I shake my head. “I can’t kiss you.”
He turns his head to face me. “How come?”
“You’re going to marry someone else, for one thing.”
“That’s not why, though, is it.” He says it as a statement, not a question.
“Itis, actually. I think it’s obvious the universe is trying to tell us something. We just need to be open enough to listen to it,” I explain. It sounds like something my mom might say. I feel like I’m channeling her with my words.
“And what’s that?”
“That we don’t belong together. I had the best night of my entire life with you, and it killed my mother—”
“Don’t say that,” he interrupts me.
I hold my hand up so he’ll let me finish. “And now, you come here and you’re going to make me fall in love with you again, but for what? So that I can destroy your impending marriage? That’s not me. That’s not who I am, and it’s not who I want to be.”
“I need you to understand something, Mel.”
“Hm?” I ask.
“First of all, I don’t agree with you. For all your talk of the universe, you don’t seem to believe it. Maybe it was just her time. But I’m not going to fight you on that. You’re going to feel however you feel, and I won’t invalidate it.”
“Thank you.”
“Second,” he continues, “I came here because you invited me. I didn’t come with any kind of agenda other than to see you. And yes, maybe I freaked out and couldn’t make it all the way in, but cut me some slack, because I’ve been waiting for this moment for a really, really long time.”
“Okay,” I nod. “Is there more?”
“One more thing,” he concurs.
“Go on.”
His head hangs a little lower, as if he’s run out of strength and can barely muster the will to say what comes next.
But then he does.
“It’s you,” he whispers, staring at the ground between his feet. I can barely hear him in the rain. “It’s always been you,” he says, louder this time.
I stand up. “I need to go, Beckett.”
He follows and grabs me by the wrist. “Don’t. Please.”
“I love you, Beckett. Still. Despite myself, even,” I exhale. “So much that I don’t want to ruin your life.”
“But don’t you get it?” he asks, louder now. “You ruined me two years ago. What’s left is”—he gestures to himself—“this. I’m a fucking shell now.I’ve become nothing more than an industry puppet. I sold our love story for 250,000 dollars, and it got me nowhere.” He swallows, and my eyes fall to his neck. “If I could take it all back, I would. The only thing that ever mattered to me was you.”
“You mattered to me, too—” I begin.
“Not enough. Not enough for you to even read what I wrote. I get that you were hurting, I do. I understand that now, and I am so, so sorry. Your mother was a fucking beacon. But you’re wrong, Mel: she would havewantedus to be together. She loved you so much, and sheknewhow happy you were on that trip—”
“And I was selfish and horrible to her. Don’t you see that? It was my fault she died!”
“You’re wrong, but that’s not the point, really, is it? Nothing you can do can change the past. But youcanstill change the future.”
“How? By destroying your marriage? By making an even bigger fool of myself than I already have?”
“By admitting that you still feel this,” he says, pulling me in by the wrist. My body lurches forward, off-balance from the sudden tug, but he catches me in one arm, while his free hand reaches up to cup my jaw. He rushes at me, and his mouth on mine is a homecoming, an answered prayer, awakening all of my senses at once and igniting a fire I haven’t felt since our last night in Aruba. It’s all there, the lust, the passion, the deep resounding love, and it floods my soul as our tongues meet. I give in to it. I close my eyes and let Beckett Nash have what’s left of me.
