“If you knew that you didn’t love him enough, then why did you say yes in the first place?” His tone rose, bordering on a shout as his legendary self-control finally slipped. “You know what? No. Forget I asked. I don’t want to know why. God!” His hands slammed down on the counter, and he hung his head. “Three fucking years, and we’re right back here.”
“I never left here!” My chest squeezed down like a vise as I tapped above my heart. “I’m stuck, Nate. I’m eternally twenty-five years old, frozen in place, in time, standing in that hallway, waiting for you to come back.”
“That’s bullshit and we both know it.” He lifted his head, and the pain I saw etched into every line of his face somehow compounded with the agony I felt. “You never wanted us. Not really. Not when push came to shove. You may have been the one arguing for us to take our shot back in Fiji, but when I pulled the trigger, you didn’t. Fucking. Want. Me.” Hurt dripped from every word.
“That’s not what happened in New York. How can you even say that?” My mouth hung open in shock.
“How can I say that?” He yanked the knife out of the sheath at his thigh with one hand and pulled his necklace from under his shirt with the other, revealing the taped silver tag. He glanced down as he made a clean slice through the tape, and then sheathed the knife before prying something from beneath the tape. “This is how I can say that.” A click sounded as he set something on the counter between us.
He shoved the remains of the tag beneath his shirt and withdrew his hand from the counter.
Revealing a diamond ring.
The diamond ring.
Oh God. I couldn’t breathe. There wasn’t enough air in the world to fill my lungs, to oxygenate the blood that my heart refused to pump.
“I’m the one who carried you with me every goddamned day.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
NATHANIEL
New York
October 2018
I barely felt the rain as I walked down the sidewalk of the Brooklyn neighborhood known as Dumbo, my fist clenching the most important box I’d ever carried.
Or maybe that had been the one I’d carried earlier this morning.
Was it this morning? The days had been a seamless blur. It was evening, and I’d driven all afternoon, so I was pretty sure it was the same day.
I slipped through the crowd, my strides quickening like a New Yorker’s, blending in like I’d been trained to for the last year. Finally finding the right building, I caught the door as one of the residents was leaving and headed inside, avoiding the buzzer.
God only knew if she’d let me in.
I climbed the stairs, my fingers flexing around the box. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get my mind to stop spinning, stop replaying the way things should have gone, stop forecasting every way these next few minutes could go.
She’d know what to do. She was the only person in this world who loved me unconditionally, the only person I’d been able to count on since Mom died. She’d know which path we should choose.
2214. Her apartment.
I pushed the doorbell and bounced back on my heels. When she didn’t immediately appear, I started pacing. If I stopped moving, I wasn’t sure I’d start again.
There was no gravity. Nothing keeping my feet anchored. My reality was every possibility and none all at the same time, and whichever path I’d take depended solely on what she said, what she chose.
The sound of sliding dead bolts made me pause in front of her door.
The door opened, revealing an older man with gelled salt-and-pepper hair and a three-piece-suit that looked like it cost more than a year’s rent. His critical gaze swept over me once, and his dark eyes hardened with recognition. Izzy’s eyes. I’d seen the pictures in her apartment—this was her dad. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for—”
“Oh, I’m well aware of who you’re looking for. I’m asking what I can do for you,” he sneered. “Because you’re not going to see Isa. She’s kept this”—he gestured at me—“arrangement you two have for too many years as it is, and yes, before you ask, yes, I recognize you. Do you have any idea how bad you are for her?”
My hand gripped the box tighter. I couldn’t lose my temper on Izzy’s dad. I had to hold my shit together, even when it felt like the world was spinning beneath me at a rate I couldn’t keep up with.
“It’s going to cost thousands to break her lease here and finally get her to where her family needs her.” He somehow managed to look down on me even when I was a good four inches taller. “A family she finally sees can’t include you.”
“Dad?” Izzy’s voice from within the apartment halted any reply I could have made. “Who is it?”
“I’ve got it, Isa. Nothing worth your worry.” He said every word at me. “You aren’t, you know,” he said softer. “All you’ve ever done is waste her time.”
“Dad, who are you—” Her words faltered as she appeared at his side, dressed in plaid pajama pants and an oversize hoodie, and looked at me like I was the absolute scum of the earth. Her beautiful eyes were so puffy they didn’t even qualify as swollen anymore, and guilt seized my heart. I suspected I was the reason she’d been crying.
“Go back inside, Isa.”
“Give us five minutes,” she replied, looking up at him.
His expression softened slightly. “Five minutes. But don’t forget our deal.” He shot me a withering glance and disappeared into the apartment, leaving Izzy in the doorway.
“Good to know you’re ali—” The rest of the word seemed to die on her tongue as she looked me over, stepping into the hallway and pulling her door shut behind her. “Nate?” She said my name like she wasn’t sure I was really me, which fit, since I wasn’t really sure anymore either.
I returned her gaze with hollow, empty eyes that devoured the sight of her. She was the meaning in all this. The sun that would warm me or incinerate me.
She was everything. She always had been.
I struggled to shove my thoughts into coherent words. “I had this all planned out in my head,” I blurted. “Driving six hours will give you time to practice what you’re going to say, you know?”
“You drove six hours?” Her brow knit.
“What else was I supposed to do?” Fuck, I couldn’t keep my thoughts straight. “But now I’m here, and your dad says you’re moving, and you’re looking at me like I’m the last person you want to see—”
“You abandoned me!” she snapped, hurt radiating through her tone. “No, worse than that—you didn’t bother to show up! I spent two days in Palau before I realized you weren’t coming. Why would you do that to me? You’re the only person who’s never . . .” She took a deep breath. “What the hell happened to you? I called. I texted. I—”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” My words ran together. What I had to tell her was so much bigger than a missed vacation, and if I didn’t use the right words, the perfect words, then it was all for nothing.