Chapter 63 Not the Bench Again. NOT THE BENCH AGAIN
NOT THE BENCH AGAIN. NOT THE BENCH AGAIN
Nate
“The ring was supposed to be a maybe-someday. She thought it was a deadline.”
He knew she was gone the second he stepped out of the bathroom.
The air felt wrong. Still but charged, like lightning had struck the room and left a silence behind. The steam was still curling from the doorframe, clinging to the windows, and his bare feet rasping as he crossed the bedroom carpet, towel slung low on his hips. She wasn’t here.
"Holly?" he called.
The bed was rumpled. Her crutches were gone, and so was the hoodie she’d worn for two days straight. And there, on top of the covers, was the pale blue box he’d been thinking about for days.
Open. Ring glittering like a menace.
His breath caught. “Fuck!”
He was moving before the thought finished, dragging clothes over skin still wet, boots without socks, jacket without zipping. No hesitation. No second-guessing. His body ran on panic while his mind spiraled in silence.
She’d found it and she ran. And he knew exactly where. Tivoli. Not because she liked it. Not because it was beautiful. But because pain had muscle memory. She’d been left there once. Of course she’d go back.
The cab couldn’t get him there fast enough.
The city blurred. His fists clenched and unclenched in his lap, nails digging into his palms, his heart pounding like it was sprinting ahead of him.
When he reached the park, he paid for his ticket, bolted through the gates, and started searching.
Because he didn’t know which bench she’d be on, but he wasn’t going to stop until he fucking found it.
Suddenly, there she was.
A bench right in front of the Concert Hall, in the same place where they set up the outdoor ice rink each winter.
The place where he’d bet they’d set up the stage for the Viennese waltz performances she’d been part of back then.
The contrast was so sharp that it hit him harder than any cross-check he’d ever taken.
He’d loved this place as a kid. He’d skated on that rink and dreamed big. Hoping that if he just worked hard enough, one day he might get drafted into the NHL. And that’s when he realized that this was the place where his dreams had been born… and where hers had been crushed.
Holly had the scarf she’d bought him around her neck, twisted like armor.
She sat as still as a statue, as if holding her own pieces together with nothing but breath.
Nate approached slowly, rounding in front of her so that she’d see him coming and he wouldn’t startle her.
He didn’t say anything, he just watched her.
And then she spoke. Her voice was soft, as though she’d known he’d come find her here. Like she wasn’t even surprised.
“This is where I got left.”
He scooted closer, not touching her, just wanting her to know he was there. Present, and putting himself on the line to show it.
“You’re not being left,” he promised, his brows pulled down with sadness.
“No.” Her voice was brittle. “I’m doing the leaving.”
Her words landed like a gut punch, winding him. His throat ached because he could hear the absolute finality in her tone. “Why?”
“Because I believed it last time. I let myself want forever. I let myself think it could be different. And he broke me.”
He tried. God, he tried. “I’m not him,” he pointed out, feeling a sting behind his eyes that threatened to unravel him right in front of her.
She exhaled, sharp and uneven. “I know. But I’m still me.”
He reached for her, lifting his hand like an invitation.
She didn’t take it. Instead, her fingers twisted in the ends of the scarf. The one she’d bought him just yesterday. A lifetime ago.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she said, quieter now. “It’s just going to end the same way.”
He watched her, helpless, as the carousel spun behind them and children’s laughter drifted through the air like a cruel reminder of everything good slipping out of reach. She was already gone, and he knew it.
He wanted to explain the ring. He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t asking. Not yet. That he’d only brought it with him to show Sigrid, to talk about it all with his sister in the hopes that she’d help him to feel like less of a dick about how deep he was in it.
Instead? Sigrid had told him not to wait. And now he’d fucked everything up.
“I need to go home,” Holly said finally.
Something in Nate’s chest cracked. He’d known the words were coming. He’d almost heard them in his mind as soon as he’d sat on the bench next to her. They didn’t even hurt the way he thought they would. They just felt inevitable.
“Okay.” His voice was tight, like cling wrap stretched too far. “We go back to the hotel and pack. I’ll speak to the concierge about canceling the rest of our reservation.”
She shook her head. “No,” she cut him off. “You’ve already done enough.”
And that’s when he pushed back. “Don’t, Holly,” he said, his voice husky with unshed tears.
“You wanna go? Fine. We’ll go. But don’t think for one second that I’m letting you make that trip alone.
We don’t have to talk. You don’t even have to look at me if you don’t want to, but there’s no way I’m letting you go back to LA alone. ”
She didn’t argue. He didn’t beg.
Nate just sat there, next to the only person who’d ever made him believe he could be more than the broken pieces of his past. He watched the city lights shimmer in her eyes as she slipped further and further out of his reach.
For the first time since he met her, he had no idea how to stop it.
Because this time, the only crime he was guilty of was loving her.