Chapter 34
Andie is quiet on the drive back to Midtown. Even now, when Cassidy and Steve are long gone, when the camera is miles away, Andie still doesn’t speak.
I follow her to the apartment from our parking garage, not sure how to break the silence.
Jamie and Leslie save us the trouble, all but crashing into us on the stairs. They’re giggling, holding hands. Andie and I exchange surprised looks, eyebrows raised.
“Sorry, sorry!” Jamie whirls around to put up his hands in apology.
Leslie is smiling as wide as I’ve ever seen him. “We’re off to have some fun.”
Jamie tucks into Leslie’s arms and kisses him on the cheek. Leslie’s blush grows deeper.
Andie smiles too. “Have a great time.”
“Oh, we will,” Jamie promises as he tugs Leslie to their car.
“They look happy,” Andie says wistfully, watching them go. “I’m glad.”
“Must be the magical therapy session Jamie was talking about the other day.” I shrug. “Good for them.”
Andie keeps a small smile on her face on the way to the apartment, but it’s full of pain. Her eyes say it all.
Now she knows—why I left without a word, how we were both in pain we didn’t know how to express. It should feel lighter. I always thought if she understood what my dad’s death did to me, it would feel like a revelation. Instead, the heaviness of the night weighs me down, my vertebrae grinding together as we walk through the door.
Andie kicks off her shoes and drops her bag on the bench by the door, then beelines for the kitchen. I hang up my messenger bag and remove my shoes too, unsure of what’s coming—a storm or quiet so loud it drowns out everything else.
When I finally have the courage to join her, she’s pouring wine. Two glasses. Some of the pressure building in my chest dissipates.
She picks up her glass and takes a sip, closing her eyes. I follow suit, watching her for a sign of … anything at all. She’s been so quiet; I don’t have a clue what’s going on inside her head.
When her eyes meet mine, she says, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did.” I shrug. “You wouldn’t let me in the door.”
She winces, looking down at our feet on the linoleum. “You left me in the middle of the night after I told you I loved you and you couldn’t say it back. What else was I supposed to do?”
I want to give her the same answers I’ve been giving myself for the better part of a decade: I was in shock, it happened so fast, I forgot my laptop, my phone bill was delinquent, and I couldn’t turn it back on. When I returned, she’d blocked me on every social media platform, and her school email didn’t exist anymore. I finally found her, and her roommate stood guard when I wanted to fall into her so I could fall apart again. All the words get gummed up in my throat, and they won’t come out. I swallow some wine.
Finally, I tell her the truth. “If I kept saying it out loud—that my dad was gone, the person who wanted so much more for me—that would make it real. And it couldn’t be real, Andie. It couldn’t be.”
She blinks. Sniffs. Shifts on her feet. “I’m so used to not knowing my own father, I just assumed … If I’d have known how much he meant to you, I’d have never—” Her voice breaks, and she wipes a tear off her cheek with the heel of her hand.
The voice mail. She’d have never left me that voice mail. “I didn’t tell you. How could you have known?”
“I should have felt something,” she says, her cheeks splotching with pink. She curls her free hand to a fist at her side. “Even then, it felt like you were some missing piece of me that fit into a forgotten corner of my heart. I should have been able to feel it when that piece of my heart broke.”
Her words startle me. She never spoke of how she felt for me then. The only evidence I have of her feelings were days and nights of laughter twining around my heart like our limbs wound in bed. And that one whispered confession before it all fell apart—I love you.
All I can think of is the qualifier in her confession: even then. Which means we still have a chance now, don’t we?
At my silence, she says, “I never even told you what you meant to me. I’m sorry I didn’t make you feel like you could tell me those things.”
“Andie,” I scold gently. “I knew how you felt. You did tell me.”
She keeps going, pacing the small kitchen like she didn’t hear me at all. “I’d have waited for you. If I’d known, I’d have waited. But I was selfish, because selfishness is how I’ve survived, you know? But I could have waited. I could have done better.”
I sigh and set my wine aside. On Andie’s next turn of the kitchen, I hook my finger into her skirt pocket and tug her back to me. Her hands shake when I pluck her wineglass from them. Quietly, I tell her, “You’d have been waiting a long time.”
She rests her trembling hands on my chest, balling them into fists. “I could have done it, but I was too focused on myself and didn’t stop to think that maybe you needed me.”
I can’t help the half grin tugging at my lips as I let my hand settle into the curve at the small of her back. “Andie, it’s not your fault. I didn’t tell you what was happening. You were right to be upset.”
“Broken.” She fiddles with one of the buttons on my shirt. “I was broken when you left.”
My familiar friend guilt returns, a knife driving between my ribs, angled at the soft organ that always caused so much trouble. “I’m sorry. I was in no place to be the man you needed back then. It’s my fault you—”
“It’s not your fault.” Her voice is louder and firm. Leaving no room for debate as her eyes find mine. “Kit, you lost your father. Your life was upside down. How could it be your fault?”
“I hurt you,” I croak, my arm tensing around her.
“You were hurting.” The look in her eyes is pure salvation. I’ll drown in it if I look long enough. It’s a promise blanketed in hope. I can be selfish. I can wrap myself in her offering. But it will mean costing her the money she needs. This ache behind my ribs is new, different—to love someone so fiercely and still be so far away.
Her fingers trail along my jaw, then play at my throat. I swallow. I should tell her how I feel, how I lost her once and I might not survive if I lose her again. How I want to support her dreams, but I don’t want her haunting mine with what-ifs when this is over.
“We’re here now,” I whisper, even though there’s no one else around to hear. It’s not the whole truth, but it’s the truth. This moment could stretch on forever, or it could just be for a few more days. But right now, we’re together, and it’s ours.
Andie must feel it too, because she stands on tiptoes to press her lips to mine. The kiss turns desperate, our bodies crushed together as our tongues tangle.
And if I tell her with my body all the ways I love her, if I hold her through her release, her cries mingling with my own, if we strip down to nothing between us, holding each other in the fluorescent light of this rented kitchen … is it enough? Can I let it be enough when she walks away for good?