“What can I say? It’s summer. Tourist season,” I say. “It’s like this every year.”
He nods slowly, clearly not buying it. “Did I do something wrong?”
The question catches me off guard.
“No,” I say. “This isn’t about you.”
He waits.
That’s always been his problem. He waits. He lets silence do the work.
“I just, need to keep things simple,” I add.
His brow furrows. “We weren’t simple?”
I wince. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then help me out,” he says quietly.
Scottie is already halfway across the rink, laughing with her friends. The moment stretches, taut and unavoidable.
“Come walk with me,” I say.
We step outside, the late afternoon sun still high, the air warm enough that the chill from the rink feels sharp by contrast. We stop near the benches out front, the same ones where we used to sit years ago, dreaming about lives we didn’t understand yet.
“At first, I thought this was something that would be temporary,” I say finally. “But I don’t want that.”
Dane’s jaw tightens. “Neither do I.”
“You say that,” I continue, “but your life is still somewhere else.”
“For now,” he says.
“And my life is here,” I say. “It has to be.”
He nods. “I know.”
“And I can’t ask Scottie to get attached to someone who is going to disappear again.”
The word hangs between us.
Disappear.
“I didn’t disappear,” he says carefully.
“You left,” I reply, my voice steady even though my chest aches. “And I don’t blame you for that. It was the smart thing to do. The best thing for you to do. But the result was the same.”
He exhales slowly. “I’m not planning to leave like that again.”
“You say that now. But what happens when you get back to your real life?”
The question lands harder than I expect.
He looks away, running a hand through his hair. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t want a vacation romance,” I say. “I don’t want something that feels good for a few weeks and then hurts for years.”
His eyes snap back to mine. “That’s not what this is.”
