“You’re breaking up with me?” I can’t breathe. Can’t think. “Because I’m scared?”
“I’m breaking up with you because you’re not all in.” He wipes his eyes roughly. “And I need someone who is. The twins need someone who is.”
“I love you.” The words are desperate, broken. “I love you so much it terrifies me.”
“I know.” His smile is sad, destroyed. “But love isn’t enough, if you don’t trust it. If you don’t trustus.”
He walks to the door, and I want to call him back. Want to tell him he’s right, that I’ll delete the applications, that I’ll choose him completely.
But the words stick in my throat.
Because he is right. I’m not all in. I’m terrified, and I’m protecting myself, and I’m destroying the best thing that’s ever happened to me because I can’t let go of my fear.
“I’ll sleep in here tonight,” I manage. “Give us both some space to think.”
“Yeah.” He doesn’t look back. “Space. Good idea.”
He closes the door behind him, and I collapse onto the bed, surrounded by job applications that suddenly feel like ashes in my hands.
I did this. I ruined this.
I let fear win.
And now I might have lost everything anyway.
Chapter 15
Chloe
Two weeks later…
I’m sittingin my car outside an apartment complex in Billings —about to sign a lease I don’t want for a job I’m not sure I even care about— when my phone rings.
Carol Westerland’s name lights up the screen. Jonah’s mom? Is something wrong with the girls? With him?
I stare at it for three rings, my heart crashing against my chest. I haven’t talked to her since I moved out of Jonah’s house five days ago. Haven’t faced the disappointment I know I’ll hear in her voice.
But the fear something is wrong with one of them makes me answer.
“Hi Carol. Is everything okay?”
“Chloe, honey. Do you have a minute?”
She would have said immediately if something was wrong.
I close my eyes against the kindness in her tone. “I’m actually in the middle of something?—”
“I know. You’re in Billings, looking at apartments.” Carol’s voice is gentle but firm. “Valentine’s gossip network is alive and well, dear. Mrs. Patterson saw you at the grocery store yesterday.”
Of course she did. Small-town gossip travels faster than lightning.
“Carol, I appreciate you calling, but?—”
“My son is miserable.” She doesn’t let me finish. “He’s not sleeping. Barely eating. He burned three batches of bread yesterday, and Jonah never burns bread. The twins ask about you constantly, and he doesn’t know what to tell them.”
Guilt crashes over me in waves. “I didn’t mean to hurt them.”
“I know you didn’t. But you did. You hurt all of them. And you’re hurting yourself too.” I hear her take a breath. “Can I tell you something? Mother to the daughter of my heart?”
