Daisy woke with Nick’s arm still wrapped securely around her. As the midmorning light filtered into the room a lead weight dropped in her stomach. She should have been floating around on a blissful cloud, but instead she couldn’t turn her brain off. He held her like at any minute she would leave. She had gotten so caught up in the moment she didn’t stop to think that it was exactly what she was going to do.
Staying was always temporary. She didn’t belong here anymore, and she let herself get caught up in the moment. If it happened last night she could’ve blamed it on the tequila, but now she only had herself to blame. He was just so nice to her despite everything, and she was so far from being the girl he thought she was. The girl that he deserved.
But when he looked at her, none of that mattered. All that mattered was the two of them.
It was almost as if all the years in between didn’t exist, and she thought maybe when she came down from the high that they still wouldn’t, but she was mistaken. Now those years weighed heavy on her, drowning her beneath the impossible expectations she would never live up to.
When she told him that he put her on a pedestal she wanted him to see she didn’t belong there. She never did. She wronged him and how the hell was she supposed to live with herself knowing she was going to do it again?
She gave him one last look, savoring every line of his face, then slipped out of bed. She needed some fresh air to think, to figure out how she could fix this, find a way to make everyone happy so she wouldn’t go another six years without Nick in her life because she didn’t think she could. But she also wasn’t ready to give up on her dreams yet either.
She pulled her clothes on, and he stirred, sitting up. Damn it. She was so close.
“What are you doing?” he asked, wiping the sleep from his eyes. He looked adorable with his rustled hair, but she tried not to focus on that.
“I’m going to get some air,” she said, careful not to make eye contact.
His gaze narrowed on her. “You okay?”
“Fine,” she lied.
He kicked his legs over the side of the bed and strode toward her. He stopped, grabbing his underwear and pulling them on before taking her in his arms. He brushed a curl behind her ear, his finger lingering on her face. She wanted to savor every touch so when she was back in New York she would have something to remember.
“I know you, Daze, whether you want to admit it or not. So why don’t you tell me what’s really going on?”
She shook her head, not sure what the hell was going on in her mind. It was a mess of fears and insecurities bouncing around.
He cupped her cheek, dropping his forehead to hers. “Don’t block me out when you were just letting me in again.”
“We shouldn’t have done that.” Her words were no more than a whisper but they hung between them like a big unbreakable wall.
His jaw tightened, body went rigid. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” she asked, looking up at him, which she quickly realized was a mistake. His eyes darkened, anger etched the corners like bare tree branches in the night.
“Lie to me,” he growled.
She pushed from him, unable to think with him touching her. “I’m not!”
“Really? Then look me in the eye and tell me you don’t love me.”
She sucked in a surprised breath. It was a word that used to flow between them so easily, but things were different. They weren’t the same people anymore. They had separate lives, and she couldn’t act like that didn’t change things. It did.
Love complicated things. It turned the dotted line fuzzy and made it impossible to keep things in perspective. It didn’t matter if she loved him. Love didn’t change shit.
Her lip quivered as she forced the lie out. “I don’t.”
“Bullshit!” He threw his hands in his hair, holding tight, his knuckles turning white. He stormed away from her, pacing back and forth before coming to a stop in front of her. “You loved me once, and that shit doesn’t go away. Not with us it doesn’t.” The desperation in his eyes was almost too much for her to take.
“We were eighteen.”
The desperation turned to fiery rage. “I don’t need a reminder. I know how old we were, and at eighteen I knew what most people wait their entire lives to realize—I found my match, my soulmate… I knew it when we were twelve, when we were sixteen, eighteen. Six years later, I still know it.”
Emotion clogged her throat but she forced the words around the hot solid lump. “What are you saying?”
He composed himself, the anger turning to a serene calm as he looked right into her eyes. “You’re it for me, Daze. I don’t need another six years to figure that out. But if you do, I’m willing to wait as long as I have to, because I’m not giving up on us.”
Didn’t he see that was the problem? She could never make him as happy as he thought she could, especially not if she was in New York, and he was here three-hundred-and-fifty miles away from her. She couldn’t be the precious glass he placed so high above everyone else. She would never live up to that, and the last thing she wanted was to disappoint him any further.
He rested his hand on her shoulder, and her heart told her to cut him loose, finally give him the closure that he always deserved and she was too chicken to give him.
She swallowed down the urge to cling to him and say exactly what he wanted to hear. “I have to go.”
His hands fell to his side, his head hanging in utter disappointment. “Then go.” He stepped closer to her, taking her chin in his hand and tilting her eyes to his. “But know this, there’s a reason you kept that picture of us, why you’ve avoided seeing me all these years. You can think your heart is in New York, but it’s not. It’s been here with me the entire time.”
Tears pressed against her lids, and she could feel herself about to fall over. “I really got to go,” she said and ran out the door. She spotted her keys and grabbed them off the hook as she passed.
She didn’t stop. She couldn’t. She had to keep moving forward like she always did. With her focus straight ahead, she kept going, never once looking back.