“No, Sarah. I can’t.”
Chapter 15
Sarah
That wasn’t the response I expected.
I sit there for a few beats, staring dumbfounded at the man I love.
No, Sarah. I can’t.
I wait for him to clarify. To tell me he’s only suggesting we go inside where it’s warm to profess our love in the solitude of our romantic little cabin. Or maybe he wants to be the one to say I love you first.
I wait for it, knowing it’s not coming.
He says nothing. Not with words, but his eyes say plenty. I swallow hard to force down the lump in my throat. “Ian,” I say slowly. “We agreed to be honest with each other if our feelings changed. I’m being honest.”
“I know,” he says. His voice is hoarse, but his eyes are dry. “I appreciate that. I appreciate you. But—I can’t—I don’t?—”
“You don’t love me.”
He closes his eyes for the longest time. When he opens them again, it’s like he’s aged a hundred years. “I can’t love you, Sarah. I thought I was clear about that.”
Rage starts to swirl in my chest. I don’t know where it’s coming from because he’s right. He was clear, with his words, anyway.
But I thought?—
“I thought you were starting to feel the same thing I was,” I say. “The other day at the gym. Or back at your mom’s place. I thought we were both feeling that connection.”
“A connection, yes,” he says. “But not love. I’m not willing to do that.”
Tears pool in my eyes, but I will them not to fall. It occurs to me that’s not much different from Ian willing himself not to fall in love, and suddenly I’ve got hot, salty streams running down my face.
“You can’t just turn it off and on at will, Ian,” I say in a voice that’s so tight and sharp I don’t recognize it as my own. “Emotion isn’t a goddamn light switch.”
“It is for me.” He takes his hand off my knee, leaving the skin cold and bare. “I shut down completely when—when it happened.”
“You can’t even fucking say it,” I snap. “When Shane died. When your parents divorced. That’s what you mean?”
“Yes.” He presses his lips together and stares out over the lake. “I stopped feeling after that. There’s no reason for me to restart.”
“No reason,” I repeat. “Not even for me.”
He shakes his head, and the pain in his eyes is so intense that I almost want to take him in my arms.
Almost.
But I also want to knee him in the balls, and that feeling is a lot more intense.
How can he not see that what he’s feeling right now is evidence that he hasn’t shut down? Hurt, sadness, pain—all of those things show he’s capable of love, don’t they?
As much as he might believe he has, Ian hasn’t shut down emotionally. Not like he thinks.
Asshole.
Rage is an emotion, too, dammit. At least I’m in touch with my feelings.
I fist my hands in my skirt and will myself to keep breathing, to stay calm, to give him a chance to say his piece.
