He shook his head slowly, his scared eyes fixed on mine.
“And then… the others were saying how nice she was – and pretty – and that you’d made a great couple and… I couldn’t help agreeing with them. And I saw the way she was with you. She made it pretty damn obvious she wants to get back with you. I guess I couldn’t blame her. Or you. And… you don’t need all… all my emotional baggage. You should be with Brenda – or someone like her… someone your own age. And… I saw you! I saw you with her – how you were with her – holding her like that.”
He pulled my hands to his face and kissed the palms gently.
Then slowly and deliberately he sucked the tip of each finger. He could see on my face what that did to me.
“I want to make love to you,” he whispered.
I tried to snatch my hands back but he held onto them.
“Don’t give up on us, Caro. Because I haven’t.”
I tugged my hands free and this time he let them go.
“Sebastian, I’ll be honest with you: I don’t know what to do for the best so I’m kind of making this up as I go along. But… all this… this craziness – we’re getting swept away by it. Making love with you is extraordinary: I’ve never, never felt anything like this my whole life. But it was wrong of me to… to start this relationship with you – and I don’t mean because of what the law says, although that’s certainly an issue… but because it’s not fair to you.”
He tried to interrupt me but I was determined to finish.
“Please, I need to say this. I’ve had a lot of years of feeling inadequate, of not being good enough: I don’t need to paint a picture, I’m sure you can guess why. And every time, every time I see you with a younger woman, whatever the circumstances, it’s going to rip me up. I don’t want to see the best thing I’ve ever known soured by my insecurities – I couldn’t bear that. You’ve brought me to life – and you’ll never know how much I owe you because of that. But you’re only just starting out in your life. It’s not fair to burden you with me. You deserve better than that. I have to let you go.”
He stared at me in silence for some seconds as if to make sure I really had finished. He took a deep breath – and I held mine.
“You want honesty? Well, answer this: if I was 25 and you were 38, would we still be having this conversation?”
I shrugged helplessly.
“About you going off with your ex-girlfriend? Yes. Definitely.”
He shook his head impatiently.
“No, the age thing.”
“Maybe,” I said, cautiously.
“No, I don’t think so and nor do you – not really. That’s what I’m saying, Caro. Nobody would blink twice. It wouldn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. Don’t you think that I don’t feel the same, that I’m not good enough for you? Hell, what can I give you? A shitty apartment and working two jobs while you try to put me through school. You think I feel good about that? Because it fucking kills me! I want to take care of you, not… I don’t care about going to college; I don’t care about leaving San Diego. I only care about being with you. And we have this same fucking argument over and over. You’re driving me crazy! I love you! If you left me now…”
But he couldn’t finish the words. He scrubbed away tears from his cheeks and looked down.
“Every time something goes wrong, you give up on us. You’re killing me, Caro.”
I sat with my hand over my mouth, unable to move or speak, appalled at what I’d done to him.
He looked up.
“You want honesty? Well, I don’t know what will happen… but neither do you. Maybe we’ll make it… maybe we won’t. But you’re giving up before we’ve even tried. I don’t understand. Why won’t you take a chance?”
Is that what I was doing? Had I found yet another way to be a coward? I’d thought I was setting him free, but he saw it as my refusal to take a chance… on him, on us, on love – maybe even on myself.
“What do you want to do?” I said softly.
“Try. Just try.”
Yes. I could do that.