“It’s okay, baby.” Ian is right beside me, draping his jacket around my shoulders. Stroking a gentle hand down my back. “Just take it easy. Take a few deep breaths.”
I nod even as I do as he says. In through the mouth, hold seven seconds, out through the mouth. I do it again and again, until I can finally breathe without bleeding. I turn to look at him—Ian deserves that much, I think. “I can’t,” I tell him and I know that I should be more articulate. But it’s all I can think, the only phrase running through my head right now. I can’t. I can’t. Ican’tIcan’tIcan’t.
It must be enough, though, because he nods sadly.
“I know, baby.” His voice is filled with sadness, with a resignation that cuts deep into my already shattered heart. “I know.”
Still, he’s opened up so much I feel like he deserves something more than those two words, no matter how inarticulate it might be. “It’s not that I don’t…”
He freezes, his hand stopping mid-rub. “You don’t what?” he asks, his voice hushed in the cold night air.
But I just shake my head and look up at the endless stretch of star-strewn sky above us. I can’t say it. He can’t make me say it.
“I’m not writing the book,” he tells me for the second time tonight. “I know you have no reason to believe me, but I’m standing right here in front of you, promising you that I will not write that book. That no one will ever hear your story from me. I’ve already told the publisher I’ve hit a dead end and given back the advance money. The book is dead.”
“I don’t understand.” I turn to look at him, trying to figure out why he would do something like that.
But he looks as shattered as I feel. “I know you don’t. And that’s the worst part of this whole damn thing. That you’ve been hurt so badly and so many times that you don’t expect the man who loves you to put you first.
“But I am, and I swear to you, Veronica, that from here on out I always will. Even if this is the end. Even if you never talk to me again after tonight. I promise you, I will never betray you again.”
“Your career—”
“Means nothing compared to you. I would give it up today if it meant I could have you. If it meant that you would give me a chance to love you the way you deserve to be loved.”
“You don’t mean that.” He can’t mean it. No one does that, no one tanks their whole career for love. That only happens in the movies, not the movie business.
“I do mean it. I know you don’t believe me. Just like I know the only way to prove it to you is for you to see that there is no book. Not now. Not next year. Not five years from now or ten or fifty years down the line. There will be never be a book.
“And if you give me the chance, I will prove it to you. I will spend every day of my life loving you and giving you a reason to believe in me. To believe in us. But I can’t do it alone. I will meet you ninety-nine percent of the way, I will do whatever I have to to make you feel safe and loved and happy. But you have to take the first step. You have to go the one percent. You have to let me in, Veronica. Please, just let me in and I will do whatever it takes to make you happy.”
I want to believe him. I want to say yes. But I’m not strong enough and I never will be. Not for what he’s asking of me.
I shrug out of his jacket, then hold it out to him. “You should go.” For long seconds, he doesn’t move. He just looks at me, lips tight, jaw working, pupils blown wide open. But I don’t back down and eventually he reaches for his jacket. “You’re the most amazing woman I’ve ever met,” he tells me, bending down to drop a tender kiss on my cheek. “And I will always be grateful that I had the chance to love you.”
And then he walks away, through the living room and down the front door. I don’t follow him, but I know he’s left when I hear the beep of the alarm that signals the opening and closing of the front door.
I don’t go inside once he’s gone. Instead, I stand out on the patio and watch the waves rolling in. They always follow the same pattern. Building up at sea, rolling in, crashing against the shore. Over and over and over again they do this. It’s an infinite cycle, the water washing back out to sea only to become a wave and crash on the shore once more.
I wonder what would happen, though, if everything changed. If the moon shifted radically and the waves no longer crashed into the sand. Would we miss it or would we just accept the new reality like it was always meant to be?
I close my eyes, listen to the roar of the ocean. The splash of the waves on the shore. The shimmy of the water in retreat. And know that I would miss it every day for the rest of my life. Even if the new reality was better. Even if it made more sense. There is something about the sound of the ocean crashing that speaks to my soul in a way that nothing else does.