She pinched the bridge of her nose between her shaky fingers. “I don’t want you to feel obligated, and I don’t want—Ican’tgive up on school.”
“But…”
“Denver. I can’t have this baby.”
“I thought we both wanted to get married and have kids one day.” My voice wavered, and I had to talk around the mass quickly growing in my throat. Frantic about the way I was stroking her arm, because it suddenly seemed like this might be my last chance to touch her. She was pulling away. That much was clear in the way her palm slipped off my leg, and she didn’t bother to replace it.
“One day.Not right now. We’re barely adults….”
“My parents got married at nineteen, and look at how happy they were. We can be like that. We can make the best of this. Be a familynow.” I had half a mind to be embarrassed over how weak and pleading my voice was, yet I couldn’t bring myself to stop. “All I want is you, and this baby, and us. The house, the ranch, the kids. I want that with you. I want to give that to you, Bear.Please.”
She wiped away the tears from under her eyes, sniffling. “Den…I love you, and I know that’s the plan for one day. But I wasn’t expecting this to happen right now.”
I shoved my hand into my front pocket, eyes brimmed with tears as I dropped to my knee in front of her. My hands were so clammy I fumbled with opening the small jewelry box, pulling out my mother’s ring. “You’re my entire world. Iwould give up anything to have you—to have a family with you. If there’s even a tiny part of you that wants the things we talked about, a tiny part that loves me,pleasemarry me.”
A sob racked her body. “That’s not fair.”
“Just like it’s not fair for you to make a life-changing decision without caring about my input.”
“I’m trying to do the right thing for myself…for both of us. I love you.” The words barely left her mouth before she was clasping a hand over it to stop a gut-wrenching cry.
“Then marry me.” I leaned forward, still on my knee, and grabbed her face so she was forced to look me in the eye. “Marry me, and I promise to make you so fucking happy. Please, Blair.Marry me.”
She was so quiet for a minute, I couldn’t help but get my hopes up. Until I reached to wipe the tears from her jawline, and she ducked her head away from me—cutting me off and wiping her own tears.
I choked out her name with the last breath left in my lungs. And when she didn’t respond, I sank back to sit on my heels and cried the hardest I had since the day my mom died.
Finally, after what very well could’ve been a century, she spoke back up. “I love you, but—”
“The word ‘but’ instantly means the first part of your sentence is bullshit.”
She flashed a derisive sneer in my direction. “Now you’re being a jerk.”
I threw my hands up. “A jerk for wanting to give you the life we’ve dreamt about together? For wanting to have a family?”
“A jerk for not realizing that maybe your dream isn’t the same as mine.”
“Sincefuckingwhen? That’s not true.”
It couldn’t be true. I knew Blair better than anyone else on Earth. She wouldn’t have said all those things just to make me happy. She wanted it. I was sure.
I rubbed my watering eyes with the back of my hand. “We’ve talked about this so many times, and not once did you make it sound like that wasn’t what you wanted.”
“I want to finish the program I busted my butt to get accepted into. I want to enjoy being young, figuring out who I am. What if I decide I love being in the city? Or I get a job offer somewhere else?”
“What if you decide you love living on the ranch and being a mom? You can go horseback riding every day. We can be together every night.”
She shut her eyes, squeezing tears from the slivered crack in her eyelids. “Denver, Ican’t. A few years from now, maybe I’d feel differently. But I can’t right now. You’re asking for a life I’m not ready for. If this is what you want—a sweet little housewife and a bunch of kids—maybe you need to find a girl who’s ready to give that to you. It’s not going to be me, though.”
Bullshit.Every word spewing from her lips had to be complete bullshit. I refused to believe she actually felt this way because it felt a lot like…
“Blair, are you breaking up with me?”
She shook her head no, but the rest of her body language screamed yes—arms crossed, scowl painted across her tear-stained cheeks. Then she finally whispered, “I don’t know.”
I bit my liphardto keep from screaming. “You can’t. Blair, I came here because I can’t live without you. I needed to talk to you. I needed—”
“You came here because you thought you could talk me out of a decision that affectsmybody, and has way more of an impact onmylife than it does yours.”
