I remember that mouth. Remember kissing along her jaw, feeling her shiver under my hands. Remember the sounds she’d make when I found that spot below her ear, the way she’d gasp my name like a prayer. The way she tasted. The way she felt pressed against me in the bed of Theo’s truck, summer heat and teenage desperation and a future I thought was guaranteed.
My body responds to the memory before my brain can shut it down. Heat coiling low in my gut. The urge to reach across the table, pull her into my lap, remind her exactly who she belongs to?—
I look away. Force my breathing steady.
Same girl who left without saying goodbye.
“Nate. Please.” Her voice drops, goes soft in a way that makes my chest ache. “Talk to me. Yell at me. Something. I can take it.”
I open my mouth.
The words are right there. I can feel them pressing against my chest, ten years of things I’ve never said.I missed you. I waited for you. I don’t know how to do this without you.
But when I try to push them out, my throat locks up. Like there’s a wall between what I feel and what I can say, and I don’t have the tools to break through it.
Say something. Anything. She’s asking for the bare minimum and you can’t even give her that.
“There’s nothing to say.”
The words come out flat. Wrong. The exact opposite of everything I meant.
What iswrongwith me?
“There’s everything to say. Ten years worth of things to say.”
“And saying them won’t change anything.”
“How do you know if you won’t try?”
I set down my coffee cup. Carefully. Controlled. “What do you want from me, Cara?”
“I want you to be honest with me.”
“I am being honest.”
“No, you’re not. You’re sitting there pretending you don’t feel anything, but I know you do.”
“You can scream at me,” she says quietly. “You can tell me you hate me. You can say every terrible thing you’ve been holding onto. I’ll take it. I deserve it.”
“I don’t hate you.”
It slips out before I can stop it. Flat and hard and true.
She blinks. “You don’t?”
“No.” I stare at my coffee cup. “That would be easier.”
“Then what do you feel?”
I don’t answer. Can’t.
“I can’t just pretend?—”
“You did for ten years.” The words come out sharper than I intend, and I watch her flinch. “You ran. Left town, left us, left everything, and you never looked back.”
“I looked back.” Her voice cracks. “Every single day, Nate. I looked back.”
“But you never came back.”
