At the airport, I’m encouraged to find that the next flight back to Atlanta leaves in forty minutes. If she’s here, she’ll be on that flight to get back to Enchantment. I don’t hesitate to buy a ticket and make my way through security and on to the gate. I’m deflated when I scan the few faces I see lounging in the concourse chairs. I don’t see Katie’s. My heart is galloping as I spin and look in all the other fairly close chairs for her, too. No dice.
But then, tucked in a corner right next to the window, nearly out of sight, is a familiar head. My chest gets tight just looking at her. She’s holding her cell phone to one ear, her eyes cast down. Even though I can’t see much of her face, I can see enough of it to know that she’s still pale and that she’s been crying.
I don’t call out to her when I spot her. I just exhale, relief flooding my muscles, making me weak. Suddenly I feel like Daniels won that fight, not the other way around.
I make my way across the short carpet to where she’s sitting. When I get within a few feet of her, she glances up from under her eyelashes. Her eyes are big pools of dark blue misery. I watch them fill with tears and something that looks an awful lot like hate.
I slow down, approaching her cautiously. “Are you okay?” I ask softly.
“You need to leave, Rogan.”
“Not without you.”
“I’m going home. Alone.”
Alone. A lurch of my heart.
I gulp.
“What happened?”
Her eyes spit fire. “Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare pretend you don’t know.” Her voice is low and calm, but there’s venom in it. She’s livid, but I can tell how hurt she is, too. It slices between my ribs, through cartilage and muscle, right into my heart, like a scalpel.
“I swear to God, I don’t know. I don’t know what I did to hurt you, baby, but you have to know I’m sorry. I’ll fix it if you let me. Just tell me what I did. Tell me what happened.”
She glares up at me. “Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. I looked up after the fight and you were gone. Then when I saw you in the hall outside the locker room, you were so pale. I must’ve missed it when I was coming for you. You have to know I’d never let anyone hurt you. Never.”
She makes a noise, a strangled noise like a wounded animal. She’s struggling to hang on to her anger, but she’s struggling hard. She wants to just be mad, but I can see that somehow I’ve ripped her heart out. Even though I don’t know what I did.
“Stop it, Rogan. Please. Don’t make me relive it. Just let me go. We don’t belong together.”
Her words cut like pieces of shattered glass. “Please don’t say that.” I knew that we might have some problems trying to make this work, but I was willing to try whatever I could. Anything. And I’d only do that if I thought we really belonged together. Which I do. But then to hear her say that we don’t . . .
I swallow hard. I search for the patience to handle this delicately, like I know she needs me to. What I want to do is pick her up and carry her out of here and then sit her down and make her talk to me, but that won’t work with Katie. In fact, if anything, it would only push her farther away. So I’m going slow. I’m being patient. As difficult as it is, she’s worth it.
“I don’t believe that,” I confess. “And I didn’t think you did either. What changed your mind?”
Her chin starts to tremble. “Haven’t you done enough? Do you really need to hear me say it?”
“I guess I do.”
She stares at me for several long seconds, a thousand emotions swirling in her eyes. But then I see her ball her fingers into tight fists and I know her anger is taking the front seat again.
THIRTY-THREE
Katie
I reach for calm. I grasp at control. I search for distance. “I shouldn’t have been with you anyway. You’re a fighter, for God’s sake. Watching you pound your fists into that guy tonight just brought back too many memories for me. I don’t need violent men in my life. I should’ve trusted my gut and stayed away from you from the first day that I met you.”