“MaybeIdon’t know either.”
“Or maybe you do, and you’re afraid of it.”
“Maybe.” Gus turned off the A road and into the next town over from Rushmere. Big houses and quaint cottages lined the streets, and he pulled up outside one with a skip on the driveway.
He cut the engine, and the sudden quiet smothered us. “But it doesn’t matter what I’m afraid of, or what scares you so much about who you think I am. Whatever this mess between us is, we have to forget about it. Luke needs you. It’ll break him if you leave again.”
“This isn’t about Luke.”
“Yes, it is. It has to be. So if we can’t get past this, maybe it’s my turn to pack up and leave.”
He got out of the van.
I followed and trailed him up the drive to the cottage that was mid renovation. “What? You can’t leave.”
“Why not? Everyone else did.”
“Yeah. And look where it got us. More screwed up than a fucking soap opera. Gus, it doesn’t have to be like this. Look, I’m sorry I ruined everything. I shouldn’t have read your messages, and I shouldn’t have made assumptions about what they meant without talking to you first, but that’s on me. It’s not a reflection of how I see you, and it doesn’t have to mean I broke it forever.”
“You didn’t break it. It was unworkable from the start. Think about it: you’re as fucked-up as I am, and so is your family.Ourfamily. How was anything good ever going to come from that?”
“You don’t think we had anything good?”
Gus unlocked the rustic front door to the cottage. He kicked it open, leaving a boot mark in the peeling paint. “I think we could’ve done, if we were different people living different lives, but we’re not, so what’s the point?”
He let the door swing shut in my face. It locked itself, leaving me trapped outside, and the irony was fucking biblical.
