I wasn’t sure how long I’d been asleep before the sound of the door opening startled me awake. I didn’t dare move. If he was going to leave, he had every right, and the perfect opportunity to do it. I heard his footsteps and then the shower running. It was only a few minutes, but it felt like an eternity. When the pipes clanked and the water switched off, I pulled the covers over my head—hiding out—surrounded by my own self-pity and self-loathing. He sighed—the sound deafening in the dead silence of the room. Then the bed dipped and he lay down behind me, gently placing his arm over my waist and pulling me to him, the other arm under my pillow and around my chest.
And then he held me. Tight.
All while I silently cried in his arms.
I cried for me.
I cried for him.
I cried for the future we’d never have.
And I cried because he had absolutely no idea about any of it.
He wasn’t in bed when I woke up. What was there, though, was a throbbing in my head, no doubt from my crying. My endless, fucking crying. As I sat up, I noticed his bags but no note on the pillow. He always left a note.
Then I heard his voice. “Yeah, Ma.”
I turned to see him sitting out on the balcony, holding his phone to his ear.
“I know,” he said. “I love you, too.”
He pulled back, looked at the screen, tapped it once, and placed it on the table. And then he just sat there.
I got out of bed and made us coffee, like I did every morning. I refused to look at him when I brought it out to him. I just set it on the table and turned to leave him alone, but I didn’t get far before his arm curled around my waist and he pulled me down onto his lap.
We stayed like that, with me on his lap and his arm around me, neither of us speaking.
He rested his chin on my shoulder and kissed my cheek softly. I must have been so tense, so stiff in his arms that he felt the need to say, “You can breathe, Chloe. It’s okay.”
I finally did.
“What happened last night . . .”
I didn’t know if it was a question or not, so I began to answer. “I’m not—”
His hand gripped my shirt, causing me to stop. “It wasn’t a question. I just . . . I need a minute to find the words.” He inhaled a heavy breath.
I waited.
“What happened last night shouldn’t have happened. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you the way I did.” I went to interrupt him, but he cut me off. “Just let me finish, please?”
I nodded.
“I know you well enough to know that when you said you wanted to lose yourself that something deeper was going on. I wish that you would have shared it with me, but you didn’t, and that was your choice. I can’t force you to talk to me, no matter how upset it makes me that you didn’t. I chased after you when you left because I wanted to be with you, Chloe. I wasn’t ready to say good-bye, and you knew that. We both knew that. And we both knew that our time was limited. We talked about that. If you wanted more than that . . . if you wanted me to promise you something more . . . you should’ve asked. But I didn’t know, and you never told me.”
He positioned me so I was sideways, and he could look at me. “But if last night is what it’s going to be like . . . if things get hard for you, and you choose to keep pushing me away, then I’ll leave.”
He sniffed and wiped his face on my shoulder. The wetness from his tears seeped through my shirt. “Because I don’t deserve that, Chloe. If you push me away, I’ll leave, and I’ll never come back. I won’t ever call you; I won’t ever breathe your name again. I know that’s how you’ve lived your life—wanting to be invisible, so I’ll give that to you. But you should know that that’s not what I want. And I don’t think that’s what you want, either. I think you’re afraid. I think you realize how close we’ve gotten and how deep our feelings are getting, and you got scared. And you pushed me away because that’s what you’re used to.”
I swallowed down the words I wished I could say. The ones that would tell him that I was afraid that I might have cancer. The ones I couldn’t voice, no matter how much I wanted to. Because I wasn’t ready. And because they would change everything.
I blinked.
Tears fell.
“Chloe.” He placed his finger on my chin and made me face him. And when I did—the walls around me crumbled. And so did I. I wailed into his chest, gripping his shirt tight, holding on to him. When I’d calmed down, he held the side of my face and tilted my head up. “So you have to tell me. What do you want? Do you want me? Do you want us? Do you want more?”
I nodded.
But he still looked unsure.
I squared my shoulders and held his head in my hands. “Yes, Blake. I want you. I want us. I want a future. I want a forever with you.”
And even through his own tear-filled eyes, he managed to smile. A smile that took all the hurt, all the pain, all the anguish, and buried it deep in my past.
A smile that turned my world red.
It had never really made sense when he’d explained it in the past, but I finally got it.
Blake Hunter—he was my red-letter day.
“Can I kiss you now?” he said.
I let out a relieved laugh. “Please.”
And just like his smile—his kiss took all the pain away.
“Blake?” I pulled back slightly.
He kept his eyes closed. “Yeah?”
“Last night—”
“Never happened.”
“But I was—”
“Shut up and kiss me.”
Love me when I least deserve it, because that is when I need it the most.
He tensed when he read my magnet aloud. Then he placed his magnet right next to mine. “Ready?” he asked.
“Yeah, babe. I’m ready.” I took one more look at his magnet before picking up my bag and walking out of the room.
You can run, you can hide, you can choose not to see, but where the road takes you will always lead to me.