Chapter Twenty-Five #3
He takes a steadying breath. “You’re ambitious, and I love that about you, but…
I don’t know that I can be with someone who’s never going to put us first. I know you’re trying to prevent us from hurting each other, from asking too much of each other, but you have to stop.
Ask too much of me, Sloane. Get fucking messy with me.
I’d rather be with you, and hurt, than just give up.
Stop taking me out of the race to spare me some potential future heartbreak we don’t even know is coming.
Because I’ll keep showing back up to the starting line, but I need to know that you’ll eventually let us see this through. ”
I can’t tell if that was a push or a pull or both.
The lump in my throat feels like I’m going to throw up my heart all over the hardwood.
I don’t know what to say to make this okay.
I’d give anything to go back to this morning, when getting what I wanted felt possible and not like trying to solve a riddle with no answer.
Dax exhales heavily. “I let you go before so you could chase your dream, and I still want that for you, but I… I guess I don’t know what it is you want here. Do you want to break up?”
“No,” I say automatically.
“Do you want to do long-distance?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
Everything in me sags. My grip on my cool demeanor slips as the truth spills out.
“Yes, of course I do, but I feel like an asshole for wanting it, for wanting you with me when your life is here. I’m scared you’ll do it because you’re you and you’re selfless, but then you’ll be there and you’ll miss home and you’ll resent me for everything you’re missing out on, and what if you’re right and Rolling Stone is the same as everywhere else and I’m making the wrong choice and I dragged you there for nothing?
But if I tell you to stay here while I’m there, I’ll miss you and I’m scared that will break us in a way we can’t fix, and what if you’re right and Robb is the leak, then I can’t take the job and if I choose to stay here because you are what I want but then you’re gone on tour, I’ll miss you and have no offers and no work to distract me from missing you, and what if I’m my mom and end up holding that against you even if it’s not your fault and—” I suck in a breath, feeling dizzy as I forcefully brush my hair out of my face.
Dax’s eyes widen before softening. “You are not your mom, Sloane.”
I can’t look at him. I’m staring at the wall as I roll my lips inward to keep my chin from quivering, blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay.
Silence falls, hanging heavy in the air between us as we both process everything we’ve said in the past few minutes.
“Thank you,” Dax says quietly.
“For what?”
“For finally telling me what you were thinking.”
I throw my hands up helplessly. “But where do we go from here?”
He rakes his teeth over his bottom lip roughly. “I don’t know.”
My phone buzzes incessantly in my back pocket. Tugging it free, I silence the reminder that reads “Airport!”
“Fuck,” I mutter. I grab my backpack, slipping into my bedroom and blindly throwing clothes into it.
I’m in the middle of shoving three times the amount of underwear necessary for my short trip into my bag when Dax says something from the next room that I can’t parse.
I poke my head out just as the front door slams shut behind him.
All the air leaves my lungs.
Don’t leave. I’m gonna fight.
He left. He’s not going to fight.
Push.
A sob rattles my chest but I repress it.
How did this get so messed up? Why couldn’t the bubble have lasted a few more days, given me time to figure things out?
How to have everything—the job and the guy.
Instead, I’m trying to figure out how in the world I’m going to afford airport parking. Dax was supposed to be my ride.
All I want is to go home. It’s the only thing that feels right about all of this.
I want to be with my friends, my brothers, my dad.
Dax was supposed to be there, too, but him getting on the plane tomorrow feels like a pipe dream.
Everything has imploded so quickly, and I don’t have a plan for any of this or how to make a new one from the pieces.
I trudge on heavy feet out of my apartment. When I reach the bottom of the stairs, my heart leaps into my throat to find Dax in the loading zone, leaning against the side of his car.
He opens the back door for me to dump my bag, then wordlessly opens the passenger door. I sink into it, unsure what to do with my hands after buckling my seat belt. I sit on them as Dax slides into the driver’s seat, cranks the car, and pulls out into the street.
We hit the highway, and neither of us has said a word. Dax shifts gears, smoothly accelerating, merging until he’s in the left lane. His thumb traces the top of the gear shift in a rhythmic pattern. I place my hand atop his, squeezing, and he hooks his thumb over my pinkie.
I’d say anything to fix this right now. If what he said is true, if Robb was the leak, there’s no way I can take the Rolling Stone offer.
Which leaves me with no offers, stuck in a freelance gig that hired someone else, that hasn’t given me work in weeks.
I know what he wants me to say. That I’m staying, that I’m picking him, and I want to, but putting everything I’ve worked so hard for on the back burner…
Robb’s voice echoes in my head. Don’t stay here for a guy.
I don’t want to lose him again, but I don’t know how to keep him.
I walked away before, and it sucked, but we both survived, didn’t we?
Maybe I have to not be greedy. Maybe I have to let him go again.
Maybe we’ll cross paths in a few years. Maybe the third time’s the charm.
Maybe if we don’t hurt each other too much this time, we’ll be able to try again.
Or… maybe we’ve already hurt each other too much to try again, and we’ll just be friends.
And we’ll pretend we haven’t spent the intervening years searching for each other’s gaze across rooms to share in a private laugh, and I’ll pretend I don’t want to sink into his gravity when he stands next to me.
We’ll make small talk as if we didn’t once make pillow talk, and I won’t stare at his mouth like I know it so well I could make a topographical map of his dimple when he gives himself over to a rare, true smile, and I won’t let on that I’m mourning the way his smiles are no longer for me.
Fuck that.
Too soon, Dax is pulling over at the departures curb, and I’m turning to him, wild-eyed.
The instant our eyes meet, the distance between us narrows, the hurricane of my panic slowing.
He’s in the eye of the storm with me. I’m not flying home today, because over the past few weeks, it stopped being home.
I’ve built a new one. He is my home. I don’t remember drawing up the plans, but it’s here, its bones rattling in the storm raging around us.
It’s here and it’s solid and I love him—god do I love him—and I’ve never told him and now’s not the time and I have to go but—
“I don’t want to leave,” I blurt, hoping he hears every single way I mean it.
He smiles softly at me, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, which are churning with the same helplessness I feel.
“You have to,” he says.
I’m not leaving. He’ll be back with me tomorrow. This won’t be like last time. This isn’t our ending. This is an interlude, not an encore. “Let’s just…” I chew on the inside of my cheek. “Let’s take the day apart to think, and we’ll talk tomorrow?” Pull.
He nods. “Okay.”
It’s the same thing he said last time, and suddenly I’m twenty-one all over again, and my heart is breaking and I can’t do a damn thing to fix it.
A security guard comes over to glare at us for idling too long, waving us on. I fling my door open to let him know I’m moving, then turn back to Dax. Leaning over the console, I cradle his jaw, guiding his mouth to mine for a goodbye kiss that feels a little too heavy on the goodbye.
Push.