking points,” she said, turning in her seat to face him. His hand instinctively landed on her thigh, a spark in her belly derailing her entire list of questions. Her eyes dropped to his hand, and he removed it, muttering a half-hearted apology.
He watched as she formulated a coherent thought.
“Just ask me, Arizona.”
“I’m not entitled to any of your story. I know that.
But Logan got into my head last night. He said you like projects.
Broken girls you can fix, but never have to commit to.
He said you make it their fault for you not being in a place for a relationship, or that you hide behind being friends with benefits, so you come off like the good guy. ”
Milo took another long breath. “And what do you think about that?”
“I think it feels familiar.”
He nodded, taking it in. “I understand why. And I understand why Logan sees my history through that lens.”
He flagged a flight attendant and grabbed two bottles of water before they took off. He broke the seal on hers and handed it over.
He swallowed, seemingly battling back a wall of feelings that he'd normally have funneled into a too-direct string of perfectly curated 'I' statements. But they were beyond therapy. He took another sip of his water.
“Logan was right in some ways. I do have a type. But it’s not because I seek out broken women who I can take advantage of.
It’s because I can’t fathom being in a relationship with someone who hasn’t had to hold their dead parents’ hand and tell them they’d be alright when they’re fucking terrified, or stared at oncoming traffic a little too tempted, or lost days, maybe even weeks, of their lives to a wave of grief they didn’t see coming. ”
She scooted closer to him, his voice wavering as he spoke. The fasten seatbelt sign clicked on, causing them both to flinch.
“I’ve told you that before. I can’t be with someone who isn’t willing to share that pain with me because it isn’t going anywhere.
It’ll sit right under my skin until I let that final breath out and I can bitch about it to my dad’s face.
It will be there with every ‘I love you,’ ‘Will you marry me,’ ‘I do,’ and ‘That’s my boy,’ and I know you know that.
And I’m sorry you know that. But Logan doesn’t, and I sincerely hope he’s old as hell before he has to confront all of these shitty realities.
Most people I’ve dated have carried that expectation that I’ll just get over it one day.
That I’ll move on. But I’ve realized that that’s not possible.
This version of me, this semi-healed Milo that you put on a pedestal all the time? Relatively new. I’ve hurt a lot of people, good people, to get to where I am now, and I’m not sure that it isn’t just part of the process.”
Hanna dropped her gaze to his hands, nervously fidgeting with the cap of his water.
“I’m assuming Michaela is one of those people?”
“The first one on a pretty long list, yeah.” Milo closed his eyes and pushed at an invisible bruise on his chest. “You’re two years younger than Logan?”
She nodded.
“Okay well, Matty and I graduated together, but Logan is a year ahead of us. I told you Matty was one of my only friends after everything that happened, but Logan’s girlfriend, Michaela ,was our age too.
When he went off to ASU, we still hung out with her quite a bit.
She lost her mom when she was a kid and I think she took pity on me.
We got close. Logan got distant. I was seventeen and mad at the world and didn’t care who I hurt as long as they ached like me.
She still made the choice to cheat, but I played just as much of a role.
I think that’s why Logan is so fucked up over Sloane—he did everything right.
Exactly the way he wished Michaela and me would have done it.
But we were kids. Look at how hard the last year has been on you, and you’re a grown woman.
Two teenagers with no regulation skills? Gasoline and fire.”
Hanna took that in. She knew Logan had a serious girlfriend before her, but not much else. He didn’t talk about her at all, and it was becoming clear why.
“I hurt Logan. It hurt even more that Matty was understanding about it. But he met you, he moved on, and we got to a somewhat civil place, and I never expect him to be anything more than that. It was more than fine for both of us.”
“Until me.”
“Until you,” Milo groaned, leaning his head back and wiping his face.
“I was being genuine, Hanna, when I told you I didn’t mind being a distraction for you.
God knows I had plenty of them over the years.
And I was being genuine when I said I knew it couldn’t be more than that, and that I didn’t plan on dating ever again.
Because if I didn’t set that expectation from the get-go, I knew I’d let you set my entire life on fire. Fuck, I’d hand you the matches.”
“Oh,” she managed.
“Yeah. Oh,” Milo said. “You’re just over the first-year mark, Arizona.
You haven’t even touched this shit yet. You’re going to go through things in years two and three and four that will completely change who you are as a person, and I know you think you’re fine, and you tell everyone who asks as much, but I lied like that for a decade.
