Track 21 #3
I could see it all so clearly, it made my heart hum with a beautiful symphony I had never heard, yet somehow, always knew existed. It felt less like imagining a future and more like visiting a memory—but it was one that would never belong to me.
When I opened my eyes and found his warm hazel greens staring back at me, filled with nothing but pleading adoration and overwhelming love, I knew he deserved more than the unworthy little dream I’d dared to hold.
“I don’t want you to stay,” I said, swallowing hard, the sharp edges of the lie cutting deep.
Then I reminded him of everything I had to carry. “I have to go back home after graduation, Jake. I told you this life isn’t real for me. I don’t get to stay.” I pulled my hand from his chest and wiped my nose with the back of it.
“Then ask me to go with you.”
“What?” My brows creased with confusion, my heart falling deep into my stomach.
“Ask me to go with you,” he repeated with confidence and surety.
My breath caught in my lungs. This beautiful man didn’t care if I would fit into his life. He was willing to fit himself into mine—my messy, rundown, poor excuse of a life. He wanted in. He wanted this life still, even after knowing all the hard-knock parts of it—parts of me.
But I could never ask him to do such a thing. My world was filled with scars I was forced to bear, but him?
He was worth far, far more.
So I lied. I lied to save him because I knew he’d never do it himself.
“I don’t want you to come with me, Jake. This isn’t what you thought it was.” I shook my hands out of his grasp, and he let me. I looked away. “I don’t want the things you want.”
“That’s a lie.” My eyes found his again. His jaw ticked, hurt flashing into fury in his eyes. It was a knife to my heart. He read right through me, but it still hurt him to hear it.
“It’s not a lie,” I said sharply. “The things you want are not a reality for me, so I don’t get to want them. This life you’re seeing isn’t real. I don’t get to keep any of it. It all has to end.”
“That’s what you think, Alana, but you’re wrong.” He let out a frustrated sigh as he leaned toward me. “What if there’s another way?”
I shook my head. “There’s not.”
“But what if there is?”
“Jake, stop!” I screamed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!
This is the hand I was dealt, and that’s it!
I have to go back—to my drunken father. To my imprisoned brother.
I have to stand strong for them now whether I like it or not!
I don’t get the world as you know it. I don’t get to want those things!
This is the life I have to live. You can’t change that!
” I cried. “You loving me doesn’t make any of that go away.
” My voice broke with my sob. “Loving me only makes it worse.”
The words were shards of metal scratching down my throat. I saw how they wounded him. Claiming his love was hurting me was a crack against his golden heart. But it would work. I knew it would.
“Go to Seattle, Jake.” The words were like bile, but I kept throwing them up. “There’s nothing for us here. You need to go to Seattle and start your life. You need to forget about me.”
“No. I’m not doing that, Alana.” He grabbed my face, hands firm, forcing me to look at him.
“You want me to forget the way your eyes catch the light when you’re not guarding yourself?
Or how your mouth curves when you’re trying not to laugh and you don’t even realize you’re doing it?
” His voice shook. “You want me to forget that little dimple you get when I say something stupid just to make you smile, or the way your cheeks go red every time I look at you?”
He swallowed hard, chest rising fast. “You think I can forget the way my heart fucking reacts to you? The way my whole life came into focus the second you walked into it?” His eyes snapped shut, his grip firm, like he was afraid I’d disappear.
“Everything I was before you doesn’t matter.
Everything I thought I wanted doesn’t exist.”
His forehead dropped to mine, breath uneven. “You don’t get to ask me to erase you. You don’t get to tell me this isn’t real.” His voice broke. “Because it is. And I’m never going to forget you. Not ever.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks as he kept going.
“If you decide right now that your life is better off without me in it, then that’s your choice,” he said, voice strained but steady. “If you think things are going to be easier without me, then make that choice, Alana. Because I’ll never be able to.”
He shook his head slightly, like he couldn’t believe the words were even real.
“The way I feel about you—it’s changed everything about me.
I want to keep you all to myself, and I don’t care who else gets hurt because of it.
” His jaw tightened. “I’ve never been jealous, but with you?
I’m envious of the sun that gets to touch your skin before I do.
I’ve never been protective, but for you, I’d go to war against anything that stood in your way. ”
His voice cracked. “The way I feel about you, Alana… It scares the absolute shit out of me. And I still want it. I need it. More than I need to breathe.”
He dragged in a shaky breath. “I don’t care about a job.
Or family bullshit. Or anything else. All I see is you.
” His eyes locked onto mine. “So you have to make the call. Because if it were up to me?” His mouth curved into something broken and fierce.
“I’d be selfish when it comes to you. I want you all to myself—forever.
No matter the mess. No matter the consequences.
I don’t fucking care. I want you. All of you. Always.”
My heart thundered in my ears as he exhaled.
“That’s what I want,” he said quietly. “But if you’re telling me you don’t want that—if you’re telling me there isn’t even a small part of you that wants everything I just said—then you walk out that door, and I’ll know.”
His voice softened, wrecked. “I won’t call. I won’t text. I won’t beg you to change your mind. I’ll accept it. Because I love you.”
His gaze never left mine.
“More than I’ve ever loved anyone. More than anything.” A beat passed. “But I will never forget.”
His lips pressed against mine then, full of every promise he swore.
Each one landed deep in my heart, in my soul, where I knew I would carry it forever.
I cried into him as he filled me with his all-consuming love, and I begged and prayed to the Heavens above that I would be able to remember it just as it was.
Never had I been loved like this. Never had I loved like this.
And I knew then that I never would again.
Sometimes love has to be bigger than we are.
Sometimes it asks us for more than we know how to give, yet still, we give everything.
We accept surrender when it forces us to our knees.
We make the sacrifice we know we’ll never survive.
But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the point of love is letting who you were die as if you never knew them.
Of letting it break the limits of our bodies and names and become something eternal, something that keeps living long after we do.
That’s the love Jake had given me. It was the love I hoped I could give him in return. Even though that meant not having him at all.
I broke away from his kiss, eyes closed tight.
He leaned his forehead against mine as our breaths tangled.
His hands cradled my face softly. I was completely swept up by the wave of emotion that had taken over me.
I sobbed one last time at the ache in my chest, struggling long and hard to find my breath, knowing I would use it to break the heart he so willingly gave me.
“Go to Seattle, Jake,” I nearly whispered, my gaze not meeting his. The sharp sound of his heart breaking rang in my ears. Or maybe it was mine. It echoed loud and deep, and I knew I’d bear the scar of it forever.
I pushed the letter and plane ticket into his chest until his one hand came down over it.
I swallowed hard, begging for the courage I needed. I blinked the dizzying heartache away, but I didn’t let my eyes meet his again. I couldn’t.
Then I grabbed my coat off the edge of the couch, turned around, and walked out his door.
That was five months ago. And I knew then I would never regret anything more.