I’ve wished for this moment, every day for six years, and now I just want to close my eyes and disappear. I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want him to know anything about the woman I am now. I want to click my heels together like Dorothy and go back to the way it was before. I want to close my eyes and go back to a time when everything was easy and perfect and I was worthy of the amazement shining in his eyes as he stares at me and takes another step toward me. I don’t care about the pain he caused me, I don’t care about the heart that he broke, I don’t care about all the reasons why, I just want to hold on to him and never let go.
As much as I want to run in the opposite direction, I can’t do it no matter how hard I try. Being in the same room with him has always made me feel like we were magnets, unable to deny the pull and unable to do anything but slam together as soon as we were close enough. My feet move before I even realize they’ve remembered how. We move toward each other, our eyes never breaking their hold, both of us picking up the pace at the same time until we’re running, unable to stop the magnetic tug now that we’re this close. Now that we both know this is real, it’s not a dream, and we’re both really here, together.
Our bodies collide, my arms flying around his neck, his arms wrapping securely around my waist, both of us clinging to the other like at any minute something will try and rip us apart. He smells like soap and fresh hay and I breathe him in as I bury my face in the side of his neck, letting the smell take me back six years ago when everything was easy and perfect and amazing. His arms tighten around me, so tight I can barely breathe, but I don’t even care. I don’t need to breathe when he’s my oxygen and everything I need to live.
“Fucking hell, Legs,” he whispers brokenly as I squeeze my eyes closed to keep the tears at bay.
He nuzzles his face into my hair and breathes deep, cursing again under his breath.
“Peaches. Fucking peaches…goddammit, I missed this.”
I’m dying.
I’m suffocating.
I’ll never survive this.
“Am I dreaming? Fuck, tell me I’m not dreaming,” he mutters. “You feel so warm and so real and so perfect.”
I sob against the skin of his neck, the tears falling so fast and so hard that I don’t know how I’ll ever get them to stop. I take a deep breath, one last smell of his clean skin. I hug him tighter, one last touch of his warm body against mine, one last second of feeling his heart beating with mine. I take it all in and shove it into the compartment in my brain reserved just for him, where I can take it out whenever I want and remember this moment. This one moment where I could pretend, for just a few seconds, that this could be my life. Wrapped up in this man who went through hell and found his way back to me.
My arms slide from around his neck and I press my palms to his chest, pushing against it gently until he finally loosens his hold and lets me move back. I feel the loss of his warmth immediately, my skin pebbling with goose bumps, and I tell myself this is how it has to be. I remind myself that I can live through the cold as long as he’s okay.
I can’t handle the questioning look in his eyes when I take another step back from the comfort of his arms, still suspended in the air, held out for me and just waiting for me to fit back inside them. Swiping the tears from my cheeks, I lift my chin and put the mask back in place before crossing my arms in front of me.
“Legs?” he whispers in confusion, taking a step toward me to try and close the distance I’ve created.
My hand comes up between us and he stops immediately.
“Please, don’t call me that.”
A muscle ticks in his jaw when I speak, firmly and with authority, all signs of the relieved and weepy woman from moments ago long gone.
“I know this is crazy and you probably have a thousand questions. I shouldn’t have just shown up here like this, but I didn’t think you’d be here,” he says, his arms finally dropping to his sides when he realizes I’m not going back into them.
“Of course I’d be here. I live here.”
His mouth drops open in shock and he slides one of his hands through his short hair, something he always used to do when I said or did something that pissed him off.
I’m sorry, oh, God I’m so sorry.
“What the fuck do mean you live here? You mean you’re just visiting, right? You live in New York, like you planned, and you’re just here for a visit. Tell me you’re just here for a visit, Legs.”
I let out a frustrated breath, my fingernails digging into the skin of my arms to stop myself from screaming.
“Don’t call me that!” I shout angrily, hating myself for yelling at him, but unable to stop the hurt and animosity I feel whenever I so much as think of that name. Hearing it from his lips, after all this time, will break me in two. If I hear it one more time, I will crumple into a ball on this floor and never be able to get up again.
I take another deep, calming breath, looking at a spot over his shoulder. I can’t look at him and do this. I can’t see the eyes I’ve dreamed about, the mouth I’ve wished to kiss more times than I can count, and the face my hands are dying to touch and do what I have to do without breaking down.
“I’m sorry, fuck, I’m sorry,” he speaks softly. “I don’t know what to say. I’ve thought of this moment every day for six fucking years, and now that you’re here, standing in front of me, I don’t know what the fuck to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” I cut him off. “And you don’t have to apologize for anything. I’m glad you’re okay. I’m glad you made it back to your family. Your sister must be so relieved to have you home.”
He tries again to move toward me, and I take another step back.
“Talk to me. Tell me what’s going on,” he urges, dipping his head down to try and get me to look at him. “What happened to New York? Are you just taking some time off? Did you knock their socks off and they couldn’t handle how bad you made everyone look?”
He laughs softly at his own joke and I dig my nails harder into my skin.
“New York didn’t happen, okay? It was just a stupid dream. I work for my mother as her assistant,” I tell him quickly, hoping he’ll drop it and let me leave with a tiny shred of dignity.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he mumbles irritably, one hand flying through his short, spiky hair again. “You were supposed to get away from here. The only reason I left was so you could get away from here and away from her. The only thing that kept me going all of these fucking years was knowing you were out there, living your dream and happy. What the fuck happened, Shelby?”
And I thought hearing him call me by my nickname cut like a knife. My name flying out of his mouth in anger and disappointment hurts a hell of a lot worse.
I’m sorry, oh, God I’m so sorry.
“Life happened, Eli!” I shout. “You weren’t here and life happened! Things got messy and dreams got broken and I moved on!”