Half the time, I think the heartbreak would be worth it just to be with you for however long you’ll have me, but I’m not twenty-five anymore, Hanna.
I don’t know if I can survive being one of the bridges you burn on your way to the other side, but I can’t seem to stay the fuck away from you either.
So I flirt, and I send you dirty texts, and I pray that every single time I touch you, it’s the only thing you can think about for days, but I can’t give you more than that because I’m fucking terrified of what happens when I’m no longer enough to keep the pain at bay.”
“Milo—”
“I’ve lost people I can’t get back, and I’ve survived them all, but I don’t know if I’d survive you, Hanna. Last night,” he dropped his voice, leaning closer to her. “Last night… you could see it all over my face, couldn’t you?”
She frowned, nodding.
He laughed. “And I know I’m not alone in that.”
She glanced out the window, the Vegas Strip rapidly disappearing behind them.
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” he huffed.
She wanted to tell him that he was wrong. That he could survive her. That she wouldn’t hurt him. That she was doing better, and maybe with a little more time…
But she would be lying to him and, perhaps worse, to herself.
It was already bubbling in a slow-moving panic attack in her throat—she wasn’t there.
“Can I be honest with you?”
Milo’s lips twisted. He already knew what she was about to say.
“I’d rather you didn’t.”
“I know.”
Milo rested his hand on her knee, and this time, she left it.
“I’m a fucking mess,” she whispered, everything in her scattering to the walls of her chest as though a bomb had gone off. “You make me feel like maybe that won’t be the case one day. But today, it’s the truth.”
“Don’t get your hopes up too high, I’m not feeling particularly put together right now.”
“But whose fault is that?”
“Not yours.” He shook his head and pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “I knew I’d feel like this in the morning, and I still did it.”
“Regardless, the only reason I even wanted to stay with Matty and Sara was for a distraction. I needed to escape and I did. And trust me when I tell you I enjoyed every second of it. But at some point, I have to confront reality again. I have a house to deal with. I haven’t talked to my therapist in weeks. Things with Logan are worse than ever.”
She took a break to chug her water. She knew she would end up in the airplane bathroom soon enough, which she despised, but she also knew she would need a second alone or she'd end up hysterical and being dragged off the plane with a dozen phones in her face.
“I need to get my life together, Milo. And I won’t do it if I’m across the hall from the one thing that makes me forget about all of it.”
“Damn,” Milo said under his breath. “This is exactly the conversation I knew we’d be having, but it really sucks to hear it out loud.”
“Being an adult fucking blows.” She watched as he sighed twice, both times equally agonizing. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking I wish we’d had this conversation in the last fifteen minutes of the flight and not the first.”
She couldn’t help it. The tears started rolling, peppered with laughter that came from somewhere she couldn’t identify.
“Baby,” Milo whispered, wrapping his arms around her. He pressed her face into his T-shirt and she inhaled slowly, all too aware that it would be the last full breath she took for a very long time.
* * *
“Sunflower girl!”
Hanna rolled her suitcase into the floral shop bright and early, her knees still aching from walking in heels all weekend.
She waved, feeling a little stupid.
“Oof,” the woman said, noticing Hanna’s puffy eyes. “Going through it, huh?”
Hanna sputtered a laugh, her heart aching with every breath.
“That obvious?”
“Not a lot of gals come here with packed bags and tear-stained faces.”
She leaned against the desk, folding her arms over an emerald-green apron that matched the stone in her wedding band.
“I’m heading back home,” Hanna said.
“Leaving behind something good?”
Hanna sucked her lip between her teeth, biting back the wave of tears that crashed against her ribs. She was plagued by them now, unable to hold any of it back.
“I was hoping you could do me a favor,” she said. “Can I get weekly deliveries of sunflowers to this address? On Wednesdays? I can put my card on file.”
The woman took the sticky note that had Sara's address scribbled across it. She didn’t know why she needed to do it. It wasn’t like Milo was going to forget her, but she liked the idea of still being present at wing-and-movie night.
“Whatever it is you’re leaving, I hope they regret it,” the woman said quietly, ringing up the order.
“Not as much as I will,” Hanna said back, her throat tightening.
She flicked her eyes over Hanna’s face, softening at the sadness she found there.
“It’ll come back to you, honey. Love always does.”