“Believe what you want.”
“Nate—”
“Some things can’t be fixed, Cara.” I push the coffee cup away. “Some damage doesn’t just go away because you want it to.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Don’t I? I’ve spent a decade building walls. Learning how to function without her. Convincing myself that I was fine, that I didn’t need her, that the hollow space in my chest was something I’d learn to live with.
And then she came back, and all of it crumbled. Every wall, every lie I’d told myself. One look at her face and I was eighteen again, standing in her grandmother’s driveway, waiting for her to come home.
She never came.
“This was a mistake,” I say, reaching for my wallet.
“What?”
“This. Today. All of it.” I drop some bills on the table and stand up. “I shouldn’t have said I’d try again.”
“Nate, wait?—”
“I’ll drive you home.”
She stands too, blocking my path out of the booth. “No. You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to shut down every time things get hard.”
“Watch me.”
“Nate.” She grabs my arm.
Her touch burns through my jacket, and my whole body lights up. Alpha instincts roaring to life—touch, more, pull her close, make her stay. I have to fight every cell in my body not to lean into it. Not to wrap my hand around hers and hold on.
“Please. Tell me what you’re thinking. What you’re feeling. Something.”
I look down at her hand on my arm. Then up at her face. At the tears on her cheeks and the desperate hope in her eyes and all the things she wants from me that I can’t seem to give.
“I’m glad you’re back,” I say.
Hope flares in her expression.
“I’m glad you’re here for Lucas and Theo.” I pull my arm free. “They need you.”
The hope dies. I watch it happen—watch her face crumple as she realizes what I’m saying. What I’m not saying.
They need you.
I don’t.
It’s not true. I know it’s not true even as I say it. But the alternative is admitting how much I want her back, and I can’t make myself do it. Can’t force the words past the wall in my throat the way Lucas and Theo seem to do so easily.
So I lie instead. It’s easier than being honest.
“Nate...” Her voice is barely a whisper.
“Let’s go.” I step around her and head for the door. “I’ll take you home.”
The drive is silent. She doesn’t try to talk to me, and I don’t offer anything. The hum of the engine. The weight of everything unsaid pressing down on both of us.
I drive on autopilot. Turn left on Main. Right on Oak. Past the station where I should be working. Past the park where we used to meet in high school, back when everything was simple, back when I thought we’d be together forever.
